A UK Journeyman Story

[Hampus Silverholt]

We joined Villa on 23rd June, giving us plenty of time to overhaul the squad and bring in the players that we wanted.

One player already at the club was Sebastian Frankle - who we sold to Villa as Blackburn manager for £45m! He was one of just two first team players under the age of 25, so it was quite clear that we’d be signing some younger players to join him.

Upon joining there was £70m in the bank but the finances have been a bit up and down over the last few years. But that just makes it even more ridiculous that the Blackburn board were only giving us £50m to spend!

We were also able to expand that budget even more by selling some squad players, including 34 year old Ollie Watkins and central midfielder Gustavo Assuncao.

In return, we have spent £101m on players and the window isn’t even over yet!

My first signing as Villa manager was Junior, an attacking full-back who I tried to bring to Blackburn many times but he just wasn’t interested. I’ll be retraining him as a conventional left-back rather than using him as a winger this season.

Yuri Kane was the 2nd Brazilian to join us and, just like Junior, was a player who I’ve had on my radar for a while.

Next up was the big one.

Centre back was an area I wanted to improve on, so I went all out and spent £51m on Jon Casado from Athletic Bilbao

It was Villa’s record transfer fee but I think it will be worthwhile. He’s one of the best players at the club and is still only 22.

The last major transfer was another defender as we paid Bayer Leverkusen £26m for Alex Taylor, who can play right back or centre back.

So it was only 4 major signings, but if you sort our players by my scout's opinion on their current ability then those 4 signings are our best 4 players.

There are some familiar names at the club including Ezri Konsa and Douglas Luiz (who have both spent their entire careers here) as well Trevor Chalobah, Aaron Ramsdale and Conor Gallagher.

I should probably know who Matheus Cunha and Gabriel Vidovic are in real life… but they are here too and look like 2 very decent players as well!

The season preview has us down as 3rd favourites, but that is genuinely wrong. We’re about the 8th or 9th best team in the league on paper, which is why the board only expect a top half finish

A few weird bugs like that seem to be popping up in the save now, including the fact that Nnamdi Ofoborh is going to be joining Cincinnati on the 1st January 1900…

My former club Blackburn are predicted to finish 14th this season and have appointed Roger Schmidt as my successor. It’s a pretty decent appointment for them as he won the Carabao Cup and Europa Conference League whilst manager of Leeds before being sacked from Elland Road last season.

Our first match in charge of Villa will be away against current title holders Man United so is the toughest game we could’ve got!

So as long as we don’t get off to a dodgy start this campaign, I am hoping to take Villa to the levels that I could only dream about at Blackburn.

European qualification is very much the aim this season.​

 

[Hampus Silverholt]

Our first game as Villa manager was at Old Trafford and the result was an expected one, as we lost 1-0 loss to reigning champions Man United.

But thankfully we didn’t let that impact our next performance as we recorded an emphatic win over West Ham in our first home game in charge.

Immediately after that match, Conor Gallagher announced his intention to leave - he wasn’t going to be first choice for me so when Brighton offered £14m I decided to accept.

To replace him we signed Omer Sevgi from Dortmund for £17.5m, a player who I can’t believe we got for that cheap but admittedly can’t shoot to save his life.

He had little impact in our next 4 matches though. I’m not sure how you deal with Haaland on this game after he scored 4 in Man City’s 5-1 win at Villa Park, whereas we also lost to Liverpool at Anfield thanks to a goal from Mbappe who has been at Anfield for 8 seasons now.

So that makes it 3 wins and 3 losses so far, which probably isn’t bad considering we’ve played the 3 best teams in the league already.

Summer signing Jon Casado picked up his first cap for Spain in the September international break, showing that the £51m we spent on him is probably going to be worthwhile.

He’s been solid so far along with central defensive partner Trevor Chalobah and right back Malo Gusto, who is keeping summer signing Alex Taylor out of the team.

Our main striker Gabriel Vidovic has been very hit and miss so far but does have 3 goals in 6 Premier League games.

One thing that always interests me is how much we’re spending on wages compared to other teams in the league. We were always bottom with Blackburn, but now at Villa we have the 10th highest spend on wages in the Premier League.

I want to finish a lot higher than 10th this season but there are a lot of quality teams in the league. Hopefully we can now push ourselves up the table!​

 

[Hampus Silverholt]

After losing against Liverpool, Man City and Man United it was about time our luck changed against the better sides in the league.

