DELETECITY

Your club · Aston Villa

Four players to City, four from City. Same ending.

Take Manchester City out and Aston Villa’s seven Premier League seasons end the same way: relegated in 2015/16. On the way, City paid Villa £20.0m in reported fees for Barry and Delph, plus two undisclosed, and Villa signed four players from City.

At a glance

Premier League seasons
7 of 9 · 2009/10 to 2015/16
Points taken off City
8 in 14 league games
Transfers with City
City paid Villa £20.0m in reported fees for 2 players, plus 2 deals undisclosed; Villa paid City £12.5m in reported fees for 3 players, plus 1 deal undisclosed.

Season by season: real → without City

  1. 2009/10Real: 6th, without City: 5th
  2. 2010/11Real: 9th, without City: 12th
  3. 2011/12Real: 16th, without City: 15th
  4. 2012/13Real: 15th, without City: 12th
  5. 2013/14Real: 15th, without City: 15th
  6. 2014/15Real: 17th, without City: 16th
  7. 2015/16Real: 20th, without City: 19th

The nine seasons

Aston Villa had seven Premier League seasons in these nine, then two outside the Premier League. Take Manchester City out and their fate never moves. They go down in 2015/16 either way: 20th on 17 points for real, 19th of 19 on 16 without City, 23 points from safety. The 0–0 in Rémi Garde’s first match is the point that comes off.

In between, the rebuild mostly hands Villa the free place, the one every club below City gets. Four of the seven seasons are that and nothing more. In 2012/13 they climb further, 15th to 12th, without gaining a point: they lost 5–0 at City and 1–0 at home. In 2013/14 the 3–2 comeback win over City in September comes off, and cancels the free place. Villa stay 15th, one point clear of Sunderland, who were level with them on 38 for real.

Across the nine seasons Villa took 8 points off City in 14 league games: two wins, two draws, ten defeats.

2009/10

A point off fourth

For real Villa were sixth on 64, six behind Tottenham in fourth. Take City out and Spurs drop to 64. Villa lose one point, for the 1–1 at Villa Park in October, and the scorer that day was Richard Dunne, a month out of City. Spurs 64, Villa 63: fifth, one point short of the top four.

2010/11

Bent’s winner goes

Darren Bent scored the winner when Villa beat City 1–0 on 22 January 2011. Take City out and those three points go; the 4–0 defeat at City in December takes nothing. 48 becomes 45, and ninth becomes 12th, level on points with Stoke and eight clear of the drop. It is the one season the rebuild moves Villa down: three places, even after the free place.

The money

City paid Villa £20.0m in reported fees for two players, Gareth Barry (£12m, summer 2009) and Fabian Delph (£8m, summer 2015), plus two with undisclosed fees: Stuart Taylor in 2009 and James Milner in 2010, in a part-exchange with Stephen Ireland. That is 6.3% of the £315.5m City paid Premier League clubs. The money City paid is the one figure here that isn’t a guess: take City out and that money goes too.

The traffic ran the other way as well. Villa signed Dunne for £6m, Ireland for an undisclosed fee, Shay Given for about £4m in 2011, and Scott Sinclair, on loan in January 2015 and then for £2.5m that summer. That is £12.5m in reported fees from Villa to City, plus one undisclosed.

Every season, club by club

Positions are real of 20 and rebuilt of 19; see How it works.