Marvelous Nakamba has been at Aston Villa for over a year now but a long and illustrious future ahead in Birmingham still seems far from certain at this stage. The 26-year-old’s playing time has been limited to just two Premier League appearances this season, totalling a mere 13 minutes, which suggests that he is some way down the pecking order at Villa Park. Of course, it was never going to be easy to immediately hold down a starting position in the Premier League after arriving from Club Brugge in Belgium in 2019. The pace of play in the Belgian First Division A is some way off that of the Premier League and for Nakamba, who is a defensive midfielder, it really was the proverbial baptism of fire trying to break up attacks and keep the likes of Mohamed Salah, Sergio Aguero and Harry Kane in check. Marvelous Nakamba is going to Wembley!!! Drop an emoji and celebrate with us! #AlwaysFootballTime #ZimExcellence pic.twitter.com/PkCjWPB6cx - DStvZimbabwe (@DStvZimbabwe) January 31, 2020 Villa's turbulent 2019/2020 season With that said, Villa boss Dean Smith showed a great deal of faith in the Zimbabwean and used him 29 times in the Premier League in his first season. All things told, it was a campaign that many Villa fans were relieved to have behind them after avoiding relegation on the last day of the season. To say that it was touch and go would be an understatement of some proportion, given that if it wasn't for a freak occlusion from hawk-eye in the first half of a crucial match against Sheffield United, Aston Villa would have been relegated. Needless to say, the 2019/2020 season brought with it a lot more trauma than it did celebration. This is perhaps where Nakamba is a victim of the circumstances by being part of the lasting image of that taxing campaign. Indeed, given just how close Villa came to returning to the Championship after just one season of Premier League football, the groundswell of opinion in the Aston Villa boardroom was that they needed a fresh start. This approach was centred around a change of tack in the transfer market with the onus now on recruiting players who had a proven track record in England’s top-flight. A new broom sweeps clean With Villa having played eight games already this season, you might be tempted to say that this new way of doing things has already paid dividends, as Dean Smith’s men have already accumulated 15 points and sit in seventh place. And, as for the prospect of relegation, which loomed so large last season, as of the 26th of November, Betway have priced Villa at 20/1 to go down. That's further confirmation that the new approach taken by the Villans is proving to be successful. Where this leaves Nakamba, however, is a question that is hard to answer but his stats for this season speak for themselves in terms of his absence in the starting line-ups. In reality, the less the midfielder has to do with Villa’s recovery and subsequent surge up the Premier League table, the more he will be associated with the failed summer signings of 2019. Indeed, sitting idly by and