Journalist drops bold claim on Aston Villa squad if Gerrard wants to be "competing for Europe"

Aston Villa do not have many players that are good enough to play for a top-seven club, according to journalist Dean Jones.

The team are sitting comfortably in mid-table at the moment, but Jones has suggested they have a long way to go if they are going to break into the European places moving forward.

Villa’s league campaign has been a fascinating one to follow over the past seven months.

It started disappointingly as the side lost five games on the spin in October and early November which led to Dean Smith being sacked.

He was subsequently replaced by Steven Gerrard, who guided the team to four wins in his first six top-flight matches in charge.

The Midlands club then went through another sticky spell, which saw them win just one of their next seven league fixtures, before they recovered impressively to win three successive matches against Brighton, Southampton and Leeds without conceding a goal.

Gerrard’s men were beaten on Sunday by West Ham, but they have still managed to move themselves up to ninth place in the table.

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Villa have some eye-catching attacking options at their disposal, with Philippe Coutinho, Danny Ings and Ollie Watkins all shining recently, while Jacob Ramsey in midfield also appears to be a fine talent.

However, Jones has claimed that the overall quality of the squad is not good enough to break into the European spots.

He told GIVEMESPORT: “You can see they’ve got three or four, maybe five players that can be in a team that’s competing for Europe, but the rest of them, probably not.”

With Ings and Watkins up front, there are certainly goals in the team. It remains to be seen whether they can keep hold