How Aston Villa Can Reach the Champions League

Following a 7-1 annihilation at the hands of Chelsea at Stamford Bridge last weekend, it has become apparent that Aston Villa are slowly losing out in the race to gain the fourth UEFA Champions League place, and will probably never reach Champions League qualification at their current rate.

As was theorised in a previous article , the Villans are trapped in an ineluctable cycle; they've hit their performance plateau and are physically unable to reach any further.

In that article, it was realised that the cliché explanation of the lack of first-team players Villa manager Martin O'Neill has at his disposal was the reason for Aston Villa's Champions League failure yet again.

In this article, the possible solutions Aston Villa Football Club could employ to solve this problem will be analysed. After all, there's no use in just identifying a problem; once identified, it needs to be solved.

Instant Success

One of the most obvious solutions would be for owner Randy Lerner to invest more of his own money or to find new outside investment in the team, which would allow for a greater transfer budget.

This would enable Aston Villa to bring in the three or four sufficient standard players to be able to fill in adequately for the currently overworked starting 11.

However, Lerner is not a ludicrously wealthy businessman from the United Arab Emirates, so he cannot provide the money Villa needs for this type of solution to take place, hence rendering it rather unrealistic.

Non-instant Financial Success

Whilst immediate financial gain and subsequently a solution to the Champions League conundrum isn't an all too realistic possibility, increased financial power can make for a bigger transfer budget and thus result in more good players coming to the team.

And this increased monetary power can come through investment in infrastructure, an investment that Randy Lerner is capable of making.

If Aston Villa—besides the obvious choice of increasing the capacity of Villa Park—can improve things like merchandise sales through several official club megastores built around the UK, as well as invest more in advertising to promote services like their TV station, their official membership scheme, etc., they can easily increase revenue.

This idea is more realistic and achievable, considering Aston Villa is a very marketable football club.

They are almost guaranteed participation in the UEFA Europa League, they are Champions contenders, and they're one of the most exciting teams to watch in the Premier League.

Their stadium, Villa Park, is also very accessible from all points of the United Kingdom through national rail links.

Be Like a West Ham United

Another strategy Aston Villa could utilise is to develop players from the youth academy into top quality talents.

Nathan Delfouneso is one player of a good enough standard in the Villa first-team who was developed through the ranks, but quite frankly, there aren't many more.

This is where Villa could adopt a similar approach to East London's finest, West Ham United, who have developed the likes of Frank Lampard, Joe Cole, and Rio Ferdinand in recent times.

However, the major drawback of doing this is the fact that Aston Villa would have to give these youngsters playing time in order to develop.

This would therefore mean Villa would have to take a step back in their ambition for a few years and settle perhaps for middle-table obscurity in the Premier League.

After all, West Ham have developed some the world's greatest talents, but look at where they are as a football club now: far off in terms of being as powerful as Aston Villa.

And the question is, can Aston Villa really afford to take such a step back? It will reap rewards in three or four years time, with Champions League football likely to become more of a reality than a dream.

But in the short-term, it could well be slightly too detrimental to the finances of the football club, and there's no guarantee these youngsters will stay at the club or will be great enough to spur Aston Villa to success at the highest echelons of European football.

Or just improve your fitness...

If all else fails, Aston Villa manager Martin O'Neill can solve the problems of his key players fatiguing as the season progresses by dramatically increasing their fitness levels.

It is possible, considering footballers are not very fit compared to sportsmen like endurance athletes (cyclists, marathon runners, etc) and the fittest of them all, Formula One drivers (as proven by medical studies).

Whilst performance enhancing drugs like erythropoietin (EPO) and anabolic steroids are obviously banned by FIFA, a more rigorous and demanding training programme on the players can, over time, dramatically increase their fitness.

Simple though it may seem, it's a last resort; an unrealistic solution due to the fact many players won't want to make the sacrifice of ludicrously strenuous effort to become the fittest athletes in the sport, and it'll also hinder Villa's attempts to reach the Champions League for a few years.

Also, by the time these players would reach peak fitness through a new training regime, many of them would be too old to sustain that level for more than one season!

To read how Aston Villa have found themselves trapped in an ineluctable cycle which needs to be solved by the possible solutions above, click here .