I’ve come to the conclusion that Martin O’Neill sends his team out in the first half with instructions to save it for the second half, such is the difference in the manner that Villa play either side of the break. Most of the time this works, sometimes it won’t. Today it didn’t.

It’s not that Villa were poor in the first half, not by a long stretch, and probably could have, and possibly should have, gone into the break at least level. It certainly took a classic piece of class from Lampard and Anelka to send Friedel to the back of his net for the first time in the league since the Sunderland game on January 17th. It’s the type of confident play that Chelsea have been unable to conjure up in recent games and, unfortunately for us, that’s why they kicked their last manager to the curb. Bad timing I’m afraid. If we played the Chelsea side a couple of weeks ago, all things being equal, we would almost certainly have moved 3 points further ahead of them. Abramovich knew this full well. As it is, we slip back down to 4th, a point behind the London team.

All this said, there was a missing ingredient for Villa for portions of the first half, namely a midfield. Barry struggled to impose himself. Petrov mopped up well, but lacked any incisive distribution. Milner was anonymous at times. Only Ashley Young was close to what might be expected, but was mostly well marshaled by Boswinga. Again, it’s not that any of these four were in any way poor, they created some decent chances, arguably more than Chelsea, but none really threatened Cech’s goal with any venom.

The best chance to even the game up came around the half hour mark when an Ashley Young free kick rattled the crossbar with Cech absolutely rooted. The rebound fell to Heskey’s diving head, but ended up well wide. From there on, Villa pressed for an equaliser that wouldn’t come, while cautious not to over commit themselves, fearful of what a confident Chelsea side are capable of on the break.

If the first half belonged to Chelsea, then the second was Villa’s. There was the feel of a cup tie about the game as the Villans pushed to draw level. Barry and Petrov forced themselves back into the game. Milner reappeared and Ashley Young finally started to get some change out of Boswinga.

Gabby forced Cech into a decent save at the near post on 53, when he should perhaps of gone across the goal or squared to Heskey. The resulting corner fell sweetly to Milner’s right boot on the volley, unmarked at the far post, which Drogba deflected away for another corner. As Villa tried to establish a period of pressure, Hiddink looked to break up the momentum by introducing Deco for Kalou.

Both sides took a few minutes to settle, Chelsea first to retake the initiative before Villa again began to press, culminating in a Gareth Barry left footed shot from inside the D that forced the best out of Petr Cech. But still nothing doing for Villa, so Martin O’Neill decided to make a rare change with 20 minutes to go and it was unusually bold.

In fairness, Curtis Davies has been carrying a shoulder injury that’s clearly restricting his mobility, so perhaps MON’s hand was forced somewhat into swapping the defender for John Carew. Carew spent some time relaying the manager’s instructions to the players on the pitch before joining Heskey up front. Gabby dropped to the right wing, Milner to right back and Cuellar paired up with Knight. Well, that’s how it eventually seemed to settle. OK, perhaps it wasn’t as bold as it first appeared, I was hoping to see a 3-5-2 or even a 3-4-3, but there’s no question MON was trying something different to cut out that one critical chance.

Although Villa did take control of the closing 20 minutes, Chelsea managed to create a few chances on the break which brought Friedel into action a couple of times, most impressively in the final minute of regular time saving a thumping shot from Ballack.

And so the chance to cement 3rd place and move 5 points clear of Chelsea has gone. Obviously I’m biased, but this game really could have gone either way in my opinion and a draw wouldn’t have been an unfair result, nor a Villa win for that matter.

My concern at this stage of the season is that we’ve played well in the last couple of games and haven’t got the results, which is the opposite of what was happening not so long ago when we weren’t playing so well, but still winning. What effect this will have on the morale of the team is down to MON to manage. We’ve recently exited the FA Cup, we’re on a knife edge in the UEFA Cup and we’ve just missed an opportunity to fire a major warning shot across the bows of the “big four” in the Premiership.

Maybe I’m overstating it, but the result in Moscow on Thursday might have a significant influence on the players’ mentality going into the Stoke game the following Sunday. The Stoke game itself is the gateway to a run of very interesting Premiership fixtures for Villa and it’s imperative that we don’t start that run with a bad result.

As I keep saying, it’s tough at the top, isn’t it??