In Graham Potter and Steven Gerrard, it does however bring together two who have had contrasting career paths to their current positions. The Chelsea head coach was asked about that in the build up to the match.

Whereas Potter played for a large number of clubs in a range of divisions, Gerrard was for all but one season a one-club man at Liverpool, and while the former England midfielder started managing at Scottish giants Rangers before taking over at Aston Villa, Potter has developed his coaching career by starting outside the professional game and then overseas in Sweden before working steadily up to the higher echelons of the Premier League, gaining a variety of experiences along the way.

‘I don’t think it is good to compare yourself to anybody else,’ said Potter on the question of which is the preferable route.

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‘You don’t know their context or their circumstances. All you can do is concentrate on yourself and your path and that's the great thing about coaching, you can take different ways to get to the same point.

‘I think my path has been good for me. I don't think it's necessarily the right path for everyone but for me personally, I'm very happy with it and I'm very grateful for it. Somebody else can do something completely different, that's absolutely fine, but for me it's been really good.

‘It depends on the person, depends on the playing career, depends on lots of things,’ he added.

‘I was a university football coach. I had to take the steps to develop myself and give myself a reason, give myself a narrative as to why I'll be employed - step by step, achieving things. But everyone's different, that's the beauty of it. You look at Pep for example. He’s gone straight in at the top and has been fantastic, so everybody's different.’

Villa start today’s game in 16th position with one win in their past seven league outings. Potter confirmed empathy is felt in his profession when other coaches come under pressure.
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‘We all want the feeling of success but sometimes it isn't straightforward and you have to suffer. You know that, because of the media interest in the league, because of the narrative around managers and pressure, and it's hard,

‘It’s something to talk about and if it’s not VAR, if it’s not referee watch, if it is not the transfer window, it’s managers under pressure. It's part of the narrative and we can’t complain about that. You have to ride it out when it is you and respectfully deal with it when it is somebody else.’

With Potter returning to his native West Midlands today, he was quizzed on any early Aston Villa affiliation he may have had. His mind went back to the early 1980s when that club were crowned European champions.

‘One of my first footballing memories is my brother sat with the European Cup in the British Legion in Shirley. It goes to show how far football has gone - you could take the European Cup to the Shirley British Legion!

‘We had the picture at home with my brother with the cup with Ken McNaught and Peter Withe. So I liked that Villa team, Tony Morley, Gary Shaw. Then I started playing for Birmingham City and then you realise you can't have allegiances to both of those, so in the end I didn’t support anybody.’