If Steve Sidwell could not get through the first-team door at Arsenal and needed fingerprint recognition to find a way into the Chelsea training ground, a window of opportunity is opening up for him at Aston Villa. Despite presenting Middlesbrough with their winning goal at Villa Park last Sunday - “the worst moment of my career” - Sidwell returns to his first club today when Martin O'Neill's team visit the Emirates Stadium, knowing that the education he received at two of the Barclays Premier League's biggest clubs is still helping him to improve as a player.

Sidwell, man and boy, spent 11 years at Arsenal before establishing his reputation as a dynamic midfield player with Reading, but touched greatness last season when he trained with - more often than he played alongside - the likes of Frank Lampard during his single campaign with Chelsea. He realised that he was operating at the top of his profession when, having signed on a free transfer after letting his contract at Reading expire, he went to venture into Chelsea's futuristic base in Cobham, Surrey.

“That training ground was fantastic,” he said. “That's why they expect the best on a Saturday. The players are given the best treatment. They are in their own world at Chelsea. It was like Fort Knox getting into the car park, never mind the building. Once you had negotiated that, you had to place your fingerprint on the door and they'd let you in.”

Sounds like something out of Star Trek. “It was strange,” he said. “I just thought, 'This is Chelsea, this is how it's done.' It was that Roman Abramovich touch. You don't get much higher than that. The whole club was on a different level.”

Having experienced Luiz Felipe Scolari's training regime for one week before joining Villa for £5million, Sidwell, 26 next month, is convinced that he knows which of his former clubs can deprive Manchester United of the Premier League title this season. “Chelsea will win the title,” he said, with unnerving certainty.

Not that Sidwell lacks affection for Arsenal, having joined them at 9, or gratitude to Arsène Wenger. Having honed his winning mentality when, along with David Bentley, Jermaine Pennant, Jérémie Aliadière and Co, Arsenal collected back-to-back FA Youth Cups in 2000 and 2001, Sidwell enjoyed watching Wenger's latest wunderkinds thrash Wigan Athletic in the Carling Cup this week. “It didn't surprise me at all,” he said. “Wenger arrived when I was about 14. He's got the scouting system, of course, but he's got the ability to take a player who has all the physical attributes and make him into a footballing player.”

If Sidwell has one regret, it is that he failed to make a first-team appearance, in the days when Wenger kept an experienced spine for cup games. Steve Coppell, seldom a bad judge of a player, signed him three times, on loan for Brentford and Brighton & Hove Albion and as the driving force of the Reading team who reached, then stayed, in the Premier League.

Sidwell does not regret joining Chelsea, even if he started only seven league games, and believes that training with Lampard gave him the ultimate work experience. “When I come to hang my boots up, the worst thing I could do would be to say to my kids, 'I could have played Champions League ... I could have played for Chelsea,'” he said. “I'd rather have done it and failed and held my hands up. But I don't consider it a failure. The year I had there was fantastic. To be around those players was a great experience.”

He witnessed the dedication and focus required to compete at the highest level. Married to Krystell in 2005 - he has their wedding vows tattooed in a scroll across his back - and with Harry, their son, born a year later, he still spent more time with his team-mates. “You see so much stress and strain,” he said. “You have to be a big character to sort that out. The year I was with Chelsea, I was away from my family more than I'd ever been. We were going so far in competitions, playing three games a week. We were on the road for five days. You'd get back at 4am from a Champions League game and train the next day at 10am. There were no days off.”

It is Villa's ambition to earn such a hectic schedule and, even as O'Neill starts to rotate his expanded squad, Sidwell reasons that adapting to the additional travelling and games that accompany a burgeoning Uefa Cup campaign will be among their main challenges. “At first it's a big shock,” Sidwell said. “Then your body gets used to it and you become immune. It's been like that at Villa, perhaps. The [majority of] players here haven't experienced European football, travelling and the standard of the game. We need to go to Arsenal and get something. The league is so tight at the moment that if you don't win for three or four games, you start sliding.”

After calf and ankle injuries, Sidwell has broken into O'Neill's side just as they have hit something of a wall, losing to Newcastle United and Middlesbrough when a place in the top four was tantalisingly within reach. At least he has been among the goals, scoring twice. Likely to partner Gareth Barry and Stiliyan Petrov in a five-man midfield today, Sidwell believes that Villa can grow to compete with the best.

“Attacking-wise, we are as good as anyone in this league,” he said. From first-hand experience, Sidwell knows just what it takes to gain access to the elite.