I remember them being above mid table but after they beat Tottenham theyre now fourth and only 2 points off the top of the league. That means that if they didn’t lose to Nottingham forest or Everton they would be first. Ik they really haven’t had difficult match ups but it’s still very impressive.
Villa always had an exceptionally talented team from the time they stayed up and got better players under Gerard but he couldn’t do much and Emery did a few more tweaks and made them more dangerous, in my opinion they were always gonna challenge for Europa and more since the last 3 years at least