David Michael
Fan writer

Image source, Getty Images

A wind of change is about to blow through Aston Villa. With an Icarus-like attitude, they soared high in the Champions League, pushing the eventual winners close, only to now face the challenge of managing their descent.

Boubacar Kamara has been in contract talks since well before last Christmas. The fact nothing has been signed, despite ongoing reports, strongly suggests the player was waiting to see whether Villa would still be a Champions League team by season's end.

From the club's perspective, selling Kamara would be tempting from a PSR angle. Signed on a free transfer, any sale would as pure profit in the s - useful for balancing the books.

While Villa's form clearly improves when Kamara is in the team, his availability has been patchy. Over three seasons, because of injuries, the midfielder has started only 54% of Villa's Premier League matches.

Despite qualifying for Europe for a third consecutive season, Villa find themselves in trouble when it comes to Uefa's Squad Cost Rule (SCR), which limits spending on players, coaches, transfers and agent fees to 80% of total revenue for the 2024-25 campaign.

Villa are believed to be operating at over 89%, and while a Uefa fine is expected, the limit will drop even further to 70% the following season and beyond.

This goes some way to explaining why Kamara, along with Leon Bailey and Emi Martinez - both of whom seemed to have emotional farewells at Villa Park - may not be at the club next season.

Villa will also be frustrated that last summer's main outlay - about £87m on Amadou Onana and Ian Maatsen - failed to secure continued Champions League football.

Onana started just 20 league games (53%), while Maatsen started only 10 (26%). Both improved the squad, but Villa still had other starting XI positions - like right-back - that needed upgrading.

With Uefa breathing down their necks, Villa will need to be much smarter with their spending this summer, especially after expected key player sales.

Find more from David Michael at My Old Man Said, external

BBC Sport pundit Nedum Onuoha has given us his insight and opinion every fortnight on your Premier League club throughout this season.

But this week, he's in the hotseat for your questions.

Maybe ask him who should be on your club's radar this summer, or where a rumoured target or new g might fit into the team.

Perhaps see what he thinks about how successful a new recruit might be, who it is vital to keep, or what is needed to make next season a success.

Send in your questions here and we'll put a selection to him

Steve Sutcliffe
BBC Sport journalist

Having failed to qualify for the Champions League things look less rosy at Aston Villa.

The club made a loss of £206m in the two years to 30 June 2024 and, with the £100m departure of Jack Grealish in 2021 dropping away from their PSR figures, backing Unai Emery will be far from straightforward.

Last term's run to the quarter-finals of Europe's elite club competition, along with the sales Moussa Diaby, Douglas Luiz and Jhon Duran will undoubtedly have helped.

But the Midlands club has spent more than £900m since returning to the Premier League in 2019, exceeding Uefa's 70% revenue to wages ratio every season.

"Without any outgoings, it appears Villa will be at the bottom end of the £50-100m spending range," said football finance expert Kieran Maguire.

Read more about the early transfer window and what each Premier League club can spend this summer

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We asked for your views on what Aston Villa need to do in the transfer window.

Here are some of your comments:

Matt: Keeping hold of our best players is the priority. Kamara, Tielemans, Rogers, and Konsa. Hopefully Watkins and Martinez too but I'd be less concerned with those two leaving. I'd like to see Bailey, Digne, Dendoncker, Coutinho and Cash all moved on. That should help with the wages-to-turnover issue.

Harry: We need to get some of the high earners who are not performing off the wage bill. I like Cash but I think he has now hit his ceiling so a new RB would be nice as well as a new right-sided CB and a young ST for competition up top.

Mike: Of the expiring loan deals, I'd only look at g Asensio permanently. As good as Rashford has been since February, the sense that he's used Villa as a stepping stone on his way to Barcelona just won't go away. I don't think we've seen enough of Disasi to warrant a move.

