A great deal of confidence was undoubtedly restored at Stamford Bridge and our slide toward oblivion apparently halted. At least for a while. Tonight, with Sunderland coming to Villa Park, we’ll see whether there’s enough fire burning in this team to launch an ascent back up the table.

The CEO’s backed the manager, the assistant manager has backed the team, now it’s up to the players to show that they really do care.

Results last night weren’t the most favourable for us with Birmingham extracting three points from Blackpool at Bloomfield Road and Fulham soundly beating West Brom in London, dropping us temporarily to 17th position.

A win tonight could elevate us as high as 13th, which might at least encourage the media monkey to climb off our backs, but a loss could send us to the foot of the table, inevitably leading to a tsunami of incendiary tabloid headlines.

Ending the night at the bottom of the pile might be unlikely since it requires the three teams below us to all achieve big results, but it’s not impossible. It is unthinkable though, we must win tonight.

Team overviews

Houllier will probably stick with the same XI from Stamford Bridge, which I wouldn’t have an issue with, I just hope we’re in a position to introduce fresh legs a little earlier.

Sunderland are in odd form, after being comfortably beaten at Old Trafford on Boxing Day they followed up with another 2-0 loss, this time at home to Blackpool in their final game of 2010. They responded by routing Blackburn 3-0 on New Year’s Day.

We were only separated by Richard Dunne‘s own goal in the reverse of this fixture in October, but in truth it was a game with very few on efforts on target – Ashley Young with Villa’s only effort to worry stand in goalkeeper, Simon Mognolet.

Asamoah Gyan is not likely to feature, but Bruce’s key man, for me, will be Ahmed Elmohamady on the right side after being hugely influential in anything positive from Sunderland last time.

With Warnock receiving a little time out, Ciaran Clark will have chance to show his defensive abilities against the tricky winger and will hopefully snuff out a key stream of supply to front man Darren Bent.

Emile Heskey was responsible for eight of the nine aerial battle won in Sunderland’s half at the Stadium of Light, mostly around the border of the middle and final thirds of the pitch. We’ll need his aerial presence again today, but the question is whether it’s Ash or Gabby who plays off the big man.

I’d expect to see Stewart Downing on the right again where he can help keep Danny Welbeck (carrying a slight knee injury) pegged back and take advantage of Kieran Richardson‘s left foot by cutting inside.

Downing very nearly opened the scoring inside three minutes in Sunderland and, despite being better with his right foot against Chelsea, I wouldn’t be surprised to see him get on the score sheet today.

Must win

However it comes about, and I doubt many of us really care right now, it’s a must win game. They should all be regarded that way in my opinion, but some are more must win games than others and this is definitely right up there.

What tonight’s game also offers is the opportunity to register a rare clean sheet. This odd back line of four centre halves, with some confidence and experience playing together, are more than capable of shutting Sunderland out.

It only takes someone, anyone, at the other end to find just one goal – I’ll take a 1-0 – and all three points will be gratefully received, we can think about how to negotiate The Blades on Saturday in the FA Cup before heading to St Andrews once again on the 16th.

Tonight’s the night to really salvage this season!