By Paul Brown

Pauline McLynn felt an intense desire to return to Villa Park for the clash with Chelsea this weekend - after feeling like she was cheating on her favourite team by going to watch Manchester City play.

McLynn, new star of Shameless, went to see Mark Hughes's men take on Arsenal a month ago with her City-loving co-star Frank Threlfall.

It made her realise she needed to pay a return visit to the home of her favourite team.

She told AVTV: "I was so excited. It was a long time since I'd been to a live game. I just felt I had to come.

"I'm in Shameless at the moment - I play Frank Gallagher's new girlfriend Libby, in fact while I'm thinking about it I will have to make her a Villa fan in the show.

"Anyway, it is filmed in Manchester so I'm there quite a lot and David's a City fan in real life so I went to see them take on the Gunners a while back.

"I felt like I had started an affair with another club. So I thought 'I have to get back to Villa Park to get my marriage back on track.'

"I was so excited at the Chelsea game. It was just one of the iconic moments of the season. You get the feeling we've really shaken up and rattled the big boys.

"In any marriage, you have good times and bad times but I will never divorce the Villa."