The manager who had made the decision to not use Steer was soon to become the boss of the club that now wanted to sign him when his contract expired in the summer of 2013. So it was that Jed came to sign for Paul Lambert’s Aston Villa. The signing made a certain amount of sense. Randy Lerner’s austerity policy was in full downswing and a reserve ‘keeper on a free fitted the times.

Brad Guzan had established himself as first-choice, sweeping up the Player of the Year award for his efforts in the previous season, where relegation had narrowly been avoided. Shay Given, on a highly-lucrative contract, was left to battle for the position. No-one was coming in for Shay on the money he was on, so he was going to have to stick around. Jed’s remit was to continue working and wait for his chance. As that chance never came, Steer found some relief on loan at Doncaster.

Another loan, again at Yeovil, gave more valuable experience and he returned to Villa Park in 2015 to find that things had changed. Lambert had finally been sacked and replaced by Tim Sherwood. The new boss at least showed himself able to make decisions; Brad Guzan had run out of form and confidence and Shay Given was back between the sticks. Another narrow escape from relegation was seasoned with an exciting cup run that took the team all the way to the Wembley final. With Villa clinching safety with a game remaining, this left the last game, at home to already-doomed Burnley, a dead rubber.

Sherwood had the nous to realise that an injury to Given could rule him out of the final. To avoid this potential nightmare, he called up Jed for his Villa debut about twenty months after he had first signed. It could have gone better; Danny Ings scored the game’s only goal in the opening minutes, but Jed did quite well otherwise, in the full knowledge he had zero chance of keeping the gloves for the following week. Just as well, perhaps…

At least the lad got some sort of regular game-time in his career when he went on loan to Huddersfield Town. The former England full-back Chris Powell made the move. When Powell lost his job, David Wagner took over and kept Jed between the posts. In all, he was to start thirty-eight league games and garner glowing reports from many Terriers fans. As a footballer enjoying his life and career development, this put him well above the team-mates he had left behind him who endured the most miserable run of results in our club’s history. Both Villa and Huddersfield would be in the hampionship in the following season.

Jed might have entertained thoughts that he could finally take the first-choice position and make it his own, with previous custodian Guzan having left the club. As is the modern way, the incoming new manager, Roberto di Matteo, preferred to bring in his own goalkeeper, the promising young Pierluigi Gollini, from Italy. The new man didn’t pull any trees up, though was mostly competent, compared to what was going on elsewhere on the pitch where a side compiled at high expense was consistently unable to close out games as Villa floundered near the relegation places, inspiring dread fears of a double-drop.

Di Matteo was soon on his way, to be replaced by Steve Bruce and a fresh opportunity for Jed to impress. This was where any luck available was all of the wrong sort. With Bruce galvanising a dispirited side, Steer was eagerly awaiting his chance to show what he could do. Just the wrong time to be laid low with an Achilles injury that would keep him in the treatment room for the rest of the season.

Without this major setback Jed might have got his chance, as Bruce was not convinced by Gollini, moving quickly in the January transfer window to bring Sam Johnstone in on loan from Manchester United. After an iffy start, Sam settled well and it was no surprise when the loan was renewed in the summer, as Bruce looked to mount a serious promotion challenge. Johnstone did more than enough to keep the gloves with Jed restricted to cup appearances.

One such chance came in the FA Cup at home to third division Peterborough in January. With Bruce selecting a horrible hotch-potch of a side, the visitors, after a good Villa start, looked more determined to enjoy their day out. Had it not been for a truly heroic performance from Jed, the score could have been humiliating rather than just embarrassing. A video of the Posh strikers v Jed Steer would have lasted a few minutes and would have included several very good saves.

With twenty minutes to go, Jed remarkably saw the unlikely prospect of a clean sheet, but a late rush of goals put an abrupt end to that dream. In fact, Jed had made so many saves, many at full-stretch, that it wasn’t entirely surprising to subsequently discover that he had dislocated his shoulder while being used for target practice and would be out until the summer. Youth team ‘keeper Mattea Sarkic was brought onto the bench in his place.

There is a Chinese expression “May you live in interesting times”. For Villa fans in the summer of 2018 that wish was fulfilled, but not necessarily in a good way. There was an understandable sense of deflation after the play-off defeat to our old friends from Fulham. It soon became apparent that the result wasn’t even the half of it. Tony Xia had bet everything on promotion and now the money had run out. Stories of transfer instalments that couldn’t be met at the next and unpaid tax bills left us wondering what sort of a club we would have to support in the future and at what level it would be playing.

Signing new players under these circumstances was a non-starter; loan players returning to their parent clubs was another. There was a sense that Sam Johnstone, clearly the established number one at Villa Park, would have been happy to make his loan move permanent. The money to do that simply wasn’t there, so Sam moved across to the Hawthorns, where at the photo-shoot, he gave the appearance of being the unhappiest footballer on the planet.

