Whatever might happen, and I’ve got a feeling that England are going to do a Villa and finally win something after decades of avoiding success, I wonder if a couple of our former heroes are looking on and wondering what might have been. Jack Grealish, for example. The whys and wherefores of his departure and subsequent career have been done to death but one thing that we know for sure is that the most mercurial talent of his generation was stifled at Manchester City and it’s never recovered. He’s now thirty and should be just coming to the end of his peak years. It’s not difficult to imagine Grealish in Mexico, and even if he wasn’t a starter he could do some damage coming off the bench.

It’s been said many a time whether he would have wanted to trade everything he’s won with Manchester City for immortality and the Europa League with Villa. Probably not, but I do wonder whether he’d go for the deal if we threw in World Cup winner’s medal and the inevitable accompanying knighthood?

One man who would never get an honour even if he was British is Jhon Duran. Again, he was sold for serious money, although there were sighs of relief all round when he went and whoever agreed to the sale deserved a bonus. You knew he was never going to fulfil his potential and you also knew that he was a bomb with the fuse lit and ready to explode any second. Luckily he left us before the explosion caused us any damage but what a talent.

We’ve had a few who’ve let their temperament get in the way of what they could achieve – Dalian Atkinson being the prime example – but surely none whose potential was so great. He was only here for a couple of years and didn’t play for all that time, but he left so many memories. The goal of the season against Palace, the Liverpool pair that as good as got us into the Champions League, that 35 yard rocket at home to Everton and the most memorable of all, the Bayern goal.

That was Jhon Duran personified – who else would lob the keeper first time from thirty yards in such circumstances? There was also the total chaos of a player whose entry onto the pitch usually came with an air that nobody, least of all himself, knew what would happen from then on.

He went while his value was at its highest. There was no way on earth that he could have gone much longer without some sort of tectonic plate collision, and by the time it happened we’d already banked £60-odd million. Again, his subsequent career has been played out in full view and now aged 22, after being binned from what is his seventh club in as many years, it’s difficult to see a way back. Maybe he’s watching at home and wondering; more likely he’s driving around Saudi in a Ferrari.