But I’m not happy with the performance in a game that was there for the taking. Here’s why.

When the team was announced before the game, we assumed they’d be lining up in a 3-5-2 formation - Cuellar joining the usual centre backs, Young and Milner on either wing and Barry, NRC and Petrov in a packed midfield. That would have been a bold move, but an exciting and logical one. Why else would he drop the full-backs? Why, to play Gareth Barry at left-back, of course! What the fuck? What a waste of Barry’s creative talent, and hardly the best way to make sure he stays past January and beyond. The poor bloke’s been pushed from position-to-position for his entire career, and it’s only under O’Neill that he’s been kept in the same role… until now. Stupid. And it can hardly do Shorey and Young’s confidence much good - they’ve made slow starts to their Villa careers, but they were just starting to gel. Now it’s all up in the air again.

Throughout the game, we struggled against Portsmouth’s physicality. We kept trying to win the ball in the air, which wasn’t going to work against anyone other than Defoe. We suffered from some bad luck as well, with a lot of 50-50 balls going against us, but that’s no excuse. Some players just didn’t perform. Milner in particular failed to live up to expectations, displaying the type of form that makes me worried that he’s not as good as he looked amongst a team that finished 16th the last time he was here. Cuellar looked great at times - popping up all over the pitch and commanding the right wing - but towards the end of the game he made a few sloppy mistakes. Gabby had a very poor game, but then he should never have been playing in the first place, having picked up a knock in mid-week. Up front is the one area of the pitch where we lack strength in depth, and I’m worried it’s going to bite us in the arse. If Gabby and Carew both get injured, our strike force will be Marlon Harewood and a 12 year old boy.

Harry Redknapp took a fair bit of stick during the match, and quite rightly so. It all stems from last season’s game - played just a few days after he was questioned for dodgy transfer dealings - in which he responded to the inevitable ribbing by moaning to the press about our disgraceful fans. Yes, that was a sensible way of calming the matter down and ensuring it didn’t happen again. Not that there’s any excuse for what happened on Saturday, with some twat in the Trinity Road throwing a coin at ‘Arry, missing and hitting the linesman. What a small-minded, moronic, pathetic thing to do. He should never have missed. Aha.

Oh, and while I’m on the subject of ‘Arry, he deserves everything he got for his comments about the Under 21 squad during the week. Now that the senior side are doing well, there’s no opportunity for him to feel smug and superior about them. So he laid into the U21s, claiming they had no consistency (despite going unbeaten for 27 games), and that there was no signs of the next Beckham or Rooney (despite the existence of Theo Walcott, and the fact that Rooney himself is still only 22). Thank fuck the FA had the sense to go for a foreign manager this time round.

There were some positives to come out of the match. Petrov had another very good game, and like I say, it was an improvement on this time last year. But we really should have pushed on and won the game after they had a player sent off. This is my one and only criticism of O’Neill - he fails to make decisive changes when they’re needed. We desperately needed to shake things up during the second half - even Harewood would have done - but no changes were forthcoming. It was only in the dying minutes that Barry was finally released from defensive duties, by which point it was far too late.

My dad has a theory that this performance is part of a ploy to give Ajax a false sense of security. I hope to God that’s the case.

First and foremost, we couldn’t have picked a better game to start with. Ajax. At Villa Park. October 23rd. Fan-fucking-tastic! This could be one of those nights - the ones we’ve been dreaming of since Inter Milan and Athletico Madrid. It’s a tough group - there are three former European Cup winners in there - but we should be alright. The order of the fixtures has been kind to us, with us playing the two toughest teams first and last. If we cock up against Ajax, we’ll have time to recover. If we beat Ajax, the Hamburg game could be a formality. In the middle, there’s Slavia Prague and Zilina - two lesser teams, but nonetheless tricky games.

Luckily, the format is so ridiculous that we need only be the third best team in order to go through. We can do this. Getting through to the knock-out round will be a big achievement, and we’ve got to be confident. Not over-confident - John Gregory’s lasting legacy is that I always shit myself before every single European game we play - but we can finish third at the absolute minimum. And if we can get a famous Villa Park victory along the way, then all the better…

PS. A quick word on the Chelsea game. Despite all the pre-match confidence, we shouldn’t have been too surprised at this result. We were completely and totally out-classed, but it wasn’t that we didn’t turn up - it was that they did. They were superb, and nobody could have beaten them. A lot of people have said that this goes to show that we’re nowhere near the Big 4. This isn’t the case - it just shows we’re nowhere near the Big 2. Unless they cock it up, Chelsea are probably going to win the league this season, and losing to them doesn’t mean we’ve no chance of finishing higher than, say, Liverpool or Arsenal. We may not be in the top four right now, but we’re still there or thereabouts, and that’s what’s important.

