Steve Bruce seems to be working his Championship magic at Aston Villa who, after a nasty wobble, have now won six of their last seven games and kept six clean sheets.
Will his promotion Midas touch work a miracle this season? As I write this there are just six games to play and they 9 points behind sixth placed Sheffield Wednesday so it looks a very long shot indeed. However over the last 5 years the sixth place team has had 74, 78, 72, 68, and 75 points respectively. There are18 points left to play for so even if Villa won all 6 they would only have 75 points. So not impossible but highly unlikely.
However they just might make the run in exciting.
I am sure most fans are already thinking about a push for automatic promotion next season and also wondering who they will be buying in the summer transfer window? So I was surprised to hear Steve Bruce say that he did not expect to be busy in the summer. CEO Keith Wyness also said in an interview with SKY TV that “they had a great squad and that there will be no excuses not to go up”.
Without doubt they have done well but in my opinion still need to strengthen with some Premier League experience to lead the promotion charge with some of the talented youngsters they have.
The three teams coming down will already have Premier League players and under the new TV deal plenty of money to invest to ensure they bounce straight back up.
We are in danger of the Premier League becoming a members only club and the longer our teams are out of it the tougher and more expensive it will be to get into it.
Reading between the lines I wonder if Steve Bruce will have any money available to invest in strengthening his team not only in transfer fees but also in wages which are even more obscene since the new TV deal came into play.
Steve Bruce has proven he has the know-how to get teams promoted but he needs the wherewithal to do it and it’s not rocket science the better the players the better the chance you have of winning promotion or trophies.
Maybe his biggest problem will be unloading some of the expensive tripe that had been bought before he arrived especially if he needs to sell to finance some new players.
Hopefully Dr Tony Xia, who has already sanctioned plenty of spending will be encouraged to dig deep once again and increase the clubs likelihood of automatic promotion.