And exactly that happened at Stamford Bridge, as we somehow recorded a 1-0 win despite being the second best team for most of the match.

Next up for us was my former club Blackburn. Relations with them were not great considering how poorly they were doing in the league (more on that below!) and our pre-match report essentially said that we should be beating them comfortably.

The scoreline ended up being close, but it was a game we dominated.

It just had to be Sebastian Frankle who scored the winner - a player who we sold to Villa as Blackburn manager! It’s funny how things work out.

Some really poor results followed after that though, including two 0-0 draws at home to local rivals West Brom and Wolves.

We’re actually in 7th place in the Premier League but have played a game more than the teams around us, whilst former club Blackburn are bottom of the Premier League. With just 1 win in 13 games, it is not looking good for them!

Despite being 7th it feels like things haven’t quite clicked for us yet and Shola Shoretire has been a real disappointment so far. I just can’t get him performing well no matter what position I play him in.

It probably says it all that 32 year old Douglas Luiz has been our best attacking player this season with 4 goals so far in the Premier League.

Elsewhere, summer signing Junior recently made his debut for Brazil despite some pretty average performances so far at left back.

Totally unrelated but still noteworthy was that Diego Simeone has recently been hired as Brighton manager… a side that have never finished higher than 14th in the Premier League and were relegated 3 seasons ago.

And even more unrelated, I just happened to notice that Alex Davies is now the record appearance holder for Colwyn Bay at 237 and counting.

He was the player we signed from Bangor on a free 8 seasons ago… it seems a long time since we were managing in the second tier of Wales!

Back in the present with Villa, we’ve been drawn against Newcastle in the League Cup quarter final after some decent wins and performances from our second-string side in previous rounds of the competition.

It would be great to get to the semi-finals, but I’m also out for revenge over Newcastle for beating us in the FA Cup final last season in my final game in charge of Blackburn.​

 

[Hampus Silverholt]

Normally i wouldnt take the League Cup seriously but it could be our best chance of qualifying for Europe next season. So beating Newcastle in the quarter final was great and particularly pleasing as we managed to get some sort of revenge for them defeating us in the FA Cup final as Blackburn manager last season.

We’ll play Chelsea in the semi-finals who will obviously be favourites, but hopefully their busy schedule over December works in our favour.

What made that quarter final result even better is the fact we did it all over again in the league, this time beating Newcastle at St James Park. This is a Newcastle team who are firmly amongst the best 6 teams in the league as well!

That victory was part of a rich vein of form for us in December and we ended 2030 with three wins in a row.

So that means we’re 6th in the Premier League and in contention for the European places but at the same time we’ve played a game more than Arsenal and Newcastle who are below us.

My old club Blackburn are firmly bottom of the table and that has resulted in Roger Schmidt getting sacked after less than 6 months in charge. He’s turned a midtable team into relegation certainties so it was not a surprise.

It was quite ironic to see Henrik Larsson then getting offered the Blackburn job, as I’ve been tracking both Glasgow clubs for the last few years to see if there were any vacancies, which there never have been.

He accepted but has a huge job on his hands trying to keep Blackburn in the Premier League this season.

Two players I’ve not mentioned so far are the highest earner at the club Matheus Cunha, who is constantly injured and the wrong side of 30 but still has 4 goals and 2 assists in the Premier League

The other is key player Hugo Guillamon who has played every league game so far this season either as a box to box midfielder or anchor man.

Up next is our two League Cup semi final games against Chelsea as well as the January transfer window.

We don’t have much budget, but a few players are wanted so there could be some wheeling and dealing.​

 

[Hampus Silverholt]

January 2031 started with an unbelievable win over Everton (who have qualified for the last 16 of the Champions League this season), with Shola Shoretire scoring a hattrick to more than make up for his slow start to the season.

That was followed up by a great first leg against Chelsea in the League Cup, where we came away from Stamford Bridge with a 1-1 draw to put us in pole position for the second leg.

But our hard work in the first leg was completely undone at Villa Park. We had just 2 shots on target and completely bottled our chances of reaching the final

We were also knocked out in the FA Cup in the same month after losing on penalties in a replay against West Ham.

Two EFL Cup semi-finals plus two FA Cup matches have taken their toll and we really could’ve done without the flurry of games as the injuries were piling up.

But that did not impact us one bit in the league as we’ve won each of our last three matches 2-0. We’re actually on a run of 7 wins in 8 matches!

