First things first. Chelsea were, as Martin O’Neill rightly conceded, absolutely brilliant. Breathtaking football played at an exhilarating pace by supreme, powerful athletes of international football ability.
So let’s make sure we get that on the table before the autopsy begins.
Oh dear, Aston Villa. Yet another one of those benchmark games billed as an opportunity for O’Neill’s team to show just how far they have come finished, with a painful reminder of how much further they have to travel.
For a highly attentive day at the office from the excellent Brad Friedel, gamely supported by the defiant Martin Laursen, Villa would have been buried beneath an avalanche of goals.
Twenty seven attempts from Chelsea to Villa’s eight; 15 on target to Villa’s three. But that was a token three. Dave Beasant returned in goal for a penalty-taking competition with three supporters at half-time.
Celsea could have left him there for the second period without suffering any undue alarms.
What will, or should, worry O’Neill was the worrying snapshot this offered of the collective psyche of this Villa team.
This was the match where they needed to prove that they could at least stand face to face with the big boys and trade a few punches.
This was an opportunity for each player to show that this was the stage on which they belonged, worthy opponents and genuine challengers to the kind of opposition Chelsea represented.
Not for the first time in the club’s quest to change the nature of their Premier League existence, Villa shrank from the challenge.
From the moment Chelsea began fizzing the ball around their despairing challenges – and that immediately followed the kick off – so the willpower and conviction seemed to drain from O’Neill’s team.
A cold, hard, reality check for our flagship club, then, and not just in talent levels.
A string of previous Villa managers, from Ron Atkinson onwards, have been unable to extract the sense of second class citizenship which infiltrated the club’s DNA sometime after 1982. O’Neill appears no nearer a solution.
Atkinson, Villa’s first Premier League boss, was in the media ranksfor radio duty doubtless reminding himself of the days when he too was exasperated by his team’s mental shortfall when the big, big challenges were presented to them.
The class of 2008 were similarly exposed. This was a sobering reminder for England aspirants Ashley Young and, particularly, the anaemic Gabriel Agbonlahor, that they must do a little more before they can truly start complaining about their expulsion from Fabio Capello’s plans.
The defeat carried an urgent memo for the manager too, about other personnel. Curtis Davies and Luke Young were both withdrawn after disturbingly uncomfortable first periods, Young struggling to cope with Florent Malouda’s pace and physicality, Davies hesitant, nervous and unconvincing.
Both were at fault in the two goals which Chelsea rattled past Friedel before the break, Joe Cole and Nicolas Anelka the scorers, and Davies may well suffer from the more assured performance of his replacement Carlos Cuellar after the break.
Nicky Shorey was another who looked out of his depth in this company while for all their immense effort and running, Nigel Reo-Coker and Stiliyan Petrov were equally fragile in terms of their ability to make an impact on proceedings.
Of course, these figures were being compared with the best, the very best. In those familiar stalwarts Frank Lampard and John Terry, Chelsea had the game’s most telling competitors, with John Obi Mikel and Michael Ballack completing a central midfield axis which brushed Villa aside with worrying ease.
Perhaps Jose Bosingwa summed up the yawning gap which still, depressingly, exists. Coveted by O’Neill, he had no chance of recruiting him against the financial might of Chelsea.
His performance at right-back gave the home side dimensions which Villa simply could not reach.
To drive home the distance between the sides, it should also be noted that this was a Chelsea team living on its reserve assets. Manager Luis Felipe Scolari was already without Didier Drogba, Deco, Ricardo Carvalho and Michael Essien.
They completed the game without Anelka and Joe Cole, both removed because of injuries. Difficult as it is to imagine the class gap could have been any wider, it is terrifying to consider the carnage that might have occurred had Chelsea been at full strength.
Chelsea boss Luiz Felipe Scolari has undoubtedly added fresh impetus to their football, which has much more of an attacking swagger about it these days, all of which left Villa floundering from first minute to last.
They will merely be grateful they got out of London’s swankiest football venue without any more damage to their goal difference, for which Friedel deserves the lion share of the credit.
He began by making tremendous saves from shots of awesome power by Ballack and Malouda. For a moment, Villa dared to hope that they could keep Chelsea restricted to firing from range.
Lampard incredibly missed from point-blank range as Villa’s resistance began to crumble and in the 21st minute, a fluffed clearance from Davies was devoured by Chelsea’s rampant midfield to set up Joe Cole.
O’Neill attempted to stem the tide by switching Agbonlahor to a wide-right role intended to check Ashley Cole and Malouda’s threat down the left.
It was to no avail, as he and Luke Young were left trailing by another surgical incision on that flank which enabled Anelka – having already thrashed a shot against Friedel’s bar – to score at the third time of asking.
It was James Milner’s misfortune to get his longest run-out of his second Villa incarnation in this game as the other second half substitute. He stepped into a team which was largely playing on the retreat, even if there was a marginal improvement to their defensive security after the break.
Chelsea, applying the gas whenever they felt like it, continued to make chances which required a combination of Laursen’s fortitude, Friedel’s excellence and a less ruthless strike-force for Villa to avoid further damage.
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