Alex McLeish has admitted his Aston Villa side cannot compete financially with the Premier League big boys.
Aston Villa manager anticipates a tough campaign ahead
Alex McLeish has admitted his Aston Villa side cannot compete financially with the Premier League big boys - but insists they will match them with commitment.
This summer has seen Liverpool robustly trying to reinvigorate their squad with multi-million deals for Stewart Downing, Jordan Henderson and Charlie Adam.
Manchester City have also underlined their desire to remain in the top four with the club record £38million signing of Sergio Aguero, while city rivals United have also spent around £50million strengthening their squad.
Expenditure
It is that type of lavish expenditure that McLeish can only dream about, and one that he knows enables his Premier League rivals to compete in a different sphere from his Villa outfit.
"It is phenomenal. It's amazing the parameters that have now been set. It's very difficult for a lot of the Premier League, there's no chance of keeping up with that, and you just can't compete," he said.
"You would expect that Manchester City would now be under a lot of pressure to win the league because of the spending power that they have but the top four, five, six teams are spending really highly and it's very difficult for us to compete."
Spirit
He added: "What we need to try and establish is a phenomenal team spirit, a will to win that the players will be prepared to have every single game in the season from the first whistle to the last whistle.
"We have some quality. We've got to believe that we can cause teams problems if we can have a great bond, a great team spirit.
"When Uruguay won the Copa America, they spoke about the spirit within the squad and it's a manager's dream really to try and harness that kind of spirit."