We were great against West Brum. It may be the lesser of our two main derbies, but it’s still played in that tough, unrelenting style we’re so uncomfortably familiar with. Two goals in as many minutes was brilliant, and our triumvirate of Gabby, Carew and Ashley were superb throughout. Carew in particular was unlucky not to have extended our league, hitting the same post twice in quick succession early in the second half. West Brum had some chances, but we were never particularly troubled. It was a little nervy towards the end, but that’s a derby for you. A third away win in six days, into the top four, and life was looking pretty peachy.

And then we played QPR. As with the Stoke game, there was a lot of talk on the official site before the game about how we shouldn’t underestimate our opponents, and how it’ll be a tough game and all the rest of it. Can we not do this in future, please? It makes us lose. That can be the only explanation. Well, that and the six changes, some piss-poor finishing, Gareth Barry uncharacteristically missing a sitter, and the continued existence of Marlon Harewood.

I don’t think you can blame MO’N for changing the team around - they desperately needed a rest, and the players he brought in should have been good enough. But it just highlighted the fact that we still lack a lot of strength in depth, and that despite the vast strides we’ve made towards breaking the Big Four, we’re not quite there yet.

So once again we’ve dropped out of the league cup at a very early stage, and as such squandered possibly our best chance of our first proper silverware in 12 years. It’s a bugger, but there are positives. We’ve got enough fixtures as it is, and if we had to chose one competition to drop out of, it would be this one. But let’s not pretend that getting knocked out was a good thing - it’s a big disappointment.

(As an aside - how interesting it was to see Gareth Barry given the armband in Lausen and Reo-Coker’s absence. What was more interesting, however, was hearing Martin O’Neill emphasise afterwards that Laursen is still the club captain and that Gareth was only standing in. It’s clear that all is not quite forgiven just yet.)

Fortunately, with our regular league line-up back in place, we got a good result against a decent Sunderland side. Going behind was a bugger, and it was symptomatic of there being far too much space in midfield. Our defence seemed a little slow to react, and we paid the price. However, this seemed to fortify our attack, and Ashley Young took over the show to force the equaliser. What a beautifully cheeky move from Laursen to penetrate the Sunderland wall and duck at the last second to give the ball a path through to goal. Carew scored with a beautiful back-heel, which was every bit as good as Ronaldo’s against us at Old Trafford last year, but you can bet that it won’t be shown anywhere near as often as that one.

We sat back a bit during the second half, which was a little worrying at times, but it paid off. Seven games in three seconds, or whatever it is. And thanks to Arsenal hilariously losing at home to Hull, we’re third in the league. This is excellent, albeit only temporary, if we’re honest. But still, if we can stay there or thereabouts for as long as possible, it’s a great statement of intent. If we can continue to make ourselves a nuisance and punch above our weight when the table starts to settle down around Christmas… well, we might not have to bother with the “Europa League” next season.

We now have the relative luxury of a five day break before the return of Litex Lovech in the UEFA Cup. They need to score at least three past us to prevent us getting to the group stage. No Gregory-esque arrogance here, but we should be alright. Then the slightly tougher test of Chelsea away next Sunday. I will quite happily take what we got there last season. And you know what? I believe we could even top that.

For almost the entire first half Litex were gutsy and well organised and Villa were lazy, complacent and all over the place.  10 minutes in the least surprising thing in the world happened: A sloppy tackle from Coker gave away a free kick on the edge of the box and an incredibly soft goal ensued.  The blame has to lie squarely with Friedel as this should’ve been a routine catch.  Still, it just wouldn’t be Villa if we didn’t let at least *one* goal in each game.

Eventually, the laziness and complacency did wane enough for us to force an equaliser just before the break, but that was after 45 minutes of Litex seamlessly morphing from smooth movements going forward to an intensely defensive cluster that lone striker Agbonlahor just couldn’t punch through.  It was telling that our first goal only came when we finally made use of a counter attack (from a situation that almost saw us go 2 down, for fuck’s sake!) and catching their defensive block at the wrong end of the pitch.  Even then, it took a mix-up between goalkeeper and defender for Reo-Coker to get through.

The second half was much more even, that was until Litex went and got two players sent off.  Oops.  Then, and only then, did Villa look like they were on the verge of winning the game, and an emphatic Barry penalty pretty much assured that.  There followed a string of half arsed chances with Petrov finally putting one away after another penalty area scuffle.  His muted response to the goal (although clearly coming from a different place than myself) pretty much sums up my feeling to the whole game.  “Yay” we won but “eh” we needed stupid mistakes and two Litex sendings off to actually get it done.

