Nearly a decade ago, Aston Villa sank to their lowest ebb in the Premier League era.

A 1-0 loss away to Manchester United on April 16 in 2016 condemned Villa to the Championship and banished them from the exclusive group of teams who had never been relegated from the Premier League.

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Now, the Birmingham-based outfit are one of two English clubs left standing in the Champions League and are in the semi-finals of the FA Cup.

It is a scenario even the most optimistic fan would never have conceived when Villa were relegated or when the club was threatened with a winding up order from HMRC over outstanding debts in 2018.

But here they stand on the brink of what Villa legend Gabriel Agbonlahor believes is ‘the biggest game’ since the club’s European Cup triumph in 1982.

This is how the Villans fell flat on their faces before two new owners and a certain Spanish manager helped wake up a sleeping giant of English football.

‘THE INEVITABLE WILL HAPPEN’

Although Villa’s relegation was sealed in 2016, Agbonlahor believed the seeds for the club’s demise were sown several years in advance.

Stars like James Milner, Stewart Downing, Ashley Young and Gareth Barry were sold but never adequately replaced.

It didn’t help that then-owner Randy Lerner tightened the pursestrings in a bid to slash the wage bill.

Paul Lambert steered a baby-faced Villa squad to survival in the 2012/13 and the 2013/14 seasons but was axed when he looked bereft of answers in the 2014/15 campaign.

Tim Sherwood replaced him and immediately injected a much-needed jolt of energy that helped Villa avoid the drop for a third season running and even secure an unlikely berth in a FA Cup final.

But circle the drain enough times and there’s only ever going to be one outcome.

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Villa great Agbonlahor opened up on the darkest era in the club’s modern history[/caption]

“We survived three years in a row with a squad that was losing their best player from 2010 every year,” Agbonalhor told talkSPORT.com.

“Then we weren’t investing in top players, we were going for players that were going to be good players. Jordan Veretout, Jordan Amavi and Idrissa Gueye went on to have decent careers, but at that time they were new to the Premier League and maybe they needed a couple of years.”

Agbonlahor added: “Sometimes when you look at clubs that get relegated, if you don’t keep investing season after season and letting your best players go, the inevitable will happen.”

The Villa great also pointed to the axing of Sherwood as the point of no return that season as his replacement, Remi Garde, won just three of his 23 matches and failed to see out the season.

Agbonlahor noted Garde didn’t bring the ‘positive energy’ needed to survive a relegation battle, something he believed Sherwood had in bundles.

“We had it in previous seasons under Paul Lambert where we always knew we were in a battle, but we were going to do it, we were going to survive,” Agbonlahor said.

Lowest win percentages by Aston Villa managers (Premier League matches only)

Manager	Matches	Wins	Draws	Losses	Win percentage
Remi Garde	21	2	6	13	9.6%
Alex McLeish	38	7	17	14	18%
Paul Lambert	100	25	25	50	25%
Tim Sherwood	23	6	2	15	26%
Gerard Houllier	30	8	10	12	27%
Graham Taylor	51	15	13	23	29%
Dean Smith	87	28	16	43	32%
Steven Gerrard	37	12	8	17	32%
David O’Leary	114	37	34	43	33%
Gary McAllister	6	2	2	2	33%

“He (Garde) just didn’t give you that energy. It was inevitable, especially when he got the job. I felt if Tim Sherwood stayed in, we would have had a chance because everyone was on board with him.”

Villa’s relegation brought in a new owner in the form of Chinese businessman, Dr Tony Xia.

But if Villa fans thought Xia, or Dr Tony as he’d become known, would bring the good times back to Villa Park, they were sorely mistaken.

‘IT WAS CHAOS’

Xia first major decision as Villa owner was to install a new manager and he opted for Chelsea’s Champions League-winning coach, Roberto Di Matteo.

However, the Italian’s record of one win from 12 games before he was swiftly sacked prompted a scathing review of his managerial credentials from Agbonlahor.

“Di Matteo, I don’t think he had a clue,” Agbonlahor said.

“Even speaking to some of the ex-Chelsea players, I felt the Chelsea players won the Champions League, not Di Matteo.

“He wasn’t a great manager and that showed in his career. When he came to Villa, he didn’t have a clue at training and didn’t get involved much as well. The players didn’t warm to him and that’s why he was quickly dismissed.”

Steve Bruce was brought in as his replacement but could only steer Villa to 13th in the club’s first Championship season.

