On their way to a midweek FA Cup fourth round replay at Villa Park, Chelsea’s hardcore travelling support are unlikely to surf into Birmingham on a wave of anything approaching optimism. Mauricio Pochettino’s side were humiliated in their most recent match against a side from that neck of the woods, having their collective backside handed to them by a Wolves team that was forced to shed many of its best players during the summer and only appointed their inexperienced young manager 10 minutes before the first game of the season. Despite the turmoil in which Wolves were forced to begin the campaign, the manner in which they went to Stamford Bridge and blew Chelsea’s house down came as no great shock. Particularly now that we’ve been told the house in question is only in the early stages of construction.

“It’s like building a house,” said Pochettino in his pre-match media address after being asked – and we’re paraphrasing Dolly Parton here – how on earth club owners can spend so much money to make their team look this cheap. “You need to be sure of all the steps you take. We are building from zero. Always it takes time. Look at the project of Manchester City or Liverpool. It’s always about time and a very clear leadership like Pep [Guardiola] or Jürgen [Klopp]. It’s so clear from there you build these projects.”

Now Football Daily likes Poch, thinks he’s a nice guy and knows him to be well-mannered because he once held a door open for us at the Spurs training ground in an incident that led to a no-you-go-first stand-off that lasted so long we almost came to blows. However, we can’t help but feel that while the Chelsea manager is correct in pointing out that Pep Guardiola and Jürgen Klopp took time to build their respective houses, they at least appeared to have had competent architects and experienced construction workers, rather than some firm of cowboy builders who sit around on the site all day drinking tea and playing cards.

Having seen the number of unsolvable problems Pedro Neto caused Chelsea’s defenders and midfielders last Sunday, Pochettino must undertake some urgent snagging if his side is not to be torn apart by the combined forces of Alex Moreno, Douglas Luiz, John McGinn and Ollie Watkins, who were all in sensational form against Sheffield United last weekend and will be fancying their chances of scampering around and over the creaking load-bearing wall that is Thiago Silva tonight.

Following Sunday’s defeat, the Brazilian’s wife, Belle, was quick to air her thoughts on the platform formerly known as Twitter, appearing to call for Pochettino’s dismissal in a Tweet that one suspects may have led to a slightly strained atmosphere around the Silva dinner table on Sunday night. “I’m sorry that my personal outburst as a passionate Chelsea fan has caused such an impact,” she said today. “I’m passionate about the team, I thrive on victories and am saddened by defeats. We all want the same thing, a winning team, come on Chelsea.” Mrs Silva has spoken and now it’s time for Pochettino to get his half-built house in order.

Join Scott Murray at 8pm GMT for hot minute-by-minute updates on Aston Villa 3-1 Chelsea in their FA Cup fourth round replay, while Michael Butler will be on hand at the same time to bring you coverage of Ivory Coast 1-1 DR Congo (3-2 pens aet) in the Afcon semi-finals.

“The Force ­Awakens, that gave me a lot of inspiration last night. And I’m certain the resistance continue to inspire and we can keep at bay that evil empire. For now, all I’m thinking about is I need to get on to The Mandalorian. The message is always have skilled finishers like the Jedi knights, have the ability to deliver a fatal hit into the Death Star” – erm, Emma Hayes there, on how she is using Star Wars to navigate her final season at Chelsea.

Re: the picture of Lionel Messi (yesterday’s Quote of the Day): did Inter Miami decide to troll/pre-empt the inevitable question from journalists and fans over whether Messi would play in the Vissel Kobe friendly match by printing ‘Never say never’ all over the screen behind him?” –
Alistair Hubbard.

A doff of the cap to the great Eden Hazard (yesterday’s Football Daily). To appropriate the great Mark Renton, choose life. Choose a job. Choose flash cars. Choose expensive homes. Choose individual awards at long, dreary ceremonies. Choose being a ‘brand ambassador’ and hawking products you don’t like on Instagram. Choose spending your late 30s racking up numbers in easy leagues. Choose meaningless friendlies in far-off places … but why would I want to do a thing like that? I chose not to choose life. I chose something else. And the reasons? There are no reasons. Who needs reasons when you’ve got good friends and a beer?” – Noble Francis.

I’m lightly appalled the Eden Hazard has a glass of rosé when he attends a barbecue. Assuming that the barbecue is primarily steaks, chops, briskets, or heavily-seasoned ribs, surely any continental type would want to pair that meal with a hearty red wine. There are innumerable choices available for the prosperous Mr H: a bold Californian Cabernet, a Chilean Rioja, a sassy Burgundy. Rosé - phfffft!” – Mike Wilner (and no other wannabe wine buffs).

