Chelsea Preview

For the second week running there is little point in producing a match preview for the weekend given the disarray into which Gerrard has led the squad and fan base.

Anything can happen but in truth nothing will change.

One change we can rely on however is the welcome news that NSWE are flying in this weekend with four simple goals:

1) To watch their investment at first hand

2) To judge the toxicity of the atmosphere at Villa Park to Gerrard

3) To look Purslow in the eye and understand whether he is still the man for the job, and

4) To deliver the news to Gerrard that it is over.

The thing is though we have been here before.

Wind back to Paul Lambert, when the transatlantic journey was reversed.

Lambert - like Gerrard utterly ill-equipped to do the job - flew to meet with Randy Lerner and receive his cards, yet flew back with a new contract and mandate that pushed Villa even closer to the precipice.

Purslow continues to push for a stay of execution until the World Cup.

NSWE rightly see timing is of the essence to begin to attempt to turnaround this disastrous season.

Yet the knife edge between continued incompetence and recovery remains, not least in part due to the inherent difficulties of having absentee owners.

Make no mistake though, NSWE are no Lerner.

It is unlikely the Villa Park crowd will ever have been more influential in the outcome of the short term future of the club than they will be on Sunday.

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To even begin to explain - the hopefully soon to be ended - Gerrard experiment, you need to look no further than Emiliano Martínez’s frighteningly blunt warning earlier in the season.

Sadly no one appeared to want to listen:

“It’s the first time in 14 to 15 years of my career that the assistant coach does all the talking, Michael Beale. He knows so much about football, it’s just incredible. He does all the training sessions, he takes all the important meetings, obviously Stevie G talks too.

“In every club, the manager does all the talking and the assistant helps. With Michael, we felt him and Stevie G are both the managers.”

The players have thrown out more than a few SOS’s that fell on deaf ears for far too long, this though laid bare the folly of Gerrard in 73 words.

Again the parallel with Lambert is stunning. The shelf life of Gerrard’s reign however needs to be as short as Martínez’s damning indictment and far shorter than the misery inflicted by Lambert that paved the way for Villa’s first relegation in three decades.

NSWE know it will soon be their turn in the stocks if they fail to act in the best interests of the club.