The 2017/18 campaign promised plenty more as Villa drafted in Chelsea icon John Terry and Robert Snodgrass on loan from West Ham United following heavy investment the season prior in the form of Ross McCormack, James Chester, Mile Jedinak and Jonathan Kodjia among others.

Villa fans were also kept abreast of the club’s transfer dealings by a string of bizarre mathematical equations posted on Twitter, now X, by Xia himself as he’d indicate how many deals were in the pipeline and how close they were to being completed via a percentage.

Despite the vast star power across the squad and Jack Grealish’s continued emergence as their creator-in-chief, Villa fell at the last hurdle in the play-off final to Fulham.

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Despite a star-studded team, this Aston Villa squad fell short against Fulham[/caption]

Devastation was etched on every Villa player’s face that afternoon at Wembley, but for Xia, his entire world was on the brink of collapse and he almost took the famous English club down with him.

Xia had once trumpeted the concept of a Villa-themed amusement park but now could not provide the funds for the club to pay its tax bill, which was estimated to be around £4m.

It meant Villa, one of the founding clubs of the English Football League, faced the threat of a winding-up petition from HMRC.

“He was the sort of owner that proved what everyone thought about him,” Agbonlahor said.

“He probably didn’t have a tenner to his name but acted like he did. He banked on Aston Villa to get promoted for him to use that money to keep the club alive.

“Once we didn’t get promoted, that’s when it was chaos. It was scary times for the club.”

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With Villa on its knees and resigned to losing players like Grealish and Chester to keep the club ticking over, in came Nassef Sawiris and Wes Edens to save the day in July 2018 as they instantly pumped around £30m into the club, with Xia relegated to a minority stake and a co-chairman role.

It wasn’t long before Sawiris and Edens made the key decision to axe Bruce and install Dean Smith, a boyhood Villa fan, in charge.

Smith managed to do what Bruce could not as a stunning run of late season form catapulted Villa into the play-offs where they went on to beat Derby County 2-1 in the final.

Promotion also meant former owner Lerner was due £30m due to a stipulation put in place by Xia when he purchased the club, but the debt fell to Sawiris and Edens who paid it off instantly and by doing so took over Xia’s remaining stake, ending the Chinese businessman’s financial interest in Villa.

Sawiris and Edens, who are worth an eye-watering £9.3bn and £2bn respectively according to Forbes, have certainly put their money where their mouth is following Villa’s promotion to the Premier League in 2019 as they have invested upwards of £700m in the ensuing transfer windows, per Transfermarkt.

However, the most important arrival under the pair took place in October 2022.

Aston Villa’s 10 most expensive signings under Sawiris and Edens

Name	Club purchased from	Fee	Season
Amadou Onana	Everton	£50.6m	24/25
Moussa Diaby	Bayer Leverkusen	£47m	23/24
Ian Maatsen	Chelsea	£38m	24/25
Emi Buendia	Norwich City	£32.6m	21/22
Ollie Watkins	Brentford	£29m	20/21
Pau Torres	Villarreal	£28m	23/24
Leon Bailey	Bayer Leverkusen	£27m	21/22
Diego Carlos	Sevilla	£26.6m	22/23
Lucas Digne	Everton	£25.7m	21/22
Jhon Duran	Chicago Fire	£25.2m	22/23

And the rest, as they say, was history.

HOW FIXING ‘FANBOY’S’ MISTAKE KICKSTARTED GOLDEN ERA

Smith’s time as Villa boss came to an end following a dismal defeat against Southampton in November 2021 as Christian Purslow, the club’s then-CEO, moved quickly to install Steven Gerrard, who was at Rangers, as the new man in charge.

Purslow knew Gerrard well from their time together at Liverpool when the latter was a player while Purslow was their managing director from June 2009 to October 2010.

However, Gerrard never quite convinced and was sacked before he could even get on the team bus following an embarrassing 3-0 loss away to Fulham in October 2022.

Purslow had his chance to bring in his man and failed, so Sawiris decided he would take charge in the search for Gerrard’s replacement.

It was an approach Agbonlahor was fully on board with and he even went as far as labelling Purslow a ‘bit of a fanboy’.

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“He knew Steven Gerrard from Liverpool, went and gave him the job,” Agbonlahor said.

“It didn’t work out for him, but I still think he’s (Gerrard) an outstanding manager. When they sacked Steven Gerrard, I think they said, ‘Mr Purslow, leave it to us. We’re going to decide now. You had a chance, the person you brought in didn’t work.’

