Aston Villa need to start spending more money if Steven Gerrard is going to realise his ambitions, according to Simon Jordan.
Former Rangers boss Gerrard has got off to a mixed start at Villa after arriving from Rangers to replace Dean Smith.
They've had some big results under the former Ibrox boss and have climbed to 11th in the table, but have struggled for consistency with Gerrard winning just eight of his 20 matches so far.
Villa made four signings in January with Philippe Coutinho and Lucas Digne among those brought in.
But three of those were loan deals with only Digne setting them back a transfer fee.
It was just six months ago that Gerrard was openly critical of the Rangers board, blaming a lack of investment for Europa League defeats to Lyon and Sparta Prague.
And former Crystal Palace owner Jordan reckons he may have similar concerns at Villa, who he says must front up the cash if they went to push for Europe in the Premier League.
Dispelling the myth surrounding Villa's recent reputation for spending big, Jordan told talkSPORT: "We will say Villa spent £400m (since promotion in 2018) but they didn't, they spent £370m and took £120m back in so they spent £250m over three years,.
"£80m a season is not a huge amount today for a team that is finishing in tenth in the Premier League. I think Gerrard is doing all right and I think that he is not beating teams above him in the Premier League is incidental because he has not got a team that is good enough to beat them.
"Nobody really expected them to be in Europe this season and he picked up a difficult team going in the wrong direction and settled them.
"He hasn't set the world alight but there are lots of very good managers in front of him."
Speaking back in October shortly before his move to Villa, Gerrard claimed the Ibrox board "hadn't spent a penny" in the transfer market in the summer.
Juninho Bacuna, John Lundstram, Fashion Sakala and Nnamdi Ofoborh padded out the squad on free transfers.
Gerrard said: "We've been short in the two Europa League games, but at this level - which is improving year in, year out - if we want to keep growing and going to the next level we need to spend big money in transfer windows. It's as simple as that.
"To compete against the teams we've got to spend big money.
"In the last two windows we haven't spent a penny. So, there has to be some realism there as well.
"To compete with these teams and to beat them on their own patch, we have to spend money to compete at this level.
