It's Friday afternoon and we've got a day off tomorrow so I'm taking time out of my not so busy Friday afternoon schedule to get a post out about the match. And I'm getting it out early because there are a couple of things to be writing about. That I'm thinking about heading to the pub and staying in town tonight.
There have been reports or mostly just speculation that the manager can't lose this game. And by that, the reports and speculation are suggesting if we get beat, he'll be going. I'm not so sure that that would happen, but I sense there is a group of supporters that would like that to happen.
My views have been written on this recently and they've not changed. I accept that things are not going to change overnight so think the manager should have time. Am I nervous, of course, but I also see we haven't lost in four matches, so it could be worse.
And if we look at the table right now, we are three points from eighth place in the League. That said, if results went against us tomorrow and Sunday, I have to also write that we could find ourselves in the bottom three. We can't just look at one side and not the other.
So Chelsea it turns out is an important match because Potter has them, very quickly, playing differently and things seem to have just happened for them. And this is why it's important. Because if Potter can turn Chelsea around so quickly, we have to start to see Aston Villa kick on from not losing to winning.
And Chelsea are going to have a go at us and I think that is going to help. We just have to be quicker. And by this and I've written this a few times in the past, all we seem to do really well is pass the ball between our midfielders and defenders from side to side and when we've done that for five or six passes, the team we are playing against has a lot of time to organise themselves.
When that happens and we end up taking ten or twelve passes to get the ball forward, we're competing against an entire team, instead of three or four players, if we had attacked more quickly. For years, we've not done this. Chelsea will allow us to do this, it's can we?
So, if results are good for us this weekend, we could climb the table and it would feel like we're in a good place on Sunday evening. But if results don't go for us, it's going to be very hard for me to write on Monday that the manage needs more time. And we're in this fairly precarious position because we couldn't beat the bottom of the table side the other night.
It's that last bit that makes everything feel like we're building on sand. I'll be back on Sunday with a post and some match facts from the BBC. Until then, hope results go for us tomorrow.