It is what it is, at Brentford without Ronaldo

We're half way through the season and we're sixth place. A sensible person might think that not such a bad place to be. Of course, we would all like to be first and have all the money in the world, but when financial fair play is rule of the day, we can't just go out and buy another player or charge a little more for short sponsorship or match day advertising.

I like to think of myself as fairly sensible and knowing that the second season in the Championship is always tougher than the first, I like to think that top six, half way through the season isn't that bad. I mean, if the season ended now, we'd have a chance. Or we could fire the manager and watch ourselves drop down the table.

Here's the thing that so many don't seem to be able to grasp; we have a sensible CEO that is keeping the owner in check, so we wont be getting rid of the manager. And top six half way through the second season isn't so bad.

At Brentford

Now, things can always be better. We could be playing Champions League football and have Ronaldo and Bale wearing claret and blue. We could be scoring three goals a game or playing like Barcelona.

But even if you support Manchester United or Chelsea, things are not always great and you need to spend literally half a billion to buy the Premier League these days. And we're in the Championship, we're owned by a cartoon wheeler dealer and it looks like Gabby Agbonlahor is going to play for us today.

I'm not writing about expectations, this is the real world. Today we travel to north London to play at a stadium with a capacity of 13,000 and there are groups of our supporters that think we are going to lose and some that would be even happy if we did lose, so they'd be able to bang their drum of sacking the manager.

Yes, it's the same people that have banged that drum all season, so it doesn't matter what happens.

Me, I'm just hoping for a fun match and three points. It doesn't matter if it doesn't happen. Tomorrow will still come, the sun will still rise in the morning and I'll have my coffee and read my email. We still wont be in the Premier League and we still wont have Ronaldo.

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Match facts from the BBC

• Brentford's 3-0 win over Villa at Griffin Park last season is their only win in five previous home meetings in all competitions, losing the four other matches between 1935 and 1953.
• Villa won five of six league meetings between 1935 and 1947 (D1) but have failed to win any of their past three across the last two seasons (D2 L1).
• The Villans have won one of their last 21 away matches on Boxing Day (D7 L13), a 2-0 win at Derby in 1999.
• After winning four of their previous five Boxing Day games in league competition (D1), the Bees are winless in the last three.