This is the moment for Aston Villa to strike in the transfer market but there’s one massive pitfall to avoid

Aston Villa suffered defeat at home for the first time in 12 matches in Sunday’s Premier League fixture against Everton.

The Toffees beat Villa 1-0 thanks to Thierno Barry’s goal, a gift from a team unable to ever really get going. The reasons for the lacklustre performance are varied but losing captain John McGinn to injury didn’t help and the already weakened midfield was a problem too.

Add in a poor showing from striker Ollie Watkins and some uncharacteristically shoddy finishing from Morgan Rogers, and Villa were unable either to control the game in any meaningful way or take advantage of the many openings that came their way regardless.

Unai Emery says Villa aren’t top five ‘contenders’

Villa manager Unai Emery attracted much of the immediate post-match attention with the kind of interview he seems more prone to during frustrating transfer windows than at other times.

“We are not contenders to be in the top five,” Emery said. “There are other teams with more potential than us.”

The reaction has been overblown, naturally, and anybody with a brain knows that Emery understands where Villa are in the table and that they’re in a fight for the Champions League places, but wants to play down the idea that they’re favourites.

A foreign manager slightly picking the wrong emphasis on a word isn’t really the topic that should be in the headlines. Emery’s irritation at Villa’s inability to strengthen as he’d wish, and indeed to even hold on to what he has, is not unfounded.

It will be lost to the sands of time that the second half of Sunday’s game was screaming out for Donyell Malen. The forward isn’t the right kind of striker to play as a striker or the right kind of wide player to play out wide in Villa’s system, but he sure can have a telling impact on a football match.

Villa needed that but they had neither Malen nor a replacement. They are not in full control of their transfer business – question the specifics of their recruitment over the years if you like, but that’s the truth of it and the reason why Malen went when he did without being replaced in time for a key game.

It’s not hard to see why Emery would be annoyed when the club level on points with Villa in the table is throwing money around despite sitting on a phenomenal number of Premier League charges.

Villa need to act in what’s left of the January transfer window

Malen’s departure was just one of the explanations for Villa’s lack of heft and intensity on Sunday afternoon.

To be clear, I’m not excusing the performance on that basis – Everton had more absentees in terms of pure numbers. Nevertheless, when you take one of the best midfield duos out of action along with their most experienced back-up and then a captain who can also play there but has been thriving elsewhere, the gaps are going to be evident.

So, with Boubacar Kamara, Amadou Onana and McGinn out of action and Villa’s approach for Conor Gallagher blown out of the water, there’s no mistaking the current state of play as optimal.

Emery and Roberto Olabe might believe they’re working with their hands tied to a degree but it’s understood that there is some wiggle room, even if it needs unlocking by outgoings first. With Jacob Ramsey long gone, Malen out too and Villa’s interest in Gallagher apparently concrete, we have to assume something can be done in this window.

It’ll need to be. I’m not one for getting excited about transfers or flapping my way through every transfer window. My interest is what happens on the pitch and, sociologically and culturally, in the stands. But there’s very evidently a need in this window and an appetite to address it. I think that’s a midfielder like Gallagher and a striker of Tammy Abraham‘s sort of profile.

Urgent or not, it’s equally important that Villa don’t further restrict themselves with panic buys or futile loans. They got this right last year but the last transfer deadline day took Harvey Elliott and Jadon Sancho to the club and there’s been little to no return for those last-gasp efforts.

It’s a very, very difficult brief. There’s no doubt about that. Unfortunately, doing nothing is not an option.

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