It's a cold Friday evening and Sky are here to televise our second home game under new manager, Dean Smith. The opponents tonight are Bolton Wanderers. Whilst they may be languishing in the lower reaches of the Championship they've still managed to secure creditable wins against West Brom and Derby, two of the early season front-runners.
The Villa team-sheet is announced to favourable applause. Much to the relief of supporters Steve Bruce's early season experiment of playing team members out of position has been dropped.
Representatives of the armed forces lead out the teams in a remembrance tribute. The minute's silence is all the more poignant this year as it follows in the wake of last weekend's tragic helicopter accident which claimed the lives of Vichai Srivaddhanaprabha, owner of Leicester City, and four others.
Silence duly observed the game kicks off and Villa make a flying start. A delightful through ball by Tammy Abraham wrong-foots the Bolton defence allowing Jack Grealish to round the keeper and score his first of the season.
Villa play reasonably well, though we hold our breath each time a cross is floated in toward our new Norwegian keeper, Ørjan Nyland. A headed goal by James Chester is disallowed for off-side but he's not to be denied again as he nets early in the second half to calm Villa nerves.
Add to this a wonderful goal-line clearance earlier in the game and it's Chester who emerges as man of the match. Not the best of performances, but it's a win and we can see some green shoots begin to emerge as Villa look to kick on up the table.
What a crazy game - it has it all. Six goals, a deluded pitch invasion, a missed penalty with the last kick of the match and a bizarre cabbage moment!
The portents are ominous. A drizzly evening and a subdued atmosphere, despite a fairly respectable crowd for a mid-week fixture. Preston are bottom of the table and this should be a routine victory for the Villa. However, our frustrating win-less run has dampened down early season enthusiasm.
The team's announced and reserve goalkeeper Mark Bunn replaces Orjan Nyland, our lack-lustre pre-season signing. Given Steve Bruce's increasingly bizarre tactic of playing as many squad members as possible out of position we should at least be relieved Bunn is not to be paired up-front with Tammy Abraham.
The first half shows much promise. Jonathan Kodjia scores, triggering a pitch invasion by a young man who all but loses his low-hanging trousers in the process. A second is added by Abraham who cuts in from the left-hand side of the field and dances through a faint-hearted defence to score. All seems well and at half-time the talk is of how many we'll put past the beleaguered Preston.
And then melt-down. Preston come out attacking and their reward is a penalty, earning an unwarranted red-card for our captain James Chester. Reduced to ten men Bruce chooses to substitute Abraham for an extra defender in the form of James Bree. It proves subsequently to be a very unfortunate decision.
Preston pile on the pressure and Villa's increasingly porous defence concedes two further goals. Relief comes in the form of a late scrambled equaliser by Yannick Bolasie. And who would believe it, a chance to take all three points when Birkir Bjarnason is felled by a clumsy challenge in the Preston penalty area.
Once more, Villa shoot themselves in the foot. With both Abraham and Kodjia off the field up steps the obvious candidate to take the penalty. Glenn Whelan, a defensive mid-fielder with but one goal to his credit in the last seven years. Unsurprisingly, his feeble shot is saved by the Preston keeper and the final whistle blows.
But what of the cabbage? Bizarrely it's used by a Villa supporter as an instrument of protest, hurled at Steve Bruce's feet just before kick-off. It's a sad end to the Bruce's time at the helm of Villa, a stint that saw us avoid the humiliation of a second successive relegation and almost make it back to the Premiership at our second attempt.
It does, however, prompt one of the better tweets of the night, paying homage to Bruce's standard poker-faced press interviews ...
'I'm not sure if the cabbage hit me. It was there or thereabouts. But it did have the making of a good throw.'
He's sacked the next day and now the search is on for yet another new manager.