We’re in 6th but are 6 points ahead of Spurs in 8th - if we keep up this form I’m confident of securing qualification for Europe next season but there’s still a long way to go.

At the other end of the table, it’s breaking my heart seeing how bad my old club Blackburn are doing. Henrik Larsson is having no impact and they have now gone 22 Premier League matches without a win.

January ended with no significant transfers in or out, but if Blackburn do go down then there are some relegation release clauses (which I was part of the negotiations for) that we could be activating in the summer…​

 

[Hampus Silverholt]

With no more domestic cup football for us, our attention is now solely on securing a top 7 place finish and qualification for Europe next season.

Chelsea ended up winning the EFL Cup, which is probably a good thing as it means that a finish in the top 7 will get us European football providing there is no surprise winner of the FA Cup.

We were buoyed by that news and in our next game recorded a huge win over Arsenal, a result which could be pivotal come the end of the season.

Getting knocked out of both cups in quick succession has actually masked just how well we’ve been doing in the league as that result made it 12 matches unbeaten in the Premier League.

Form in February and March has been really strong and we’ve actually only conceded twice in our last 6 matches!

So we those results we are still in 6th position but are now only 6 points off the top!

We have 8 huge games remaining as we could still feasibly finish in the top 4 but I’ll be more than happy with securing Europa League qualification.

What’s perhaps more impressive is that we’re 6th in the Premier League, in with a shout of getting Champions League football… and 33 year old Douglas Luiz is our top scorer!

Our starting striker Gabriel Vidovic has not been doing it for us this season and if we’re going to become a top team, then we need a better return than 10 goals in 29 games for our starting striker.

His latest form has been so poor that Jamie Donley has been introduced to the starting XI. The backup striker scored 7 goals in the EFL Cup earlier in the campaign but has just 2 Premier League goals this season - now we’re relying on him to fire us to Europe.

Unless we have a dramatic decline in form, we could be getting our first taste of European football since 2024 with Colwyn Bay in the Champions League qualifying rounds!​

 

[Hampus Silverholt]

Our end of season runin started with a crucial 1-0 win over Spurs, which left them 9th in the table. It was another fine defensive display in what has been an impeccable defensive record in the second half of the season.

It also made it 3 goals in 3 games for Yuri Kame who was benefiting from an extended run in the team. Little did I know that this was just the start…

Two consecutive draws followed against Wolves and former club Blackburn. Interestingly the Wolves goal was scored by Giorgio Scalvini, a player who we had on loan at Blackburn last season and started in the FA Cup final for us.

Blackburn’s point was too little too late in their relegation battle though as they were soon confirmed as the first team to go down. I did not expect them to plummet so badly after leaving them in the summer!

A win was needed in our next game after dropping those points. So when Matheus Cunha was sent off in the first half against Southampton I was expecting the worst, but somehow we were still comfortable winners.

Yuri Kame had only scored 5 goals by March but his hattrick meant that he was now our top scorer!

At this point we had played 2 games more than the teams around us and still had City and Liverpool to play.

First up was Leicester and two more goals for Kame - he was single-handedly keeping us in with a shout of getting Champions League football next season.

The race for the Top 4 was really heating up now.

With 3 games remaining we were up into the Champions League places, but faced both Man City and Liverpool next.

Kame was at it again versus City with a last minute equalise in what was an entirely undeserved draw.

But that meant a 4th place finish was in our hands next up against Liverpool. No pressure then!

That game ended in another draw which kept our unbeaten run going.

But Chelsea were closing in…

A huge win over Spurs meant that they leapfrogged us into 4th with one Premier League game to go

With them at home to Brighton and with goal difference in their favour, a 4th place spot for us seems unlikely.

At the same time, if we lose against Sheffield United and other results go against us then we could still end up in 7th!

Can Yuri Kame lead us to the Champions League, or have we drawn one too many matches in this crazy end to the season?​

 

[Hampus Silverholt]

So it all came down to the last game of the season to see if we could sneak into 4th place after going under the radar all season.

We more than did our job at Bramall Lane by thumping Sheffield United 3-0.

The question was, did Brighton get any points against Chelsea?

Of course not…

Despite an incredible run at the end of the season, it is 5th place and Europa League football for us next year.

Yet there was nothing about Europa League being mentioned in the news, only the Europa Conference League…

Something weird was going on and I think it was because of who was in the Europa League and Champions League finals.