What Jed Steer thought of this isn’t known but it must have occurred to him that amidst all this chaos, he was set up to be Villa’s first choice for the forthcoming campaign, if Villa could survive that long. With vague rumours of a takeover swirling around, Jed wore the gloves for the opening game of the season at Hull, where he generally did well. He invited some criticism for not getting enough oomph into his punched clearance in the build-up to Hull’s goal, but an important one-on-one with the scores level and his all-round competence in a 3-1 victory left everyone expecting to see him resume against Wigan at home on the Saturday.

Little did he and we know! In the space of a few days Villa were bought by new owners, Steve Bruce found himself with some money to spend and at the end of his first supermarket trolley dash, he came up with John McGinn, a scandalously cheap Scottish midfielder and no less than two new goalkeepers. Jed was, in a matter of days, out of the picture completely, replaced by permanent signing Orjan Nyland and loan ‘keeper Andre Moreira. Jed was summarily sent on loan to Charlton Athletic for the season, with a January break clause included in the contract.

To be generous, it soon became clear that a large number of Villa fans, either online or at the games, were less than impressed with the new acquisition. Not used to such a physical league and lacking the build to cope with the hurley-burley, Orjan didn’t inspire much confidence in either his back-line or fans who may have felt the urge to watch through their fingers. At times he seemed unable to master the art of maintaining a simple grasp of the ball. If Nyland had one thing going for him it was that Moreira was even worse, so Orjan retained his place despite the mounting total of goals conceded.

Not all of the blame could be shoved onto Nyland’s plate. It was obvious that Villa’s squad was hopelessly unbalanced. Plenty of options in midfield, attacking midfield and up front; only two centre-backs in the whole squad and no cover at left-back. It was inexplicable that a manager renowned for his defensive qualities as a player could preside over a situation like this, to the extent that three men who could have played in central defence were allowed to go out on loan.

And so Villa plodded on, looking vulnerable at the back, while not really clicking further forward bearing in mind the array of talent at the manager’s disposal. This slow agony ended after a three-all draw at home to Preston, where the less-that-distinguished Mark Bunn had been recalled, such had been the disappointment with Nyland’s performance levels. The board had seen enough, sacked Bruce and his assistants and brought in Dean Smith, who had earned this chance to through a fine managerial record at Walsall and Brentford, all while playing a style of football that was easier on the eye than the Bruce variety.

Suddenly, like a light switched on in a darkened room, the struggling, below mid-table outfit was transformed. Villa adopted an attacking outlook, moving the ball more quickly, always prepared to press the opposition when the opportunity allowed and pushing the talismanic Grealish further up the pitch. To help the fragile defence, the ball was kept up the other end, the logic being that not too many Championship sides were good at stringing seventy-yard moves together.

With the transfer window firmly shut, the coach’s job was to get the best out of what he had got. Nyland stayed in goal and benefited from spending a lot of time watching his side occupying the other half. Smith won instant support as Villa went on something of a scoring spree. Such was the volume of goals scored, and the quality of the football played to achieve it, that fans allowed themselves to dream of an automatic promotion challenge by the season’s end. Yes, a five-all draw at home to Nottingham Forest was a cold shower that reminded us all of defending and goalkeeping issues, but the mood stayed positive as we moved into December.

Having inherited so many problems from the previous incumbent, Deano might have hoped for a little good luck before January and the opening of the transfer window, where no doubt the owners would be keen to demonstrate their support for the new boss. Instead, the luck was all the wrong sort. First, the brilliant Grealish was laid low by a mysterious stress-related injury. it wasn’t easy to define what the actual problem was, so an estimate of Jack’s likely return time was undetermined. Meanwhile, Axel Tuanzebe, having struck up a good partnership with the worthy James Chester, was out for the best part of four months. If bad luck comes in threes, Neil Taylor, often the victim of niggling injuries was out, Alan Hutton having to fill in at left-back.

With all these body-blows, it was unsurprising that form and goal-tally began to drop. Villa fans crossed their fingers and we hoped that recoveries would be swift, while consoling ourselves that January was only weeks away. About this time, it was reported in the press that Villa had already been doing a bit of shopping. The target in question was Lovre Kalinic, a Croation international who was due in B6 at the start of January. Presumably, Deano had a say in the matter, though the guts of the deal had been established under the previous boss.

In the perverse world of football, following this news, Nyland found some decent form and gave an idea of why he had been brought to the club. He even saved a vital penalty at the end of the game at Swansea, to seal an away win which kept us bubbling under the promotion places. Within days his active season was over, a bad Achilles injury scheduled to keep him out until the summer. Suddenly, the move for Kalinic looked very well-timed, though he would not be ready for the New Year’s Day fixture against QPR.