Villa’s Sporting Star columnist Dave Woodhall believes it’s time for the claret and blues to prove they belong on the big stage in the Carling Cup final.

Anyone watching most of Sunday’s game against Burnley would have wondered what all the fuss was about.

Villa were dire for most of the first-half and ordinary towards the end. The reason they were ordinary at the end was that for about 20 minutes in the second-half they were on top form. Anyone who only watched that part of the game would have wondered why we aren’t running away with the league.

Burnley were dire and fell to pieces after we scored our second. But, as is always the case on such occasions, you can only beat the opposition you’re playing and we did so with the minimum of fuss.

Goals were scored, run-outs had and no injuries sustained. With the games we’ve got coming up that’s the most we could have hoped for.

Crystal Palace will be a tough game on Wednesday night. This will be their big opportunity to shine and their supporters will relish the big occasion, as well. Whatever team boss Martin O’Neill puts out should be enough to see us into the FA Cup quarter-finals, although it may take extra time to get there.

That leads us onto Sunday, and the holy grail of the Carling Cup final against Manchester United at Wembley.

I don’t care how many sets of other supporters might look down on the League Cup, they would all swap places with us as we’re walking down what I still think is called Wembley Way, unless it’s now got some horrendously tacky sponsor’s name.

It’s a showpiece occasion, and it should be the first of many. Some 14 years without a trophy is a long time and it’s about time we got our cup back. In the past Villa have had the annoying habit of treating the big stage as though we don’t belong there.

If you do that, it’s hardly surprising when you don’t last there very long. We have the opportunity now to start behaving as though this is where we belong. Whatever happens on Sunday we have to look forward to the next one rather than forever keep celebrating past glories.

After all, it might only be a few weeks until we’re doing it all over again.