Crystal Palace winger Jordan Ayew has told talkSPORT that certain players that were relegated with Aston Villa in 2016 are now ‘flying’ and they were ‘unlucky’ when they went down.
During the summer heading into Villa’s first relegation in nearly three decades, there was a sea-change on the field, with a number of senior players leaving or being sold from Christian Benteke to Fabian Delph.
The likes of Ayew, Idrissa Gueye, Jordan Amavi, Adama Traore, Jordan Veretout, to name a few, were signed up by the club. The problem was they lacked any experience to tackle the fire they were going to enter.
Ayew touched upon his time at Villa, what things were like in training and he also highlighted some of the players who have picked themselves up since that relegation.
“When I first came, I was very ruthless, intense,” said Ayew. “It wasn’t easy but, at the time, Villa had signed maybe five players or six players from Ligue 1.
“We all had a great season [prior to joining]. So, I was like ‘Woah, this is going to be a good team’. Obviously, it was a good team. You could see in training. But just that things weren’t working for us. It was one of those years where things are difficult.
“Now, you can see where most of those players are. Veretout, Gueye, Amavi and Gestede. You can see everyone is flying where they are. It was just a year where we were unlucky because most of the games we were better than the opposition. At the end of the day, if you lose then you are in danger.”
Looking back at those players relegated with Villa, Gueye is playing for a certain French team called PSG, Ayew was named Palace’s Player of the Year last season.
Left-back Amavi is playing his trade in the Champions League with Marseille, Traore is now one of the most feared wide players in the Premier League and Veretout is at Roma.
The problem with Villa four years ago wasn’t the inexperienced players they purchased because they were the right players bought at the wrong time. And what they have done since proves they had talents in their boots.
But the manner in which the club was being run off the field for years, added with how some of the experienced players such as Joleon Lescott, Micah Richards and Gabby Agbonlahor performed during that relegation season, didn’t help matters.
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