Prit: Villa do need another striker to give Watkins competition. Obviously need a number-two goalkeeper as Olsen has gone, and possibly a replacement for Martinez if he departs. But more crucial is what will the impact of PSR be now that we have lost the Russian Roulette of gambling all to qualify for the Champions League.

Marc: Need a quality right-back and quality number 10. If we keep the rest of the team, we will be top six for sure.

Thank you for the you submitted on the Premier League club pages.

Our aim is to contain all of the BBC's in-depth coverage of that team in one place, so it is helpful to hear from you - you are who the pages are for after all.

We are going through all your responses and will take suggestions on board for next season.

The transfer window opens on Sunday - albeit for 10 days initially, mainly so sides competing in the Club World Cup can get early business done - before reopening for the rest of the summer on 16 June.

There are a few loan deals that Aston Villa could make permanent, but are there any other players you are desperate for them to sign, or an area of the squad that needs improving? Or maybe holding on to a key player is your biggest priority.

And what about sales - who needs to go?

So over to you... what names need bringing in and shipping out?

Let us know here

Nicola Pearson
BBC Sport journalist

As the dust settles on the 2024-25 Premier League season, we have been taking a look at some of the alternative ways the the table could have finished...

A Premier League season can sometimes be a tale of two halves.

Some come flying out of the blocks, while others are more sluggish starters.

The busy Christmas period can be a turning point with the arrival of the January transfer window feeling like a fresh start.

So what might have happened if the league season only start on 1 January?

Well, Pep Guardiola's title-winning machines would have picked up their fifth Premier League trophy in a row.

Playing one game fewer than actual champions Liverpool - who secured the title with four games remaining - they would have finished one point clear of the Reds, not withstanding Arne Slot's side slowdown in form after sealing the title.

City always seem to come good after January, but this time it was not enough to outweigh the torrid time they had from late autumn.

The rest of the top six is not too dissimilar to the final placings, although in this case, Aston Villa would have secured Champions League football and Brighton a Europa League spot in the absence of Chelsea - whose form nose-dived at the very beginning of the year.

And while the new year is a new start for some, it is less so for others.

That was the case for many of those down the bottom of the league.

The relegated trio would still have been relegated and Manchester United and Tottenham would still have ended up in the bottom six. West Ham find themselves one place lower after Wolves picked up form under Vitor Pereira.

So what does this tell us? If you wan to achieve your Premier League ambitions, it is about making sure you are there for nine months and not just from January.

*Table data from Football365

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We asked for your views on our fan contributor David Michael's end of season scorecard (27 May, 15:58 BST).

Here are some of your comments:

Tony: Absolutely agree with this assessment. We've played some brilliant football - home to Newcastle, for example - some of the best play I've seen in over 57 years at Villa Park. Yet we then don't turn up in crunch games, and I don't get it. Next season will be trepidation about possibly falling back from what we achieved over the past three seasons. Nervous!

Robert: I give this season a 7/10. While we can take Villa seriously as regular European contenders now, there's more work to do before we're regulars in the Champions League. Our season will be defined by the number of times we've had to get a result from a losing position, but it could've been different if we'd avoided individual defensive mistakes that led to goals conceded or, in the case of the last day, getting our goalkeeper sent off. Champions League regulars are strict on players who make mistakes at that level, and if Villa aspire to become one of them in years to come, that's the mentality we need to adopt.

Tim: My old chap watched Villa with my grandad through the 50s and 60s. He always said, even then, that Villa didn't score enough goals. It's the same this season, our goals-for column is too low. That said, we shipped a lot too. Liam Delap would be a good start at correcting that imbalance.

Prit: Season rating - 7/10. Could have easily been 9/10 but two pivotal games, against Crystal Palace and Manchester United, when the team froze and cost us dearly has lost a lot of goodwill. Our unsung hero has to be Boubacar Kamara. Midfield dynamo who can play across midfield, got us out of a lot of trouble by playing in the back four when we were desperate and is now scoring goals. Kamara is very much the glue that has held Villa together this season.