Tottenham had finished 9th in the Premier League but were somehow in the Champions League final! So a victory against PSG would mean they took part in the tournament next season.

Likewise, if Arsenal beat Liverpool in the Europa League then they would be in the Champions League next year too. That’s despite them finishing in 7th in the Premier League!

I genuinely had no idea what would happen if both Spurs and Arsenal won but it turned out that all that was needed was for Chelsea to win the FA Cup.

That confirmed Europa League football for us next season in what was an incredibly successful Premier League campaign (Arsenal ended up winning the Europa League but Spurs lost to PSG in the Champions League final).

We were only 7 points off the top in the end in a season that was dominated by Haaland and Mbappe. Art immitates life as Haaland has been at Man City in this save since 2022 - just the 42 Premier League goals for him this year!

We don’t have quality like him in the team but the squad we inherited along with our 4 summer additions has performed above expectations this year.

Jon Casado has been our signing of the season, £51m was steep but he’s a Spanish international and our best player by far.

His centre back partner Trevor Chalobah has also been immense and played in every single Premier League match - he’s the wrong side of 30 but will be a key part of the team next season too.

Summer signing Yuri Kame had a crazy end to the season, scoring 10 goals in his final 10 Premier League games. He will be a key player next year and surely a Brazil callup is not far away.

Finally there’s Sebastian Frankle. We sold him to Villa for £45m as Blackburn manager, now he’s a firm part of my Villa team after some very consistent performances as a central midfielder.

Off the pitch, the sponsorship money has gone nuts - we’ve gained more than £100m more in income compared to last season!

And that has been reflected in the transfer budgets as we have over £100m to spend.

The board are really backing me and want us to qualify for the Champions League next season as a result - no pressure then!

It’s actually nice having a board with high expectations after being at Blackburn where finishing 17th every year was the aim.

Next season is going to be a big one - Villa could be the club we stay at and take to the very top!​

 

[StormToChampion]

Congrats on finishing 5th and getting Europa League. Great transfer budget and wages budget. Board is ambitious though on wanting u to finish in the Champion League next season.

 

[Hampus Silverholt]

Congrats on finishing 5th and getting Europa League. Great transfer budget and wages budget. Board is ambitious though on wanting u to finish in the Champion League next season.

cheers mate, it's been a long old save but I'm finally getting somewhere with Villa - hopefully I can win the Champions League before FM23 comes around!

 

[Hampus Silverholt]

August 2031. We are entering our 11th season of the UK Journeyman save and after starting at Colwyn Bay in the second tier of Wales, we’re now taking Aston Villa into the Europa League after a 5th placed finish in the Premier League last season.

It’s been a busy summer of transfers as we try and take this Villa squad to the next level. Firstly, we managed to recoup £74m on a selection of fringe players including Karamoko Dembele and Mike Kleijn

Now for the good stuff.

Transfers In

After Blackburn’s relegation last season, there was one player who I was desperate to be reunited with.

When I was Blackburn's manager, it just so happened that I negotiated a £27.5m release clause for Jesus Aguilera if they were to ever get relegated.

As soon as that relegation was confirmed, we swooped in for the Mexican wonderkid. He only scored 3 times when I was in charge of Blackburn but the price we paid is surely a bargain after a solid season last year.

Next up was our record transfer as we spent £60m on Andrea Carnevale from Real Madrid

He made 34 appearances last season in La Liga - albeit most of which were from the bench - and is a big upgrade on our current midfield despite only being 21.

I didn’t think I could top those two transfers, but the next player in was my favourite transfer of the summer.

That’s right. 33 year old Tammy Abraham has joined for £20m from Roma, 13 years after last wearing a Villa shirt! He’s still a quality player and I’m hoping he can be the man that gets us 20+ goals this year.

And we weren’t done there with the attacking reinforcements.

Out of favour Leandro Pedroso was transfer listed for £27m by Man City and I think that could be a bargain £27m considering his quality (8 goals in 18 games for France!)

Our defence last season was very solid so I’ve made no additions to that department.

Nevertheless, we’re predicted to finish 3rd in the Premier League this season. I still think that’s inaccurate but we have definitely improved on our squad from last season so should be eyeing up those Champions League places.

And of course this is our first season in the Europa League with Villa and our first season in any kind of European competition since Colwyn Bay 7 years ago! The board expect us to win the competition outright but I’m just excited to see who we get in our group.

