Villa’s Sporting Star columnist Dave Woodhall believes the claret and blues’ recent charge has been built from the back as the season picks up steam for Martin O’Neill’s men.

Now it’s four out of four. Beating Stoke was not only our fourth league win in a row, it was also another game where we kept a clean sheet. Considering that last season we seemed to give a daft goal away in every match, that’s a mighty transformation.

Much of the praise for this turnaround must go the Villa’s central defensive pairing. Firstly Richard Dunne and James Collins, then Dunne and Carlos Cuellar, have been impressive this season. The signings of Dunne and Collins right at the end of the transfer window raised a few eyebrows, but manager Martin O’Neill has been vindicated in his unhurried buying policy.

Dunne inspiring Villa to another three points just a couple of hours before the manager who sold him, Mark Hughes at Manchester City, got the sack is an irony which didn’t go un-noticed. Carlos Cuellar’s improvement this season is also praiseworthy.

The game against Stoke might not have been an impressive display – in fact it didn’t far off match the freezing conditions – but it was an important one. Villa won without playing well.

We got a bit of luck as well, with Stoke having a goal disallowed that might in other circumstances have been allowed to stand. The ability to win when you’re having an off-day and also getting the run of the green are important factors in football.

So we move into the Christmas period, one of the most decisive of the season. Arsenal away, followed by Liverpool at home. Even a couple of months ago these would have been two difficult games, but the way things are going we could easily take six points and wouldn’t that start to make ‘experts’ wonder?

The Liverpool game is of course, at night and live on TV. Off the top of my head I can’t think of the last time we kicked off in daylight at home over Christmas. It’s a ridiculous state of affairs I’ve ranted about many times and will no doubt return to in the future.

In the meantime, here’s to a six-point Christmas and a trophy-winning New Year.