After the year Gareth Southgate has experienced the Aston Villa fans would do well to listen to his considered predictions - "This could be a tough season for us" and "I wouldn't look beyond the four who finished at the top last season when choosing the winners of the championship".

What? No totally unrealistic ambitions? - No. Southgate's journey into pragmatism began with his famous penalty miss against Germany, continued through Villa's embarrassing European exit and a couple of niggling injuries, and ended with his non-selection for England's crucial game with Italy at Wembley in February.

Sullen and with his form suffering, Southgate snapped. "Once Glenn left me out against Italy I thought to myself `This has gone on long enough now. I can't let it affect the rest of my career.' Even though Glenn Hoddle was excellent with me I was very low after Italy - it was the first time I'd ever been left out at any level. But I realise now it was the best thing that could have happened to me. I went away and had a long hard look at things, they had begun to get on top of me. I was very selfconscious about the penalty miss."

Out of the withdrawal Southgate has emerged: "Tougher, better at coping when things go wrong and more relaxed." His high point, and England's, was the victory in Poland and the subsequent impressive showing in Le Tournoi - four games in which Southgate, still just 26, was the only player to start in all. The Brazilian media were certainly taken with Southgate's appearance in the final match when his solo marking of Ronaldo was favourably compared to the attempts of three Italian defenders at the same task.

And, with Italy in Rome in October in mind it was, he said, "so pleasing to beat them playing excellent football. The team is progressing all the time."

Unfortunately that is something Southgate does not think can be said of Villa. In the first of his two seasons in the Midlands following his £2.5 million transfer from Crystal Palace, Villa had won the League Cup, lost in the semi-finals of the FA Cup and finished fourth in the league - only one year after narrowly avoiding relegation. But by not winning anything last season and even though Villa came fifth Southgate said: "We didn't really progress, we stood still." This was all the more upsetting as few at Villa Park had expected it to happen. The £4 million purchase of Sasa Curcic from Bolton last summer was thought by many, including Southgate, "to be the missing link. The suggestion was that we needed flair but it didn't quite work out with Sasa. He had problems settling in, then there was the Milosevic saga. We hadn't foreseen these problems."

Savo Milosevic is back in the fold but Curcic remains semi-detached, a situation which leaves Villa somewhat short in midfield personnel. Southgate, though, is not dumping the blame upon the Serbs. "Too many" Villa players he said, as delicately as he could, "were not dedicated enough, as individuals, perhaps. We thought we could turn it on when we wanted to."

He had expected there to be some strengthening in midfield but apart from the versatile Simon Grayson, bought from Leicester, Brian Little's only significant other purchase has been Stanley Victor Collymore - "pay Liverpool AFC £7 million only".

Collymore may well play in a three-pronged attack with Milosevic and Dwight Yorke and although he has missed a couple of pre-season games it was because of a virus, not a sick-note from his mum. "Stan's addition is an excellent one," said Southgate, who knew Collymore from their time together in the reserves at Crystal Palace. "The bad boy tag is not one that I think is fair. The problems he had at Liverpool were the same ones he had at Palace - he was looking to go home every weekend. But he knew most of the players here anyway and he's near home."

For a second Southgate almost sounds upbeat but that soon changes when it is mentioned that Villa were 20-1 last season and are 20-1 again this time around . "You look at Chelsea. They have brought in four or five new players and not just this season but last season too - this slightly concerns me. I'm at the stage of my career where I want to win things but I'd still rather finish second in the league than win a cup. The league is still the measure of a team."