Send letters to the.boss@theguardian.com. Today’s letter o’ the day winner is … Alistair Hubbard, who lands a copy of The Social One: why Jürgen Klopp was the perfect fit for Liverpool, published by Pitch Publishing. Visit their football book store here.

“This collaboration with Boyzone is part of ongoing discussions that could potentially see them becoming the face of [the club]. This is a game-changer that has the potential to bring our town into the limelight like never before, generating a buzz and publicity that will shine a bright light on [the town]” – Chorley FC trumpet news that Ronan Keating, Shane Lynch and Keith Duffy will be attending the FA Trophy tie against Solihull Moors thanks to a friendship with co-owner Prince Yemoh. Surely the existence of Chorley cake has already done more for the town than the ageing warblers.

Brentford have condemned the “vile harassment” of Ivan Toney after the striker was the target of online racist abuse. The Premier League club also labelled the response of social media companies to such incidents as “underwhelming”.

In other grim news, West Brom have suspended the season ticket of a fan arrested on suspicion of racially abusing Birmingham’s Juninho Bacuna at the Hawthorns.

Harry Maguire’s assault case appeal has been put on hold following a lawyers’ strike in Greece. Maguire had hoped this week to finally overturn the 21-month suspended sentence he received for his purported involvement in a brawl on the island of Mykonos.

The Smile Police were after South Korea boss Jürgen Klinsmann after he dared flash his pearlies at the opposition manager following the 2-0 Asian Cup semi-final defeat by Jordan in which his team were accused of playing “zombie football” again. “I think it is not a big deal,” he sighed. “I am certainly not walking around tonight and smiling all over the place … if you say I shouldn’t smile, give somebody a smile that deserves a compliment in that moment, maybe we have different approaches.”

Young managerial tyro Neil Warnock’s first game as interim boss of Aberdeen ended in a 2-1 defeat at Rangers – and he wasn’t happy with the Ibrox ballboys. “At the end, you have got [them] adding five minutes,” he growled. “They are really good, really tuned in, ‘don’t give them it back’, climb over the wall … do they have their own teachers?”

Aston Villa’s Rachel Daly has been handed a three-match ban after admitting a charge of violent conduct following an incident in the 2-2 draw with Bristol City.

Southampton now face an FA Cup fifth-round trip to Liverpool after cruising past Watford 3-0 and Coventry are now cast in the role of dream spoilers after beating Sheffield Wednesday 4-1 to set up a home tie against giantkillers Maidstone.

And there was some elite bungling at Blackburn as the Championship club’s attempt to sign USA USA USA forward Duncan McGuire on loan collapsed after a chief admin bod hit “save” rather than “submit paperwork” when trying to get the deal secured on deadline day. Erm, easily done. Rovers have submitted an appeal to the EFL … hopefully via fax.

It’s probably worth a little recap on this section. So far we have followed Horsham from the first round (they went through after Barnsley were ejected for fielding an ineligible player – Doh!) into the second round. There we said goodbye to The Hornets when they were given a 3-0 shoeing at Sutton United, who travelled to Plymouth, where they shipped three goals themselves and were dumped out 3-1.

So we followed the Pilgrims’ progress to Elland Road for a 1-1 draw. But our time with Argyle came to an entertaining end last night in a 4-1 defeat by Leeds (after extra-time) in a stormy fourth-round replay at Home Park that, to be honest, Leeds absolutely bossed and should have wrapped up in 90 minutes. “I think it was a really dominant away performance – top class. Second half, we had 82% possession. It’s not possible to have even more,” cheered Daniel Farke, misunderstanding how percentages work. In the end the Leeds boss was thankful to Crysencio Summerville, Georginio Rütter and a Ryan Hardie own goal for taking them through. We’ll be marching on together with them to either Villa Park or Stamford Bridge.

Manchester City are in annihilation mode, writes Barney Ronay. But as Pep Guardiola’s juggernaut eyes a second treble, what does that say about the health of the game?

Ben McAleer on how Rasmus Højlund has finally found his feet at Manchester United.

Which managers have been sacked mid-tournament and what are the biggest defeats for a host nation? The Knowledge knows.

And Afcon has reached the semi-finals stage with South Africa and DR Congo unexpectedly joining Nigeria and hosts Ivory Coast in the last four. Jonathan Wilson reflects on a tournament of remarkable upsets.

The phrase “Wembley of the North” was first used about plans to revamp Port Vale’s ground in the 1940s, fact fans. Now it’s doing the rounds about Old Trafford, with Ineos reported to be touting ambitious plans to give Old Trafford a much-needed overall. Jamie Jackson explains more.

A giant table football featuring Buddy Bears is set up in Berlin to promote the Confederation Cup in June 2005. We’d love to know how anyone managed to move the arms on it. Maybe it required a team of weightlifters to get it going.