Our summer was heavily disrupted by the financial fall out created by missing out on the Champions League for a second successive season, and we all know the disquiet that created within the dressing room with players publicly voicing their own frustrations with the rules and regulations given our largely forced sale of homegrown Academy talent Jacob Ramsey.

The start to our domestic campaign mimicked that disruption, as despite hopes of starting brightly and putting the end of the 2024/25 campaign behind us, we went winless in five – performances significantly regressed from our prior standards – and the more temperamental amongst the fanbase wondered if Unai Emery’s magic had hit a wall and whether our progress following his arrival could now culminate in a potential relegation battle rebalance.

Thankfully those concerns were ill founded, and for those Villans who put their betting bonuses on a turn of form they were well rewarded with another fabulous streak of straight wins – we found our feet and slowly pushed up the table. From the extreme of looking at the bottom three, we were then quickly, and quietly, looking firmly at the top five once again…then the top four…then the top three and we have dabbled with the runners up spot on a few occasions, before frustrations again led to despair.

Edging through the month of February with the real business end of the campaign now upon us, we are incredibly well placed and sitting in third spot (nine points from Arsenal occupying the top position) is not something any of us envisaged at the start of the year. Yes, we could be a lot closer had we not been our own worst enemy at times, but equally, after the summer and the start we had, most Villans would have snatched hands off to just be in with a shout of the Champions League places at this point.

Emery has maintained all along that we are not title challengers and given our financial restraints (some times self inflicted…enter particular signing here) other sides understandably are better placed for that battle. But we are still in the mix, and even the press have slowly come around to the fact that we are up there on merit and that they are not hallucinating.

Of course, this is the Villa and we never do anything the easy way. Just as the press started taking our top three credentials seriously our form dipped. Two defeats and two draws in the last six is not title winning form – but who genuinely thought we were anything more than unexpected potential challengers this year? We do not have the entitlement of some other sides, and they remain below us and that has to be remembered through the frustration.

Despite the bleating of some other managers, losing our midfield trio of John McGinn, Boubacar Kamara and Youri Tielemans has been a massive blow to our performance and consistency levels of late, and of course, they are not the only key injuries we have had to deal with this season – Emery just does not turn that into an excuse laden song and dance like some others we could mention.

So, with the press back to their usual and standard default position of writing us off, who else is looking forward to a bloody good end to the season and getting our just rewards for another incredible campaign under our mercurial gaffer – would you bet against us?