Aston Villa are looking increasingly impressive, and some of their summer departures are probably wishing they had stayed put.

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Aston Villa beat Man City at the weekend, continuing their steady improvement this season.

On Football Insider, former Aston Villa scout Bryan King explained how impressed he had been by the way Unai Emery had once again regenerated a team from the ashes. As usual they started the season slowly, but are now picking up steam as the summer arrivals settle in:

“They’ve settled in and they’re starting to perform very well. They look a good side, Villa,” King said.

“You certainly have to give a lot of praise for the recruitment during the summer. They never sat back. They went out and spent the money that they got in from [Morgan] Rogers and from the other players.

“I bet people like Tielemans are starting to think, ‘I wish I’d stayed’. One player doesn’t make a football team.”

Villa reassemble on the fly while Man U continue to look lost

Tielemans may well wish he had stayed at Villa. And given how well Villa are starting to do this season, they might be wondering what their ceiling would have been had they been able to keep the Belgium star.

It’s really a tale of two clubs – one which has infinite resources and yet can’t build a successful squad or find a manager who can bring success. The other has a top coach who continues to rebuild, even after a summer where he lost the spine of his team.