First up for us in the Premier League is a tricky tie against Everton (a top 7 side in this save) before winnable games against Brighton and Leeds.

This should be an interesting season in charge of Villa. I’m very excited to see what our new attacking players can achieve across 4 competitions this campaign!​

 

[Hampus Silverholt]

The 2031/32 season got off to the perfect start with a win at Goodison Park.

There was a debut goal for Aguilera and a last-minute winner against a very strong Everton side, what more could you want?

Our next game against Brighton showed us that this is going to be an exciting season for Villa.

New signings Abraham, Carnevale and Aguilera all scored in a comfortable 4-0 victory - I can’t remember us ever being so dominant in a game.

August was rounded off with another last-minute winner away against Leeds to make it 3 wins out of 3.

Tammy Abraham was a risky signing given his age and wage demands but he is certainly paying off already with 4 goals in 3 games!

He’s our highest earner at £150,000 a week but we still only have the 10th highest salary in the Premier League overall - not bad for a team predicted to finish in the top 4!

Those 3 victories mean we are joint top with City, Liverpool and Newcastle.

So things have been going well domestically for a while now but I have been waiting so long for a taste of European football.

We’ve managed Oldham, Lincoln and Blackburn since getting knocked out of the Champions League 1st Qualifying Round by Sheriff Tiraspol and then the Europa Conference League 2nd Qualifying Round by Mol Fehérvár in 2024 as Colwyn Bay boss.

As this was the first time Villa were in European competition for 21 years (since 2010), we were seeded 3rd for the Europa League group stage draw.

And it certainly was an interesting group to get.

I’ve genuinely never heard of Arda Kardzhali! It should be an intriguing couple of trips to Bulgaria and Serbia for us and our fans.

September sees us play Arda Kardzhali in our first Europa League game, with Manchester United and Doncaster our next two games after that - what a surreal schedule!

So it’s two games per week for the foreseeable future, let’s see what this squad can do!​

 

[Hampus Silverholt]

Our first game in the Europa League at home to the Bulgarian team I’m only half-convinced are actually real was an absolute walk in the park, with 33-year-old Douglas Luiz getting on the scoresheet in his 13th season at the club

We followed that up with some more really impressive results, first away to Manchester United in the league with a 1-1 draw before grabbing all 3 points away to 1st seeds Hoffenheim in our second Europa League game.

We’re just 2 games in but I firmly expect us to make it to the Europa League knockout rounds

Everything was going incredibly well for us, so it was only a matter of time before we were brought back down to earth.

That happened with a completely unexpected and rather undeserved home loss to recently promoted Burnley

The 1-0 loss also ended our record 24-game unbeaten run, which stretched back to last season.

The loss was even more annoying because if we had won, then we would be going into the October international break top of the Premier League table!

Our 4 summer signings have hit the ground running and all have contributed to 5+ goals across all competitions already!

Tammy Abraham has a very impressive 6 goals and 2 assists in 7 Premier League games but is being rather outshone by Haaland who has 14 Premier League goals already.

A busy few weeks approach as the games come thick and fast in the Premier League, Europa League and League Cup.

Those league games against Man City and Arsenal are going to be a real test to see if we can keep up with some of the best teams in the league!​

 

[Hampus Silverholt]

After our unexpected home loss to Burnley last time out, we followed that up with two draws in the league against West Ham (which was a poor result) and Man City (which was a very good result)

That made it 3 games without a win in the Premier League, so the pressure was slightly on as we travelled to the Emirates to play Arsenal

But you know you’ve built a good team when you go to Arsenal and completely outplay them!

That game was sandwiched between easy victories against Partizan (who we also beat in the away tie) and Hull in the League Cup.

Our 4 wins from 4 Europa League matches also mean that we’re confirmed as winners of our group already - so there will be plenty of opportunities for the backups and youth players in the final 2 dead rubber matches!

And we went into the November international break on the back of an emphatic 5-1 win over local rivals West Brom, with Tammy Abraham again scoring 2 goals!

10 goals in 11 Premier League games is not enough to keep him in the England squad though apparently!

Those goals still only make him 4th highest scorer in the division behind Haaland, Mbappe and… Troy Parrott! All 3 are averaging a goal less than every 60 mins!

Still, Tammy’s goals have got us up to 4th and if we keep up this form we could be in a title race!

