It’s October and those wonderful summer memories are vanishing just as quickly as the adverts for Christmas begin to appear. The kids are back at school and the nights are drawing in. Temperatures are dropping but the football season is heating up.



So what will October – a month so dark and dour – bring for Aston Villa, a Premier League club who have plenty of reasons to hate this particular time of the year?



In three of the last four seasons, Villa have sacked a manager in October.



Tim Sherwood was relieved of his duties during the doomed 2015-16 campaign, after overseeing just one win in the first 10 outings. Roberto Di Matteo followed a year later with one win in the first 11 games of Villa’s Championship season. And last October, Steve Bruce was axed after three wins in 11 games – the final outing clouded in controversy and hostility as Villa drew 3-3 with Preston North End, on a night where a cabbage was hurled at the...