What a rollercoaster season it was for Aston Villa.Sat in 19th place prior to the Premier League's coronavirus induced suspension, Dean Smith's side Here's a breakdown of Villa's first season back in the top flight.There were certainly reasons for Villa fans to be optimistic at the beginning of the 2019/20 season. Sadly, Villa exited the FA Cup at the earliest opportunity - going down in the third round at Championship promotion hopefuls Fulham. When you consider he spent the thick end of £150m on 12 new recruits, it represents reasonable value for money even if some of them didn’t work out, and head of recruitment Jesús García Pitarch has just left the club.Elsewhere it has been reported that Bournemouth could consider legal action in a bid to win compensation from the Premier League following their relegation, on the spurious grounds that a perfectly good Sheffield United goal against Villa was ruled out by a rare Hawk-Eye malfunction. With more appearances and minutes than anyone else, Grealish has been an ever-present in Villa's side - grabbing eight goals and six assists in the process.If Villa want to stay up next year, they need to do everything they can to persuade him to stay put.He came, he saw, he headbutted his teammate, he left.Not quite the impression Danny Drinkwater would have wanted to make, but that's exactly how things panned out after an equally shambolic loan at Burnley earlier in the season. Ourexplains more about how we use your data, and your rights. By Luke Hatfield | Aston Villa | Published: Jun 18, 2019 | Last Updated: Jun 19, 2019. In this utopia, transfer speculation of any kind would be strictly forbidden and all player moves would remain shrouded in secrecy, thereby ensuring fans would not find who has joined or left their club until the team-sheets are announced an hour before kick-off on the opening day of the new season.Quite apart from the fact that we would be spared the tedium of lengthy discourse forensically analysing the fact that Declan Rice has “liked” a tweet posted by the Kidderminster Harriers social media disgrace team, it would be intriguing to see the reaction from Chelsea fans at the exact moment they realise that, yes, Frank Lampard’s Chelsea manager Frank Lampard has actually replaced their goalkeeper and defence with a job lot of expensive foreign wingers and playmakers.Back in reality, the future of Jack Grealish is the subject of the day’s big While Villa have shipped criticism for only just avoiding the drop despite having spent £145m on new players last summer, the brickbats were not entirely fair as at one point after securing promotion with a job lot of loanees he couldn’t keep, Dean Smith had so few outfield players at his disposal it looked like he might hand his kit-man a debut. Read More Gemma Davies and Sian Rogers both receive individual accolades. Aston Villa Premier League season review for 2013-14 Report and verdict on Aston Villa's 2013-14 season, including best and worst moments, results, stats, transfers, quotes and players A draw with Everton followed by a memorable home win against Arsenal meant that Villa's survival would go down to a nail-biting final day finish.After a dismal run of two points from ten games either side of the restart, it seemed almost certain that Villa's expensive gamble had not paid off. Leave does not necessarily mean leave, Sorry your browser does not support audio - but you can download here and listen https://audio.guim.co.uk/2020/07/27-36762-gnl.fw.20200727.sj.fw2707.mp3 “After inexplicably re-subscribing to The Fiver after more than two years of GDPR-knack, it has been reassuring to see Noble Francis still featuring regularly in the letters section. You’re drunk!”“I must have retired about five times now, but there’s always something that’s brought me back, a challenge, helping somebody out, and this is a similar situation” – taking his lead from every bank-heist thriller in history, Neil Warnock is going to stay on as Middlesbrough manager next season. Dean Smith 's men will again grace the Premier League following their final-day …