At the back, Jon Casado is turning into an incredible player for us - he was signed for big money from Athletic Bilbao just over a year ago but the £51m we paid is now looking like a bargain.

One of our more recent summer signings Jesus Aguilera has annoyingly picked up an injury that will keep him out for a month.

However that now gives £27m signing Leandro Pedroso the chance to stake his claim as our starting right winger - he already has 7 goals and 5 assists across the Europa League, League Cup and a handful of Premier League appearances.

So things are going very well at the moment - there’s a long way to go but this Villa team are very close to becoming the real deal.​

 

[Hampus Silverholt]

We’re 11 years into the save and now at the weird stage where people like Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain and Joao Moutinho are Premier League managers!

A lot of our players are regens, one of which Yuri Kame decided to get sent off in his first game for Brazil!

And in celebration, he got injured for 6 weeks to leave us with limited options in attacking positions.

Not that it mattered as we got an impressive 3-0 win over top 4 rivals Newcastle and an even better 4-0 win over Spurs, who were finalists in the Champions League last season!

Little did I know that was just the start of the brilliant form as we ended up winning every single one of our games in December.

So as we head into 2032, it seriously looks like we’re in a 3-horse title race with City and United.

Tammy Abraham is proving to be one of my best ever signings as the 34 year old has 18 goals in 16 games! That still only makes him the 4th highest score in the league though.

Unsurprisingly the form has earned us a new contract on £55k a week - it’s crazy to think we were on just £140 a week in our first job of the save at Colwyn Bay!

In the Europa League, our squad players more than showed their worth by winning our last 2 group stage games comfortably. We finished top of Group D with 6 wins and 18 goals and will enter the Second Knockout Phase in March next year.

And backup goalkeeper Pontus Dahlberg was also the hero against Arsenal in the EFL Cup quarter final, saving 2 penalties in the shoot out to take us to the semi-final for the second season in a row as Villa boss

We’ll play Fulham in the sem-final, which means we’re big favourites to make it to the final.

It’s not going so well at my former club Blackburn though as Henrik Larsson was sacked with them 16th in the Championship table - just 20 months after we took them to an FA Cup final!

And it’s not faring any better for my previous club before them Lincoln, who are bottom of the Championship table.

But what a month it’s been at Villa, it seriously could not be going any better at the moment!​

 

[Hampus Silverholt]

Our hectic schedule continued at the start of January with our two EFL Cup semi-finals against Fulham.

Considering they were in a relegation battle we were strong favourites, but we still couldn’t beat them at home in the first leg.

The pressure was on in the second leg, so we went with a full strength team.

And that decision paid off, Tammy Abraham is the man!

We’ll play much stronger opponents Liverpool in the final - it’s our first final since the 2030 FA Cup final with Blackburn and the chance to win our first bit of silverware since the League One title as Lincoln manager!

Did the cup run impact league form? Nope!

The incredible set of results continued, this time with a 2-0 win against Chelsea at Stamford Bridge

And we kept on winning and winning and winning, so much so that by the end of January we had won 11 in a row!

For the first time ever we were top of the Premier League table. We also had a game in hand over Man City in 2nd position, who were the team we faced next.

So it was 1st against 2nd in the title race. Even though it was only January it still felt like a pivotal game.

But it was not to be for us as we suffered only our second loss of the season - Haaland’s 2 late goal put gloss on the result for City but the game showed that we’re still slightly behind the top teams in the Premier League

That was our only loss in January, so it was still a very successful month overall for us especially as City went on to drop points

So things are hotting up at the top of the table, we’re level on points with City and United but still with a game in hand.

Not for a lack of trying, but it was a quiet January transfer window for us.

Backup striker Jamie Donley wanted to leave, so the £22m offered by Leeds was good enough to convince me to sell him.

That freed up a bit of funds which I wanted to use to bring in another quality central midfield player.

However it didn’t go to plan, as Man City’s Reinier opted to join Chelsea instead of us whereas Jochen Trager decided to sign a new deal at Bayern after our bid for him was accepted!

So there are no new additions to the squad for now, which I hope doesn’t come back to bite me.

Next up is the League Cup final against Liverpool and a chance of silverware for the first time as Villa boss.​

 

[Hampus Silverholt]

It feels like we’ve had a game in hand on Man City and United for almost all of the season, and that game against Southampton was finally played in February.

