Villa 0 Chelsea 1 - analysis

They have come too far to crumble now.

While it may get a little worse before it gets better – reference this week's arduous Moscow excursion – they have proved countless times under Martin O'Neill that this era is being driven by a powerful sense of purpose.

It would be equally wrong to ignore the messages of Saturday's first defeat in 14 Premier League games as Chelsea completed a deserved double over the team which has dared to challenge the natural order.

The Guus Hiddink love-in, which unfortunately had to start somewhere and it turned out to be Villa Park, generated yet more media overkill at the Dutch coach's debut in the Chelsea dug-out.

Nevertheless, Hiddink had needed only one scouting mission to Villa to work out how to stop them and that must be a reminder of how much work O'Neill still has to do, to gain a true equal footing with the big boys of England and Europe.

Hiddink scouted Villa's UEFA Cup tie against CSKA Moscow the previous Wednesday and quickly concluded that to stop Ashley Young is to stop Villa - and to silence the Holte is to soften the team's willpower.

Chelsea did both. Ruthlessly and cynically at times but to great effect.

Having re-claimed their third place to now resume the chase of Liverpool, Chelsea left Villa and O'Neill pondering the next phase of the team's development.

Villa fans can still be optimistic this will be helped by both the money and the lure of Champions League football despite a dispiriting six days in which they went out of the FA Cup and conceded advantage to CSKA in the UEFA Cup.

But the team still has a healthy two-win lead over fifth-placed Arsenal – who look even less convincing at the moment – in the league and can put themselves back on course by overcoming Stoke City at home next weekend.

Beyond that, this was another reminder of the greater range of options O'Neill has to add to this Villa team in order for it to reach his objectives.

Gareth Barry and Stiliyan Petrov strove manfully but were out-numbered and consequently outplayed by Frank Lampard, Michael Ballack and the brooding Mikel – just as they were at Stamford Bridge when Chelsea won even more handsomely.

Emile Heskey and Gabby Agbonlahor were, as such, restricted to short rations. Heskey performed admirably and won enough of the ball in the air to keep his partner interested; but neither are natural finishers and the half chances that came their way were snatched and squandered.

But most damningly of all, Ashley Young was nowhere to be seen, save for a first half free-kick which he bounced off the bar and a couple of trademark crosses which fell agonisingly behind and then in front of Agbonlahor.

Hiddink had correctly assessed that if this source of menace was shut down, Villa would have little with which to trouble such an experienced and proven collection of players as he has inherited and he was proved right.

Young, a player O'Neill has rightly lauded this season, now finds himself being judged at the highest levels and has yet to prove that Fabio Capello is wrong not to accelerate his graduation to the England team.

In full-back Jose Boswinga, he found an opponent able to match him stride for stride while Mikel's protective patrols in front of John Terry's defence restricted Young's preferred option of cutting inside to arc in those menacing crosses.

This was a day then when Young, just like Villa, were reminded that they still have much to do to find the extra dimensions required to beat the very best.

Trailing to what would prove to be the 19th minute winner from Nicolas Anelka, O'Neill's team were able to prise a couple of chances from Chelsea's authority aside from that early Young free-kick.

But Petr Cech was equal to both, denying Agbonlahor and Barry in the second half, and Chelsea's cynicism did the rest.

Hiddink may be known as a disciple of "total football" but his team's performance on Saturday was more pragmatic than pleasing. Their time-wasting in the second half was flagrant and frustrating and demanded more severe control from referee Mark Halsey.

But it served its purpose. Villa were never able to build the kind of momentum which makes them such a handful especially when they are steam-rollering towards the Holte in the game's later stages , a strategy Chelsea also denied them by making Villa kick towards their massed ranks behind that goal for the first half.

When O'Neill did try a different tack, with a reshuffle of his personnel to accommodate John Carew partnering Heskey in the last 20 minutes, it carried the stamp of off-the-cuff desperation rather than pre-planned strategy.

It should be stated that there were several points of encouragement in this otherwise sobering experience.

The individual displays of James Milner, Heskey and Luke Young were highly commendable as was the goalkeeping of Brad Friedel who ensured Chelsea's victory margin was not increased when Villa were throwing caution to the wind in the final quarter hour.

O'Neill's comment on Chelsea's time-wasting was both amusing and incisive.

He said: "We must be doing something right when Chelsea are taking half an hour over a throw-in with 30 minutes still remaining."

Let us not forget that Villa's energy levels - such a vital component in their success - can only have been drained by a third game in six days.

To reach a Monday morning feeling slightly disappointed to have dropped to fourth amid all this is a measure of how far Villa have come. But let no-one be mistaken. This defeat was also a measure of how far they still have to go.

By Martin Swain