You will be hard pushed to find a fall from grace in the Premier League as dramatic as Darren Bent's under Paul Lambert this season.
Since signing for a club record £24m nearly two years ago, Bent could expect to be the first name on the Villa team sheet and even started the season as skipper.
Now his complete absence from Saturday's squad to play Sunderland did not even come as a major shock.
It might have been an injury which kept the forward off the bench for the trip to his old club.
But, if recent matches are anything to go by, a cameo role is all the striker could have expected anyway.
Do not expect him to be restored to Villa's starting XI to face Manchester United this weekend either.
Nor would a January departure come as a surprise despite both player and manager playing down a breakdown in their relationship.
There was initially some sympathy for Bent at his axing - when he was first dropped for the game with West Brom in September he had scored in his previous start at Southampton.
However, the lion's share of supporters are right behind the manager's decision and there is starting to look like some method in what, at one time, looked like madness from Lambert.
When Bent played in the same team as Ashley Young and Stewart Downing, he had the service suited to his predatory game based in and around the six-yard box.
Without those two wing wonders, Villa have to play a different way.
The job for Lambert has been harnessing an attack still worth in excess of £40m.
As Alex McLeish will testify, doing so is easier said than done with players like Gabby Agbonlahor, Stephen Ireland and Charles N'Zogbia all blighted by inconsistency.
It is early days and it will take more than wins over Swindon and Sunderland to prove Villa have turned the corner - how far they have come will be tested in their next three fixtures against the two Manchester clubs and Arsenal.
But there are at least finally a few signs Lambert has found a formula.
The blistering pace of Agbonlahor and tireless industry of Andreas Weimann has combined promisingly with the creative guile of Ireland, while Christian Benteke, the spearhead, already looks a very sound investment at £7.5m.
It is worth noting Benteke is a regular starter for Belgium ahead of Kevin Mirallas and Romelu Lukaku, who have both made good starts to the season in the Premier League with Everton and West Brom respectively.
You would not put your house on him with a chance quite like Bent, yet the Belgian is a muscular mountain of a man with a tidy touch and can bring others into play, as he did with the knock-down for Agbonlahor's winner on Saturday.
That made it two goals apiece for the pair from their last two matches.
Lambert's summer business proved he is not interested in superstars, with the Dutch league and lower divisions the main sources for his recruitment drive.
Price tags and reputations count for nothing - he said it himself - and he has stuck to his word by freezing out household names like Stephen Warnock and Alan Hutton and leaving the likes of Shay Given, N'Zogbia and Bent warming the bench.
The big criticism of Bent is he lacks a creative dimension, nor he is the type to run the channels. What he is, of course, is a deadly finisher.
One seasoned Villa observer recently remarked that the problem with him is it is like playing with 10 men if he doesn't score.
Right now, it is a risk Lambert seems unwilling to take.
