Aston Villa v CSKA MOSCOW:BRAZILIAN LEGEND Zico has hit out at the sacking of compatriot Luiz Felipe Scolari by Chelsea and claims he should have been judged over the entire season.

Zico will take charge of CSKA Moscow for the first time in tonight’s Uefa Cup clash with Aston Villa with a place in the last 16 at stake.

“I am a good friend of Scolari and I felt sad and upset after knowing he had been dismissed,” he said. “He is a really high-class coach who has won the World Cup.

“His team are still in contention in the Champions League and are in fourth place in the Premier League so nothing has been lost.

“I give all my support to him and I am really sad because he didn’t deserve to be dismissed.

“Yes, he lost some important games but he hasn’t gone out of any major tournaments. He still had the chance in every tournament to win or turn things around.

“But then for Brazilian coaches it is very difficult because people think they they will quickly fix any team, make them win all the games.

“Unfortunately, in general Brazilian coaches don’t seem to have enough time to work with the teams they are in charge of to start showing good results.

“They have a lot of difficulty working in European teams because people don’t give them enough time to put their work into practice.

“A reasonable time for Scolari would have been to finish this season.

“Then people could decide if he had been a success or had not produced the right results.”

Zico accepts his team will be at a disadvantage against Villa as they have not tasted competitive action since the finale to the domestic season in Russia in early December.

But he is still confident of making progress, although he has a high regard for Martin O’Neill’s side.

“We are very confident and we will do our best to neutralise Villa because we are aware of the fact they are having a very good campaign.

“We are in a difficult situation because our team has only just returned from the break and we haven’t got any official games in but I hope it will not interfere in our work and I hope we can play to our potential.”

Villa, who will be looking to bounce back after crashing out of the FA Cup 3-1 at Everton on Sunday, will be without Emile Heskey tonight, but Curtis Davies will be fit.

Gareth Barry returns after being ruled out of the defeat at Goodison Park through suspension but fellow midfielder Steve Sidwell is banned for his sending-off against Hamburg.

And Stiliyan Petrov dismisses the theory that Villa have an advantage as CSKA have not played a competitive game for so long.

“People might think it is easy against CSKA because their season hasn’t started yet.

“But we already know about them from looking at DVDs and they look a very strong team with pace and players who can hurt you.