A routine 3-1 saw us go top of the table once again. With 13 games remaining it was really becoming a dare to dream moment.

But that bubble was soon burst at home to Everton. We were so unlucky to lose as we were much the better team - but it’s the results that matter!

That result had to be put to one side though, as our first final as Villa boss approached.

And it was a brilliant performance by the players, with Tammy Abraham scoring an early screamer and substitute Leandro Pedroso grabbing a winner late on.

Despite the success we’ve had at Blackburn and Villa, that was our first trophy as manager since winning League One with Lincoln!

The result immediately caused Allegri to lose his job as Liverpool manager. It’s a job I would’ve been interested in at the start of the season, but if we’re going to win a major competition I think Villa are the club that we’ll be at.

Good results continued after that, with two consecutive 5-goal hauls against Sheffield United and Crystal Palace in the league.

It is still stupidly close at the top of the table - just 10 games remain and we’re 3 points off City (but still with a game in hand!)

Something I’ve not appreciated enough this season is how good defensively we have been - we’ve conceded just 18 goals in our 28 matches in the league so far

Left-back Junior is a big part of that form, but it’s his attacking output that’s been more impressive this season. He has 15 assists in the Premier League so far

At times I’ve almost forgotten we’re still in the Europa League as it’s been so long since we’ve played in the competition after winning our group comfortably.

Scottish side Aberdeen will be our opponents in the 2nd Knockout Round.

It’s probably one of the best teams we could’ve faced at this stage and I have to admit that there aren’t too many teams left in the competition who I fear.

We’ve also been drawn against Man City in the quarter-final of the FA Cup. With such a busy schedule, it might have to be a game and a competition that I sacrifice in order to concentrate on the league and Europe.

Some huge games are up next. We play Liverpool, Spurs and Chelsea in our next 3 league games so we’re going to know if we’re still in a title race by the time we’ve played them all!

It’s truly getting to the business end of the season now - massive games in the Europa League and Premier League await us and could determine our season.​

 

[Hampus Silverholt]

Europa League knockout time - we’ve come a long way since being in the second division of Wales many months ago!

We utterly dominated the first leg of our last 16 tie, but could only beat Aberdeen 2-1.

It was a solid performance in second leg though, with back up centre back Burger scoring the solitary goal.

That set us up with a quarter-final against Hannover, who are 4th in the Bundesliga. They’re no pushovers but a team of our quality should be beating them over 2 legs.

The relentless schedule was creeping up on us at this point and is was one step too far against Man City in the FA Cup quarter final - the game going to extra time did us no favours with our packed schedule!

And sure enough, it caught up with us against Hannover.

It was a really dissapointing first leg in Germany and we really should’ve won the game, but ended up losing 1-0.

Tiredness and fatigue were creeping into many members of the squad - so the next 3 games being in the space of 5 days was the last thing that we needed!

The second leg against Hannover was my sole priority, yet we still managed to get a 3-1 win against Southampton in my 500th career match.

Tammy Abraham played 60 minutes in that Tuesday game and was our hero two days later against Hannover.

His early goal set us on our way to a 4-1 victory at Villa Park and a Europa League semi-final!

It’s another Scottish team who we’re up against, but this time we face Celtic in what will comfortably be the biggest two games of the save so far. If we do progress then it will be Bayer Leverkusen or Everton in the final.

Playing Newcastle 2 days after the Hannover second leg was too much for us as a 3-1 defeat pretty much confirmed we were out of the title race, even though we followed that up with a morale-boosting 5-0 win over rivals West Brom

League leaders Man City were playing Arsenal at the same time as the West Brom game - victory for them would mean they’d go 5 points clear with 5 games to go.

But they actually lost!

So with 5 games to go, we’re still just 2 points behind Man City. As exciting as it is to be in the Europa League semi-final, we are very much in a Premier League title race still!

We’re not favourites by any stretch, but there’s a chance…​

 

[FM_TNSSO]

Have loved this all year mate....just wondering what your plans for FM23 might be?

 

[Hampus Silverholt]

Have loved this all year mate....just wondering what your plans for FM23 might be?

Cheers mate, was hoping to end it with a Premier League or Champions League win before FM23 but I'm probably going to run out of time (don't you hate it when real life gets in the way of FM!). Not too sure about FM23 save yet but will very likely be a long-term challenge with a team in Europe possibly Spain/Italy/Germany/France as I've actually never done a save in any of those countries - have you got anything planned?