It’s been a busy summer already for Aston Villa and today they confirmed their 5th signing of the close season, Antonio Luna, Sevilla’s Spanish left back. He’ll be joined at the club by Denmark internationals Nicklas Helenius and Jores Okore, the Bulgaria midfielder Aleksander Tonev and Holland Under-21 star Leandro Bacuna.

None of them are household names, but the financial reality of life at Villa these days means that they need to look a bit harder, finding players with potential, lower transfer fees and lower wages than the established names might command. We could be sat here in a few months applauding Paul Lambert for his genius in unearthing these gems, it could just as easily go the other way though, and therein lies the gamble.

In many ways they’ll be faced with a similar situation to that which confronted them at the start of last season. Whilst Christian Benteke certainly hit the ground running, it took the likes of Matthew Lowton and Ashley Westwood a little longer to find their feet. Although they, and the team as a whole, eventually came good, Villa Park was a nervy place to be for the majority of the campaign, with safety not assured until last couple of weeks.

They’ll want to avoid a repeat of that this year, but individual errors will surely be made as Lambert bloods this latest batch of youngsters, and it’ll be interesting to see how much of a learning curve he affords them. Personally I think he did well to hold his nerve and keep the faith last time out, as did the chairman in sticking with him, and would back him to do it again. Villa fans hoping for a calmer time of it this season might be disappointed though.

I like what they are trying to do with creating a young talented squad and its good the Chairman and Manager seem to have a strong relationship and understanding of what the project is, but (there's always a but) how long before the fans get tired of them being a team that will aim for safety from relegation and middle table?

And when the young prospects have a good run and attract the big teams, will the supports like that the club will sell and thus making Villa a feeder club for the big teams in Europe?

Arsenal fans seem to be able to cope with it ;)

I suppose the idea is that once you sell a few on for a healthy profit (Benteke, Weimann perhaps) you can reinvest that cash to sign slightly more well known unknowns, and progress that way. It certainly seems a better strategy than the Martin O'Neill model of paying over the top fees and wages for established names.

I read in the run-up to the Champions League final that Dortmund's wage bill is about the same amount as Villa's, and funnily enough it seems as though Villa are trying to emulate the Dortmund model now.

lol Arsenal fans have Champions League football every year, not quite mid table like Villa are and they ae starting to get pissed off by it ;)

Germany has a salary cap which is why the Dortmund model works so well, and they have to develope home grown talent too.