Matt Maher: Aston Villa paying an unfair price for their progress

Yet it needed just 40 or so from Vidagany, Villa’s director of football operations, to succinctly sum up the problem with profit and sustainability rules for many clubs as they currently stand.

“To get revenue, what do you need? To win. What do you need to win? To spend,” he said.

“But you can not spend. So if you don’t spend, you don’t win, you don’t get revenue and you stay in the same cycle always.”

There, in a few short sentences, is the nub of the problem from Villa’s point of view. In the space of less than two years they have been transformed from a mid-table club to one in the Champions League, yet they cannot spend like the latter because their revenues are still that of the former.

The PSR rules, implemented to prevent clubs from spending beyond their means, have the unfortunate and serious side-effect of punishing those who advance too quickly up the table. Even Unai Emery came close last week to conceding that by qualifying for the Champions League in May, Villa were probably a step ahead of where they really ought to have been barely 18 months into his reign.

Regulations which disrupt the kind of thrilling ride seen at Villa Park in recent times can’t be said to be good for the game and it is probably just as well the Premier League’s FFP rules are to be modified from the end of this season.

Of course, it is easy for everyone to see the problem. Coming up with a solution which offers enough breathing space for aspirational clubs to pursue their dreams, while preventing state-owned entities like Manchester City and Newcastle from running amok, is the hard part.

For the Premier League, embarrassed this week by the news Leicester look likely to escape punishment for breaching the rules on a technicality, there is an increasing need to get a grip on the situation.

Right now PSR doesn’t seem to be working particularly well for anybody.