QPR's original name, when founded, is a standing joke amongst their fans: the club began life as St. Jude's FC. St. Jude, in case you weren't aware, is the patron saint of lost causes.

It's a badly kept secret, but I grew up a few miles down the M4 from West London and, inevitably, I was brought up a QPR fan. I lost count long ago of the Saturday afternoons I have spent on "The Loft", and Shepherd's Bush - just around the corner from the BBC Television Centre - will always retain a very special place in my affections.

Yes, I'm sure many of us will start getting very excited about Villa being in the Top 4. But let's face facts: this was a game in which Villa huffed and puffed and managed to make a Championship side look like a team with a sniff of getting a point against a Premier League one.

Everything that went forward went straight to John Carew, and behind him were the two battlers Reo-Coker and Petrov and the water carrier Barry. It was one-dimensional stuff if ever you saw it, with an absolute minimum of flair. This is a Villa side with power and pace, but one who's lack of creative ingenuity will surely be found once we face the true top sides.

You have to bide your time and wait for your moment, but sooner or later you have to take your chance to hit back at the merchants of doom. The moment to twist the knife is probably right now.

O'Neill has been slated for buying mediocrity and for not spending enough on quality. On the season's form so far, do you think Bentley at £16m a better buy than Young at £10.5m? Did Corluka look better value than the brilliant Luke Young last night? Did Ramos' investment in the supposedly world class Luka Modric look like better value than the similar amount paid by O'Neill for Reo-Coker, Petrov and Sidwell put together?

There is a great moment in the children's classic movie which reminds me of the situation increasingly faced by Premier League managers.
 
Wicked Baron Bombast, wealthy and powerful, has managed to get his hands on the legendary flying car. Grandpa Potts, mistaken for the inventor Caractacus, has been kidnapped and ordered to "make it fly". The consequences for his not being able to do so are gruesome.