Aston Villa suffered a heavy 5-0 defeat to Crystal Palace in our final game of the 2023/24 Premier League season, but it remains a remarkable campaign in the club’s history.
Naturally, there was disappointment to end the year on a negative note, but ultimately with the fourth-place finish secured last week, the job was already done as far as Unai Emery and the players were concerned.
READ MORE: Why Villa duo were absent from squad for season finale vs Palace
They’ll now look forward to a break over the summer, albeit our international players will be on duty in a few weeks time, but it’s hoped that they can all come back fully recharged and healthy when we report for pre-season duty in July.
As far as our performance and result on Sunday goes though, there was a lot to take away from it and ultimately Emery will have plenty to say to his players at a later date when analysing this encounter at Selhurst Park.
Unai Emery looking at bigger picture
The Villa boss thanked the supporters as always in his post-match interview, before admitting that he was disappointed with the performance and result.
That said, he reiterated the achievement that represents our season more accurately, and his mind is already focus on the next stage of the process. Although he should afford himself a break in the coming days and weeks, there’s a lot of work to be done over the summer.
Emery has done a superb job thus far to transform the club inside and out and deliver success, and so although no one will be happy to end the season with a thrashing, the bigger picture shows us that there is a lot to be thankful for and to celebrate this year.
Absentee list microcosm of season’s woes
Villa were without 11 senior players this weekend, with Emiliano Martinez, Matty Cash, Tyrone Mings, Alex Moreno, Youri Tielemans, Emiliano Buendia, Nicolo Zaniolo, Morgan Rogers, Leon Bailey, Jacob Ramsey and Boubacar Kamara all unavailable due to injury or fitness issues.
That is the story of our entire season in truth, going back to last August when we lost both Mings and Buendia to serious knee injuries that ultimately resulted in them missing the entire campaign.
We had another major setback with Kamara in February, and almost every player has been sidelined or struggled with something at some point. The sheer volume of those ruled out though is astonishing, and it certainly added more stress, both physically and mentally, on those picking up a heavier workload.
Could youngsters have been given more of a chance?
It’s incredibly rare to raise question marks about some of Emery’s decisions, but it would have been nice to see some of our youngsters be given a more prominent role on Sunday.
Tim Iroegbunam, Omari Kellyman and Kaine Kesler-Hayden were all eventually introduced off the bench, but the game was already gone by that stage, and it was a thankless task for the youngsters to try and find us a way back into it.
While it’s understandable as to why Emery went with experience, giving our young talents an opportunity on Sunday to continue to adapt with all-important playing time felt like it had more longer-term benefits for us.
Farewell appearances for Lenglet, Chambers?
With Clement Lenglet’s loan deal coming to an end and given Emery has made it known publicly that Calum Chambers is free to leave the club, this felt like a chance to give them one final outing as a Villa player.
Unfortunately, neither will have fond memories of their last game for the club as they both struggled, but it was nice to an extent to see them given that opportunity before moving on.
While we’ll dive deeper into a prevalent point below, if felt as though it will be the right decision for all concerned to go our separate ways, as Emery will likely have taken a lot away from the game to better understand what’s required for us to compete across multiple fronts next year.
Exposure of areas of weakness to address this summer
Of course, you can’t mitigate for the extent of our injury troubles this season, as it has been one setback after another and it eventually took its toll on the rest of the squad.
However, this game was also an opportunity for Emery and his recruitment team to identify obvious areas of the squad that must be strengthened this summer to make us more competitive.
Whether it’s at right-back or central midfield, Villa have a lot of work to do, particularly with the Champions League coming into the equation, to show we’re able to compete at that level moving forward and consistently finish in the top four in the Premier League to establish ourselves as a growing force.