Well that wasn’t supposed to happen after the great start at Villa! A thrashing at the hands of Manchester United, exiting the Carling Cup at Blackpool and losing to Everton. Suddenly the game at Villa is starting to seem a long time ago. There are quite a few doomsayers around at the moment predicting that the dreaded 'R' word is already hanging over us.

However here's a few reasons why we can still be cheerful.....

First of all let’s put things in perspective about how far we've come. I think a few of the people who are constantly running us down have to be reminded that we were in the bottom two divisions just a few years ago. I still have to pinch myself every time we play the likes of Man United or Liverpool. Every week we're in the Premier League is an adventure in itself.