Aston Villa Let Manchester City Show Us Who the Real Men Are

Like Liverpool's game against Chelsea on Sunday, Saturday's Champions League showdown between Manchester City and Aston Villa was over before it even started.

It's evident that, in truth, there would be only one clear winner; and it wouldn't be the Villa.

As it stands in the English Premier League, all the signs point to a Chelsea annihilation at Anfield and a comfortable cruise to the title at the expense of Manchester United, who are planning to steal the trophy from the Blues for an incredible fourth time in a row.

And also as it stands in England's top-flight, Tottenham Hotspur are Manchester City's main competitors for the newly re-opened fourth Champions League spot after a decade of multi-million dollar "Big Four" dominance.

That's because Aston Villa were eventually rolled over with consummate ease at Eastlands by a City side who finally seem to be repaying the performance debt that comes with a shopping bill of over £120 million.

Villa, the away side against Manchester City on Saturday, fooled their die-hard faithful via a John Carew goal to give the team a 1-0 lead.

Then there was dreams that Aston Villa might actually win when it matters most, as Stewart Downing amongst others had superb opportunities to make it 2-0 to the visitors.

But no, it was inevitable that Villa's frenzy of goalscoring chances were simply delaying the inevitable. Manchester City would go on to cruise to a fairly easy yet colossally important victory.

Comedy Warnock (a.k.a. Stephen Warnock) proved exactly why Fabio Capello shouldn't even consider him for England's 2010 FIFA World Cup squad, when he slipped in the penalty area to allow approaching winger Adam Johnson to harmlessly over-touch the ball and let it roll out for a goal-kick.

That's the harmless situation it would've been, had Warnock not deleteriously attempted to make amends by making a very pointless sliding tackle, which did everything it wasn't meant to do, i.e. get all of the player and virtually none of the ball.

Manchester City had two penalty appeals rejected by referee Mark Clattenburg before this smack-addingly obvious one. It was inevitable that the hosts would score, which they duly did through the conversion of the resulting spot-kick by Carlos Tevez.

Unlike Aston Villa, City are a side who actually have high ambition, as well as the determination, intelligence and fitness to turn such a dream into a reality.

Therefore, it was no surprise to see that two minutes later, Emmanuel Adebayor went some way to winning over a few more fans with a close-range finish to put his team up 2-1.

All this happened in a bizarre two minutes in which John Carew had the chance to give Aston Villa the lead again, but for the aid of the crossbar.

It was a move that therefore allowed City to counter, and had Villa got over the shock of being so unlucky not to score, they might've actually not conceded that costly second goal.

Fatigue then dug its corrosive tentacles into the Aston Villa players as Manchester City stepped up the pressure.

The introduction of two new forwards for Villa couldn't make a difference, with young superstar-in-the-making Nathan Delfouneso showing the spark that was needed from the start of this match.

The other Villa striker to come on, Emile Heskey, is a regular substitute for the Premier League's sixth best team in Aston Villa, and yet he actually plays a starting role on a regular basis on the England squad.

Please justify that one, Fabio Capello.

Meanwhile, while Aston Villa were busy failing to score, Craig Bellamy was too busy scoring for Manchester City, as the Welsh wing wizard expertly curled an exquisite shot past the stretched Brad Friedel to compound Villa's woes.

It was a goal that epitomized the difference between these two sides. In the race for the fourth UEFA Champions League place, Manchester City are men, and Aston Villa, unfortunately, are simply boys.