I’m concious (perhaps a little too late) that I’m probably being overly negative towards the game.  We did, after all, pretty much wrap up the whole tie tonight despite the problems, which did include the lack of Carew and Ashley Young, the former of which we missed intensely as a clearly isolated and over worked Agbonlahor failed to make any real impact on the Litex defence.  Let’s not forget, also, that Litex’s performance, especially in the first half, was consistently strong and indicative of a team that really, truly deserved at least a draw.  It’s a massive shame for them that the whole team imploded so badly in the last quarter of the game.

My original fears about repeating the 2001-02 debacle were unfair.  The Villa of 2001 would not have survived this game but today’s Villa ground out a very respectable looking result even if the performance itself was no where near all it should’ve been.  It’s a very big and very important distinction and hopefully once we’re in the group stages we can start banishing those bad memories as effectively as we are currently doing so in the Premiereship.

Moving on to the Spurs match, this was our finest performance of the season by far. OK, Spurs were hilariously shit (and it couldn’t have happened to a more deserving team), but we’ve got to take the credit for an excellent team performance. Gareth Barry is no doubt back to his best, and the likes of Shorey, L. Young and Friedel are most definitely big parts of the team after that game. In the end, the 2-1 scoreline is a bit of a disappointment, considering we could have had four before half-time, but after last season’s corresponding fixture, I’ll take that. And being fourth in the league? I’ll take that too.

The only real downside was John Carew Carew picking up a knock, especially considering the attack is the only area of the pitch where we don’t have adequate cover. And I think Marlon Harewood’s miss late on against Spurs proves that he doesn’t count as “adequate cover”. Hopefully, he’ll only miss the Litex Lovech game - Spurs kicked off a ludicrous run of 7 games in 21 days, and we can’t go through that many games without our talisman.

Speaking of the Litex Lovech game, how annoying that the kick-off is at 3:20 on a Thursday afternoon? Stupid Bulgarians.

Match reaction to come tomorrow, when I’ve recovered from a particularly shitty train journey back to London.

2) We have been drawn against Litex Lovech of Bulgaria in the first round. My limited research reveals that last season they finished fourth in the league and won the Bulgarian Cup. Obviously, we can’t take anything for granted (John Gregory, take note) but they shouldn’t present us with too much trouble, especially considering we’re away the first leg.

3) WE HAVE SIGNED JAMES MILNER! GET THE FUCK IN! I love Milner. You may recall I included him in my dream team a couple of months ago, where I talked about how “we’d love to have him back”. Well, now we have. He’s been around for so long that it’s easy to forget that he’s still only 22. I can’t wait to see him slot into the team. Milner, Reo-Coker, Barry and Young across the middle, with Sidwell, Petrov, Gardner, Routledge and Osbourne in reserve. Villa with strength in depth? Whatever next?

The main reason for this is our defence. Now, we should not be conceding three goals against Stoke City, no matter what the circumstances. The problem isn’t the quality of the players we have; it’s the quality of the players we’re missing. Even out on the right, Olof Mellberg was a huge influence on the team, and it’s only now that we realise how great he was for seven years. And didn’t I tell you we’d miss Freddy Bouma? It’s not that Shorey and Young are worse players than those two (although, they are) - it’s just that we’ve lost two big, strong defensive titans, and we don’t know what to do without them. This is a time where we’d expect to turn to Martin Laursen - our new skipper and one of our best players last time round - for that defensive stability and confidence, but even he is looking unsure and making daft mistakes. It all needs time to gel, and we need to be patient… but if our defence is being given the runaround by Ricardo Fuller, how are they going to cope with Fernando Torres next week?

Having said that, what a fantastic goal by Fuller for their second. Reminiscent of Bergkamp against Newcastle, only, you know, by a Stoke player. But what the pissing hell was Gareth Barry playing at in the build-up? Is he deliberately trying to lower his value? I’m giving him the benefit of the doubt for now, but anything less than a full-hearted performance against Liverpool, and I will not be happy…

At the moment, we’re in a frustrating scenario. We have one of the best attacks in the country. There’s no doubt about that. Carew, Gabby, Young and Barry - with the likes of Harewood, Sidwell and Petrov backing them up - would scare the shit out of most defences in the league, and we really can’t complain with six goals in our opening two league games. But the defence is letting them down at the moment. Scoring two goals away at Stoke should have made whatever they did irrelevant. But as it stands, we shit ourselves every time the ball comes anywhere near our box. It’s a confidence thing - those five players (the back four and keeper) are more than capable of keeping teams at bay. But if they’re not sure, then we’re going to concede goals. Five goals conceded against Man City and Stoke? Hardly the sort of stat that suggests we’re going to break into the top four, is it?

But still. It’s the UEFA Cup second leg on Thursday, which should be interesting. Hard to tell whether Martin will rest some of the attacking players and give some of the kids a chance, but he should definitely play a first choice defence. The more games they play together, the more confidence they’ll get. And without that confidence, we’re going nowhere.