Aston Villa's chairman, Randy Lerner, has come up with a novel way to solve the problem of falling attendances in the Premiership by paying for 6,000 supporters to travel to Stamford Bridge next week.

The US billionaire was so impressed with Villa's support at Leicester last week that he has pledged to cover the cost of the coach fare to west London for all the fans with tickets for the fourth-round Carling Cup tie against Chelsea on Wednesday.