Martin O'Neill has urged his Aston Villa's players to remain grounded after the club's fine start to the season. Last weekend's superb 2-1 success over Carlo Ancelotti's Chelsea lifted the club to sixth in the Premier League table.

However, O'Neill is not reading too much into their early success and insists the league campaign is a marathon, not a sprint.

"Just because we get two good results against the big sides doesn't automatically mean you have made all this fantastic progress," explained O'Neill.

"There has been progress, no doubt.

"We have the strongest squad it's been for three years with good players not able to get in the team, that's encouraging.

"We've done fine. But there are only eight games gone - that's all."