Having an England international leading your teams front line would be seen by most as a good thing and an exciting prospect to behold. This is not the case though when that player is Emile Heskey.

Having signed for my boyhood team Aston Villa in January 2009, I was blindly optimistic that the big striker could provide our front line with a serious cutting edge, despite everything I had seen, heard and read about him before.

Instead it was the same old Emile that arrived at Villa Park, who after over 15 years as a professional has yet to find his shooting boots and appears at times to be laboriously wading through treacle, such is his slow and cumbersome manner.

After a week of professional and methodical International football, the passion of the Premier League happily returned this weekend and amidst the action also helped to display the ambiguity of emotion.

Manchester City’s Emmanuel Adebayor is possibly the greatest exploiter of this word after he explained away the unnecessary boot force used on Robin van Persie’s face by pleading emotion was the cause.

In a fantastic game of Premier League football that saw the ascendancy of Manchester City with a 4-2 win over Arsenal, the antics of Adebayor will sadly overshadow this.

Anfield has rarely been a place of good fortune for Aston Villa, so ahead of the tie on Monday; I was in a mood dominated by hope more than belief that we could get a result.

A draw would have sufficed, especially after a poor opening day performance against Wigan and defeat against the powerhouse of European football Rapid Vienna, but an unexpected 3-1 win is rarer than an energetic and assured away performance in which we subdue the home side into a comprehensive defeat.

Many Liverpool fans will point to the absence of Xabi Alonso as a reason, or even an excuse for their poor performance, but his replacement in midfield Lucas, is a player of great danger when he pops up in the box and he showed this by latching onto a hopeful free-kick and expertly guiding the ball inside Pepe Reina’s near post in the 34th minute to give Villa the lead.

The summer of silly spending is continuing at full steam and this time Aston Villa have got in on the act by signing winger Stuart Downing, despite him arriving in the Midlands on crutches.

In a desperate attempt to jump on the transfer bandwagon, Villa boss Martin O’Neill has gambled on the England international, even though the winger is recovering from a broken foot, inflicted in the penultimate game of last season by future team mate Stiliyan Petrov.

It seems as though O’Neill felt he could sign the damaged Downing with less competition now, than if he had waited until the January transfer window opened. However, perhaps the reason that there was so little competition for the winger is that he’s just not good enough.