Kevin McCarra talks to Martin O'Neill about today's tough assignment at Chelsea and to a few of his old associates about what makes everything he touches turn to gold

Aston Villa are the predictable surprise of this campaign. In view of a restricted squad and a 16th-place finish in the Premiership last season, they have no business holding an unbeaten record, but, then again, it is the sort of transformation expected of Martin O'Neill. Even if there is the obvious chance of a setback at Chelsea this afternoon the likelihood is great that Villa's progress would still resume shortly.

Few managers come with a guarantee as O'Neill does. Discord with the then chairman at Norwich saw him walk away after a few months, but his formula has worked wherever he has had free rein. The O'Neill effect seems to have an immediate effect on prospective employers. Given the opportunity, he swiftly secured the post at his previous club.

"Guus Hiddink was very prominent in our thoughts and in a certain regard he was our benchmark," said the Celtic chairman Brian Quinn, casting his mind back to the summer of 2000. "Then Martin came to speak to the board over dinner at [ the principal shareholder] Dermot Desmond's suite in the Dorchester. After an hour and a half there was no further discussion about who our manager should be."

There is a temptation to portray O'Neill as a horse whisperer for footballers, with the magical knack of galvanising them. Quinn, however, sees a more basic foundation to this manager's style. "Martin is a smart fellow," he said, "and intelligence is the key. He is persuasive, he speaks well, he can marshal an argument and he is a very decent tactician. Of course, he is also an outstanding man-manager."

O'Neill has a track record in pulling off disconcerting coups in the transfer market. Tony Cottee was a prominent example, brought back to England from Selangor of Malaysia in 1997 to play for Leicester when he was already 32. "I got him out of a hole and then he got me out of one," O'Neill has said succinctly. Cottee scored 27 goals in 66 Premiership starts and was in the 2000 line-up that brought the League Cup to Filbert Street for the second time in three years.

Entertaining and genial as O'Neill can be, the intensity and potential for severity do not drop completely from sight. "Leicester were the League Cup holders when I arrived," Cottee recalls, "but we were knocked out at Grimsby. Martin asked me in the dressingroom how much he had paid for me. I told him it was £500,000 and he said, '£500,000 too much'. I can remember him giving a terrible bollocking to Neil Lennon, but he also knew that Emile Heskey wouldn't play for you if you did that to him. Martin would make Emile believe he could beat four men and smash the ball into the net."

Any good manager appreciates that he needs a range of tones for a variety of footballers, but O'Neill is a virtuoso in gauging such matters. He is intriguing, too, in the way he controls relationships with players. "You never knew exactly where you were with him," said Cottee. "He could be your best friend when you met him in the corridor one day and the next he would ignore you. It might have been that his mind was a million miles away, but Martin could just as easily have been thinking, 'He didn't play for me at all in that last game, the bastard. I'll walk straight past him'. You never knew exactly where you stood with him. It kept you on your toes."

Tiresome to O'Neill as the comparisons are, there are echoes of his old boss Brian Clough. In the Villa backroom staff John Robertson, with his keen eye for a player, is a counterpart to Peter Taylor and acts as the manager's envoy to the squad, happy, as Cottee puts it, "to have a fag or a pint with them". While O'Neill focuses minds by attending training, in particular, on Thursdays and Fridays, preparations are under the command of Steve Walford, whom Cottee considers "a very underrated coach".

The human dynamics of O'Neill and his backroom staff are intricate, making it most likely that he told the FA his men would have to accompany him if he became the England manager. Loyalties develop around him. "He gives you a challenge," explained Cottee, "and if you meet it you become one of his lieutenants and you feel you will play with him forever. Lennon, [ Muzzy] Izzet and [ Steve] Guppy were like that."

O'Neill has a habit of establishing bonds of a different nature as well. "He has the entrepreneur's skill at identifying an undervalued asset," said Quinn. "He signed players who were not in demand. Then he put them on very good contracts. They were eternally grateful to him for lifting them on to an entirely different earning plane and would give everything for him."

Didier Agathe, who is now on Villa's books until January at least, was one such case. O'Neill first saw him in 2000 as a striker on a short-term deal scoring for Hibernian while at centre forward. Celtic bought him for £50,000, turned Agathe into a wing back as capable of making a solid contribution in the Champions League as he was in the Scottish Premier League. There were several tales of that sort, with, on a wholly different price range, Chris Sutton emerging from an abject season with Chelsea to terrorise the likes of Juventus.

O'Neill, in consequence, is hailed as an alchemist, but a shrewd pragmatism is the real foundation of all that he does. The histrionics on the touchline are misleading. "I was on the bench a lot when I was first at Leicester," Cottee said, "and he would be jumping around and shouting at the referee and linesman. I was asking myself how he could possibly see what was going on, but at half-time he was absolutely spot-on with his comments. He said more in 10 seconds than another manager could in 10 minutes."

There cannot be many rivals left who are so foolish as to mistake O'Neill for an eccentric, even if he is a bit absent-minded over non-football concerns. This is an alert, ambitious manager. Having made an ever-increasing impact at Wycombe, Leicester and Celtic he now aches to compete for the Premiership and European honours. He is in his present job because he believes that his talent and Randy Lerner's money can transmute Villa into just such a mighty club.

Villa will travel south today full of confidence after a six-game unbeaten start to the season under O'Neill.

O'Neill has immense respect for the achievements of Mourinho ahead of their first managerial clash since his Celtic side were beaten 3-2 by Porto in the 2003 Uefa Cup final. But he is adamant a revitalised Villa will not just be making up the numbers as they strive to end Chelsea's unbeaten home league run of 47 games - 43 of them under Mourinho. "It is a great game for us," O'Neill said. "I think despite the fact I may want to play it down, I am sure everyone will say it is a measure of how we are progressing. Whether I want to disagree with that or not, I won't get the opportunity because that is how people will view it and I can't change people's minds.

"It is a big test for us, going to a side unbeaten at home in the Premiership since the manager has taken over, a fantastic record. Their consistency is fantastic. But we've got a lot of confidence about ourselves and I don't want to go there thinking defeat is inevitable. It isn't and we are going to try and win the game.

"They are really strong, play football when they want to, be strong when they want to. In John Terry they have as strong a character as you would want anyone to be, and you have a core of a side who are really top class.

"But I don't think you should be intimidated about going there. Other teams have failed. You might just end up being another statistic to add to the Chelsea records. I would prefer if we were going there with a bit of belief and determination - which we have so I wouldn't be intimidated."

O'Neill added: "What we achieved at Arsenal in the first game (a 1-1 draw), which was not any more difficult for us, will give us inspiration for Saturday, and since Arsenal we have improved.

"There is now more confidence and fluidity about the team. We've had periods in games where we were very good and other periods in games where we have been stodgy and it hasn't cost us. We wouldn't need to be stodgy for long periods against Chelsea for it to cost us. That would be my only concern. But we are capable of scoring. Of course, the flip side is so are Chelsea."

O'Neill revealed he had only spoken to Mourinho once since that Uefa Cup final defeat in Seville but has immense respect for his achievements.

"I went to watch Wycombe play Chelsea the summer before last in a pre-season friendly and after the game I was in a little room when Jose came. We exchanged pleasantries for a couple of minutes and that was it. That's the only time I've seen him. But he is a fantastic manager. He did great at Porto and has repeated that at Chelsea."

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