In the 1997–98 English football season, Aston Villa competed in the

FA Premier League The Premier League (legal name: The Football Association Premier League Limited) is the highest level of the men's English football league system. Contested by 20 clubs, it operates on a system of promotion and relegation with the English Foo ...

(known as the FA Carling Premiership for sponsorship reasons). When Brian Little resigned as

Aston Villa Aston Villa Football Club is a professional football club based in Aston, Birmingham, England. The club competes in the , the top tier of the English football league system. Founded in 1874, they have played at their home ground, Villa Park ...

manager in February, Villa were 15th in the Premiership and were starting to look like outside bets for relegation. Ruud Gullit, recently sacked by Chelsea, was linked with the vacancy, but the surprise choice for the job was Wycombe manager John Gregory, a former Villa coach. He influenced a late run of form which saw Villa climb to seventh place, and for the second season running Villa qualified for the UEFA Cup via the

UEFA Respect Fair Play ranking The UEFA Respect Fair Play ranking was used by UEFA from 1995 to the 2015–16 season to grant three berths for the first qualifying round of the UEFA Europa League. Since that time it has granted a monetary prize to winning associations. Qualific ...

. There were debut appearances for Gareth Barry (365), Simon Grayson (48), Stan Collymore (46), Darren Byfield (7), Richard Walker (6),

Matthew Ghent Matthew Ghent (born 5 September 1980) is an English retired professional football goalkeeper. He also played for England Under-16 and Under-18 teams. Career Ghent started his football career with Aston Villa as an associated schoolboy player an ...

, Paul Crichton and Lee Collins.

Final league table

Kit

Transfers

Transferred in

Loaned in

Transferred out

Loaned out

Overall transfer activity

Expenditure

£8,330,000

Income

£2,400,000

Balance

£5,930,000

Squad

First Team

Results

''Aston Villa's score comes first''Soccerbase: 1997–98 Aston Villa results
/ref>

Legend

FA Premier League

FA Cup

League Cup

UEFA Cup

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References

External links

Aston Villa official website
*avfchistory.co.u
1997–98 season
{{DEFAULTSORT:1997-98 Aston Villa F.C. season Aston Villa F.C. seasons