Steven Gerrard delivers firm Aston Villa transfer message, ‘clear’ about players he wants in and out

With eight games left of Aston Villa’s 21/22 Premier League campaign, attention of the fans will soon start shifting to that of the summer transfer window.

Manager Steven Gerrard’s eyes, however, appear to have been firmly on that since the closure of the one back in January.

With the 2-1 defeat to Wolves on Saturday all but ending Villa’s slim hopes of a European spot this season, it’s no surprise that the man that took over from Dean Smith back in November already has some of his attention on potential new recruits.

After less than two months in the job it was already clear to him some areas of the team that needed improving.

He added big names such as Lucas Digne and Philippe Coutinho whilst letting some mainstays in recent years like Anwar El Ghazi and Matt Targett depart on loan.

And if it was clear to him then what he did and didn’t need from his team, it’s even more so now.

Speaking after the loss at Molineux, Gerrard explained how everyone at the club is singing from the same hymn sheet and when it comes to the summer transfer window - each and every one of them know exactly who and what they want.

“It’s not just me that’s clear,” he said.

“I’ve said it before and I’ve spoken about it before, I think we’re aligned from the top of the club to the bottom. There’s work going on in the background.

“My close staff, we all know where we’re strong, we all know where we need support. Whether that be in an indiviudal area, whether that be a certain unit of the team.

“We took over a team 16th in the league and we’ve done ever so well to get us into a safe position for now by moving up the table into the middle areas.

“We’ve had opportunities to go and grab the positions above. Today again, if we’d have won the game with a game in hand, we might have been able with eight games to go to try and claw Wolves back but we didn’t put in the performance to really show we can do that.

“The league doesn’t lie at the moment there’s a gap to the teams that are above us, that showed in the first half today. It didn’t in the second-half in my opinion but we need to improve over the course of the game not just turn up in certain points of the game.”

Gerrard added that he expects nothing less from the owners in terms of investment in the summer window but refused to be drawn on just how much funds would be available as it ‘wasn’t the right time’ following a defeat.

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