Aston Villa are the best team in the world (tonight)

I’m writing this down to make it real. Aston Villa crushed Manchester City, who are the best team in the world. I think it’s fair to say that. Put Pep Guardiola and his best XI up against anyone and City more than likely win. It’s what they do. It’s a conveyor belt of brilliance. Just don’t follow the money on that conveyor belt.

But, with a lot at stake, Villa slapped them a bit silly. City played football like concussed dogs, and they panicked like those dogs had been sacked and chucked in a river. City were under siege in such a way that I’m struggling to remember the last time they endured such a 90 mins.

An hour-and-a-half of football that I’m struggling to grasp the reality of. Endorphins are numbing me, my brain activity levels are flatlining. This is glee.

This week I've been convincing myself that things aren't real. Everyone apparently has a memory of a dream of them floating downstairs as a kid. I couldn't figure out if I've had that, or if a memory has been inserted into my head because I think I remember it. At work we're writing about science things a lot because science is always interesting for an audience. We did a bit on simulation theory that rocked me. So not a great deal this week has felt real, essentially because I'd convinced myself, with the help of dork scientists, that it might not be real.

But this is real.

If this was a simulation we probably would end up beating City resoundingly. Then again, if this was a simulation we'd have won the league under Tim Sherwood. This is real. It's as real as the realisation after your first 9-5 shift that this is forever. It's as real as sunlight hitting the blinds and splitting into your room on a lazy Sunday morning. It's as real as love and as real as death. Ground yourself. Villa did that.

Words escape me. I think I’ve lost IQ points. The Holte’s raging noise went into one ear, liquified my brain, and let it leak out the other.

That’s what I remember. It being loud. Villa fans in the stands believed they could beat City tonight, and overtake them in the table - despite there being genuine stakes between the club as of writing. It shouldn’t be like that, but its a new era. Unai Emery welcomed City to it with a crash landing. This is your Premier League now. The fans roared and the players backed it up. John McGinn shrugged off hordes, Leon Bailey strolled through them. Extreme confidence against the best in the world packaged up a victory, and Bailey sealed on the back of a sublime dribble and a finish with the slightest kiss of luck.

Not that they needed it.

The best to do it, ever, came to Villa Park and left without their teeth. The brutal truth is that this will fuel them to do better, and it’s the highest compliment in the world that Villa caused them to reflect and adapt after being run out of town. It was as simple as Villa simply being the bigger dog in the fight.

Against Manchester Fucking City, for crying out loud.

The enduring image of tonight, for me? When Douglas Luiz sent Man City a final warning by cracking a curling shot off the post, it left the bench in awe - City’s bench. An assistant rocks back and forth, Guardiola stares one thousand yards ahead through the pitch and through the stand. 

I’m much the same, Pep. I can’t believe this is real, but it is - Unai Emery made it so. The whistle blew and we knew this would happen. 

It was better than we thought, and better than we could’ve ever believed. Just for tonight, Villa are the best team in the world. I think it is fair to say that.

Emery's biggest achievement is that he has made me feel that we might not need the 'just tonight' qualifier in the future.