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Aston Villa can strike the first real blow of the season against the established elite of English soccer by lifting the Carling Cup tomorrow, when they face hot-favourites Manchester United in the final at Wembley.

While commentators were quick to welcome a stronger threat to the big four of the Premier League, what that has boiled down to at the moment is Liverpool under-performing and being dragged back into the chasing pack, while Chelsea, Manchester United and Arsenal steam on ahead as usual.

That's hardly a revolution, and to some extent the hopes of watchers of the game were misplaced, because in terms of the league, English soccer has never been good at sharing. In the 1970s, Liverpool began their period of domination, winning the title in 10 out of 15 seasons, only to be superseded by Manchester United's harvesting of 11 titles in the 17 seasons of the Premier League.

Where there is an opportunity to claw back power from the big four is in the cup competitions, where success used to be shared more evenly, but has become more consolidated in recent years. It is more realistic for most clubs to chase cup glory and it is arguable that they would do the game in England better service rather than concentrating on European qualification.

Villa, having done little in the cups in Martin O'Neill's three seasons in charge, certainly appear to have made silverware more of a priority this season, as they also are in the FA Cup quarter-finals. Their progress in the cups is a reflection of their general upward curve under O'Neill.

One of the notable improvements this season is Villa's record against the top clubs. In a mini-league of the top seven clubs, including only the results between them, Villa would be third behind Chelsea and United, and they have the joint-fewest defeats in that category (two) despite having played the joint-highest number of games (10) against the other top-seven teams.