Sawiris underwent a silent mission to Villarreal and would not leave without Unai Emery in tow, even if the Spanish side demanded a reported £5.2m in compensation for his services.

It was telling that when Villa first announced Emery, a picture of the Spaniard and Sawiris in a hotel room was posted on the club’s social media.

When Emery arrived, the Villans sat in 17th and were one point above the relegation zone but by the end of the 2022/23 season he had brought European football back to Villa Park as a 7th-place finish secured a spot in the Europa Conference League.

The good times continued to roll  at Villa Park under Emery as he guided Villa to the Champions League for the first time in the club’s history the following campaign.

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It was also the first time Villa would compete in the continent’s premier club competition in 41 years, having also won the European Cup in 1982.

THE £710M REVOLUTION THAT LED TO ‘BIGGEST GAME’ IN HISTORY

Alongside Emery’s tactical mastery, the collective improvement of all the players under the Spaniard has been key to the club’s surge.

Take John McGinn and Tyrone Mings, who first joined when Villa were in the Championship remain key members of the first team and have featured in the club’s Champions League campaign.

As vital as a coach of Emery’s calibre has been to the club’s rise, Villa’s rapid improvement would not have been possible without the deep pockets of the owners.

Each passing season has seen an increase in the quality of players who arrived and it was no more evident in January when Marcus Rashford and Marco Asensio joined on loan from Manchester United and Paris Saint-Germain respectively.

For some Villa supporters, the thought of seeing these two in a claret and blue shirt would have seemed unthinkable as recently as three years ago, but Agbonlahor felt otherwise.

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“This is a club that is a sleeping giant, a club that’s won a European Cup,” Agbonlahor said.

“This is a fantastic club, good location for players. Look at the stadium, it’s an iconic stadium.

“I feel like it’s an attractive club. Rashford will have looked at how many England players have played for Aston Villa, so many. In my era, Milner, Downing, Young, Barry, myself.

“So he would have played at Villa Park many times and understood how big it is.”

Villa fans need no reminders of the club’s size but even with their grand history as a former European Cup winner, Wednesday’s Champions League quarter-final against PSG remains utterly surreal.

Emery’s side travel to Paris for the first leg before they return to Birmingham for the second leg next Tuesday.

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For Agbonlahor, who was born four years after the European Cup triumph, the second leg is undoubtedly ‘the biggest game’ he will ever watch as a Villa supporter.

“In my lifetime, it’s the biggest game,” Agbonlahor said.

“Yes, the play-off final was a big, big game. Bayern Munich was the biggest game at home, when we won. But now, the second leg at Villa Park, and hopefully they’re still in the tie.

“That will be some game, the second leg. That will be electric. I went to the Bayern Munich game and Club Brugge at Villa Park and I’ve never seen an atmosphere like it.

“When you’re there as a fan, like I was, you feel like this is something you’re going to talk about in ten years’ time, ‘I was there’. That’s what I think the Paris Saint-Germain game will be like.”

Keeping pace with PSG over one leg, let alone two, will prove to be immensely difficult.

Best win rate in Champions League and Europa League knockout fixtures (10+ ties)

Manager	Knockout ties managed	Win rate
Zinedine Zidane	16	87.5%
Unai Emery	39	82.1%
Jupp Heynckes	16	81.3%
Vicente Del Bosque	10	80%
Andre Villas-Boas	13	76.9%
Luis Enrique	13	76.9%
Carlo Ancelotti	49	75.5%
Rafa Benitez	30	73.3%
Pep Guardiola	44	70.5%

Liverpool, the runaway leaders in the Premier league, conceded 48 shots across both legs to PSG in their round of 16 tie, 18 of which were on target.

But Emery has pulled it off before with Villarreal in 2022 when they beat Bayern Munich in the Champions League quarter-finals despite shipping 45 shots in both legs.

It’s why Agbonlahor wouldn’t want any other manager in charge for the occasion.

“There’s going to be so many big battles all across the pitch,” Agbonlahor said.

“But they (PSG) are probably the most complete side I’ve watched in the last two or three years. They work hard all over the pitch, they’ve got pace, they’ve got technique in the middle of the pitch, they’ve got wingers who will get at you. 

“They’ve got quick defenders. Even if Villa try to counter-attack PSG, they’ve got very quick defenders at the back. So it’s going to be a really, really difficult game. 

“But if there’s ever a manager who will have a plan, especially against one of his old clubs, it’s Unai Emery.”