Russell: The season has been one of missed opportunities. Seeing Newcastle and Palace win trophies, something we haven't managed since 1996, makes me very envious. Missing out on the Champions League in the way we did also sticks in the craw. Overall 7/10.

Image source, Getty Images

The BBC's Ask Me Anything team have done all of the research ahead of the announcement detailing next season's Premier League matches.

The fixtures for the 2025-26 season will be released at 09:00 BST on Wednesday, 18 June 2025 and the release will include the weekly schedule of all 380 matches.

The season will begin with a single fixture played on Friday, 15 August 2025 and conclude on Sunday, 24 May 2026, when all matches will be played at 16:00 BST. There will be 33 weekend rounds of fixtures, plus five midweek rounds.

The exact date and time at which individual matches are played during each weekend will be determined at regular intervals throughout the season, based on TV selections made by broadcasters.

Read the full article here

Mike Taylor
BBC Radio WM reporter

Image source, Getty Images

When do you know you belong somewhere?

The Champions League fixture list confirmed Villa were not imagining it - the first win, in the chocolate-box scenery of Bern, seemed almost too easy. Was this all for real? Villa had made it to this level all right, but now they needed to really arrive.

With a little over 10 minutes to go in their second game, against Bayern Munich, it happened. It was all the more sensational because only one man, Jhon Duran himself, could possibly have known what was going to happen.

And yet, even he could not have realised as he ran on to Pau Torres' , how his life was about to change. With Manuel Neuer – Manuel Neuer! – advancing towards him, barely taking a glance at the target, Duran hooked the ball around a defender, over Neuer, into the North Stand goal.

Villa Park exploded. Duran, now instantly famous all over Europe, stood as if modelling for his own statue while his team fell around him. As it happened, it took a moment of utter football fantasy to make Aston Villa's Champions League status feel like reality.

At Villa's end-of-season awards, John McGinn won the prize for goal of the season.

"I feel a bit of a fraud to be honest, because that's not the best goal of the season," he said when handed the award.

"I just want to thank Jhon Duran for going..."

Tune into The West Midlands Football Phone-In from 18:00 on weeknights

We asked you to select your Aston Villa player of the season from the four candidates chosen by our fan contributor.

And with the poll now closed, we can reveal the winner is... Youri Tielemans!

Here's what David Michael from My Old Man Said, external said about him:

After taking almost half a season to start a league game last season, the Belgium midfielder has been Villa's only ever-present starter this time around.

A revelation under Unai Emery, he is now very much the heartbeat of the team. His deeper role limits headline stats, but his influence has been essential for Villa.

See the final poll breakdown

Image source, Getty Images

Pat Nevin
Former footballer and presenter

Image source, Getty Images

Newcastle stumbled over the line to qualify for the Champions League after a poor display at home, in the end having to depend on Aston Villa slipping up against Manchester United. A stupid back left Villa with 10 men and a mountain to climb at Old Trafford but then came the moment of the weekend.

The goal Villa had disallowed could have put them in the lead. It could have delivered three points and their own place in the Champions League but it was incorrectly ruled out.

Most football lovers will know that when the referee blows his whistle, the game has officially stopped. There are no exceptions, even if seconds later the ball is in the net and the referee has erred badly. VAR is not allowed to interfere.

It's not the first time this has happened to grotesquely effect the outcome of a game but to turn an exciting season on its head and spoil an entire campaign for one side and all its fans, this must be close to unique blunder.

Maybe the rule has to be tweaked, maybe young referees need more training to learn how to deal with these rare situations. Maybe VAR should be allowed some discretion to get involved, but VAR was brought into clarify rules and the rules were adhered too.

This unfortunate situation left a sour taste and then some, but praise at least to Unai Emery once again. In his first interviews post match he dealt with it all with dignity. If only everyone else could take a leaf from his book.

To lose out unfairly and by nothing more than goal difference, not even a single point, at the end of a season must be incredibly hard to bear, but he did.

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