Aston Villa manager Steven Gerrard has candidly admitted his concern about losing his job after seeing the Villans lose four of their opening five games of the season and sliding uncomfortably into the Premier League relegation zone.
Although Villa haven’t been thrashed at any point so far, losing by just a single goal in their two most recent outings against West Ham and table-topping Arsenal, the defeats are nonetheless already beginning to add up. Currently, only bottom place Leicester are worse off at this initial stage of the campaign.
Gerrard had been a distinguished hero at former club Rangers, delivering the first Scottish title in a decade in 2021 for the Glasgow side. Then when AstonVilla came knocking on his door with an attractive offer and the challenge to make his mark as a manager in the Premier League, hetook the gauntlet and left behind a more comfortable existence to test himself at a more competitive level on the English side of things.
The celebrated ex-England captain arrived at a Villa harboring lofty ambitious in November a few days after ex gaffer Dean Smith was shown the exit, with hopes of securing the club’s first top half finish in the Premier League since 2011.
However, things did not go according to plan as a lamentable run of just two wins in Villa’s final 11 league games of the season saw them slide to a disappointing 14th place finish in the end. When the new season lifted its head, summer recruitment plans and the chance to oversee a first pre-season provided reason for a new measure of optimism, although they have already lost new £26m centre-back Diego Carlos who has succumbed to injury.
Now, with results not forthcoming apart from a solitary win over a drab-looking Everton, pressure is already escalating.
“Of course I [worry about my future], I’m really honest and self-critical,” Gerrard said.
“I’ll do my job to the best I can do, I’ll step forward, I’ll take the responsibility in the best way I can. But if I stood here and said to you that I wasn’t concerned, I think you’d look at me as if I was from a different planet.”