Chelsea fans will disagree, but they bought their success in the last decade and are so far from it these days that they will probably never see it again. At the end of today - they could be the third best team in London.
But there is nothing wrong with buying success - it is the game these days and if someone came in to Villa who had an endless supply of money and bought it for us, I'd not complain - I'd be happy and I'm craving for it right now, because the owner we have is only here for what he can get out if it.
But it can't feel nice when you get given that success and then it is taken away - or more to the point, the money isn't provided to keep buying it. That doesn't mean they wont beat us today - they probably will, but an Aston Villa side with a half decent manager will be able to fight for a draw and had we done it right, we'd be wanting to go to places like Chelsea and look for the three points.
Happy New Year
This is going to be my last post of the year - I'm not going to get anywhere close to writing a report after this game, even if we thrash them, so I'm going to say it again - thank you.
Thank you for a great 2011. Thank you for the banter. Thank you for the debates and the anger and the pride and the passion. Thank you. You are what make this site the site it is and at the end of the day that is why it is still here after nearly 7 years.
I did my review yesterday - it was a simple one - so I'm not going to say anything else other than make a prediction for the year to come: Randy Lerner will sell up.
At The Bridge
So, with the game kicking off in just under five hours, let the banter begin. We will have updates, team news and anything else we can muster before the kick off as well as odds below - they do tell a story - and you can follow on Twitter if you want too and for the new year, comes a new type of post after the match - but like I said, that isn't coming today.
So, to my prediction and it is not going to be pretty. We will do what we do and put ten men behind the ball when Chelsea have it and sometimes even all eleven. We will counter and we might get lucky and you will see everyone running for the ball again and some will mistake that for us getting better.
We might even score a goal, but I suspect that for everyone we might get, Chelsea might get two. A win would be fantastic, a draw a surprise (although not really considering he might put the entire team behind the ball) and a loss would be about what I'd expect form this manager.
Transfer window opens tonight and Sir Doug Ellis
Pray that this manager doesn't sell any of our players. If he does - there could be blood. Pray instead, that he gets the sack and yes, I'm in a mood today.
Before I go and if you didn't know, Doug Ellis has been knighted in the New Year's Honours List. He will now be knows as Sir Doug Ellis. Oh, to have someone at the club that cared about the club and knew something about football now.