Having avoided relegation by the skin of their teeth last season, Aston Villa headed into the international break sixth in the Premier League table. And they have a game in hand. All of Manchester City, former leaders Everton, Wolves, Arsenal, Man United and even last season's surprise package with the overlapping centre-backs, Sheffield United, are behind the Villains.

It took numerous record scratches and freeze frames but Aston Villa are a force to be reckoned with in the strangest season in the Premier League.

That I'm writing an ode to Dean Smith's Villains on Friday the 13th is not lost on me but Grealish and co are mixing it with the behemoths in the league and have already left a certain group of Premier League champions in the dust. Is this a false dawn or a new beginning?

For perspective, Villa had all of nine wins last season, the same as relegated Bournemouth and 15th-placed Brighton. This season, they already have five wins in seven, which include victories over Leicester City, Arsenal and Liverpool.

The man at the centre of Villa's renaissance? A blood and thunder forward wearing the number 10, playing on the left wing with his socks at calf length, decimating the opposition through and through. Jack Grealish, ladies and gentleman, is Villa's charismatic juggernaut cum conductor on the left.

It's difficult to take your eyes off Grealish when he's on the pitch. In fact, if you stressed your ears a bit harder, you'd hear the female sopranos sing. A treat for the senses at Villa Park? It's 2020 alright.

This season, he has been directly involved in nine goals in the Premier League (four goals and five assists). Only Spurs' dynamic pairing Harry Kane and Son Heung-min have been involved in more.

That, though, is a side bursting with quality. Tottenham have the world's former most expensive player, a No 9 that can - based on the evidence this season - create just as well as he can score, and a winger who can cover the length of the pitch leaving bodies in his wake (read: Son's glorious goal against Burnley).

At Aston Villa, however, things are a little different. Dean Smith's Villains may have dodged relegation by a whisker last season but by all accounts, they do not intend to hover anywhere around the bottom places at the end of this campaign. In came Emi Martinez, Ollie Watkins and Matty Cash this summer along with Chelsea's hibernating diamond, Ross Barkley, to mount (no, not that one, Gareth Southgate!) a new challenge.

Adding Ross Barkley and Ollie Watkins to the mix with Grealish has proven to be a smooth piece of business. Their last game before the international break was a 3-0 win at the Emirates. Just a week before their loss to Villa, Mikel Arteta's Arsenal nicked a win at Old Trafford - their first in the red half of Manchester in 14 years. All of the resilience they showed at Old Trafford, though, crumbled at the Emirates as Villa took a hammer to their walls.

Grealish was in the thick of the action that night. Villa's No 10 laid on an early assist for John McGinn but the goal was ruled out for a marginal offside. The skipper and Barkley then toyed with Arsenal's defence for the first goal. The third, though. That was where it all came together.

An Arsenal attack crumbled in the hands of Emi Martinez, who quickly launched a counter-attack with the help of none other than Jack Grealish. Villa's ace of spades picked up the ball on the edge of their defensive third, marauded all the way up to the attacking third, muscled off the Gunners' Scottish poster boy, Kieran Tierney, and laid one on for Ollie Watkins, who put the necessary finishing touches with a clinical strike. A blink-of-an-eye counter with Grealish in the middle of it all.

This has become a pattern of sorts for Villa. Either the attack goes through Grealish and threatens the opposition's defence, or the Villa skipper ends up on the floor after a bad tackle, hauls himself up without bothering about the length of his socks and gets back to business. And again. And again. It helps that Grealish has the ability to glide past opponents, coupled with natural strength and balance that makes for magisterial viewing. It is anything but balletic for Grealish, though.

Last season, he broke the record for the most fouled player in a Premier League campaign when he was fouled for the 128th time in a game against Chelsea. That was with nine games to spare. This season, he has already been brought down illegally 25 times.

After Grealish made his England debut in Copenhagen back in September, Gareth Southgate said something that explains his plethora of options in brief.

“He (Grealish) is a different player to probably any that we have. (Jadon) Sancho and Raheem Sterling have the ability to dribble and beat people, but he does it in a different way.”

While Southgate stopped short of mentioning just how much that difference is of value to him, Grealish could, in theory, be England's ace of spades in the Euros. International fixtures tend to plateau more often than not when it comes to England. Aston Villa's skipper, though, brings the fire to spur the Three Lions on, like a pyromaniac juggling matches with complete lucidity.

Seeing Villa placed sixth in the Premier League table heading into late November is a sight to behold for the neutrals. Watching Dean Smith's side swinging and dropping opponents whose size and pedigree is in the Goliath echelon is a welcome change from the philippics of last season and the season before. Are you not entertained?

Blood and thunder footballers are a dying breed. Tying their skipper down to a new, £140,000-a-week contract, then, amid interest from the titans in the league is a game-changer for Aston Villa. Gareth Southgate may not see it just yet, but if he's a gambling man, all he needs to bring home some silverware is Villa's ace of spades.

Illustration: Zayceeann Alvares