5 glorious goals by 5 different team members, glad to see Young getting back into form the last couple of games, Milner getting on the score sheet for all his hard work, as well as goals from John Carew, Gabby Agbonlahor, and Cuellar of all people! It was a fantastic game, Villa really did play well together, pushing forward all the time and making some brilliant passing moves, something which has been lacking somewhat in the last few games. Agbonlahor gets into some great positions, but his finishing really does let him down sometimes, he really needs to work on that. Glad to see the youngsters getting some playtime, Delfouneso and Delph coming on for the last 10 minutes.

Villa Park is becoming a fortress, its just those away games we need to start collecting more points from. Burnley forced a draw at Man City which will help our top 4 challenge, although Tottenham won which means we are sitting in fifth, just outside the holy grail that is the top 4.

UP THE VILLA!

Rx

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Comments always welcome.

We are in the middle of a bunch of away games, as well as a hectic schedule, it was nice to see MON make a different change from the usual Heskey on for Carew, or Carew on for Heskey, may his hand was forced due to the injury of Milner, but it’s still nice to see a different squad from the usual, and it paid off with a goal straight after the second half kick off.

Now, the heavy schedule would suggest we need to mix it up a bit, MON likes playing the same squad week in, week out, but we do have a bit of depth now, and a change could be for the good. We have gone a bit stale, especially in front of goal, maybe the youngster Delph could mix things up a bit, or maybe NRC could come back in, Sidwell seemed to be lacking a bit. Warnock did extremely well, he pushed forward on the overlap and that’s what we need, Ashley came back into form as well, and Abonglahor used his pace well as always.

Our game in hand is to be played Wednesday, against West Ham, a difficult game in its own right, but then we’ve got Bolton three days later, I surely wouldn’t want to be MON right now, and I’m unsure as to Milner’s injury.

A win against West Ham would boost the lads confidence for Bolton, but we need maximum points to keep up the pressure on 4th place, which our main contenders at the moment seem to be Man City, with Spurs close behind. I wont mention Liverpool.

Rx

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I didn’t watch the match, but I did follow the updates on the Villa website and on Sky sports news, seemed to be a game of few chances, and those few chances seemed to be Sunderland’s. This worry’s me quite a bit, our last match against Wolves was kind of the same, some very poor passes and crosses leading to us losing possession and just not performing in the final third.

I reserve final judgment until Everton, I’m hoping the boys can redeem themselves in attack. As far as tonight goes my hat goes off to little Brad, and most importantly, WE ARE THROUGH!

Rx

Follow me on Twitter : http://www.twitter.com/StagediveRy

Our Hero :

Our Hero!

Team news is as expected, should have the same squad available we had at Villa Park last week, unsure whether MON will play a 4-4-2 again, or go with the 4-5-1, really thought it was gonna be our downfall last week playing the 4-4-2 against a club like Chelsea, but what do I know. Wolves away is a completely different kettle of fish, but we need goals, something we are lacking this season, we’ve only let in 7 goals all season, but our goal difference is the lowest of all the top clubs. This game could be great for Carew (or dare I say it Heskey) to get a couple on the score sheet, It’s a wide pitch, Young and Milner should enjoy the width and be able to put some great crosses in for our big guys up front to get a hold of.

My prediction is 2-0 to Villa, but I would love to see us push a 3 or 4-0 and show our rivals we’ve got the attack to go with our rock solid defence.

R x

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Well there it is, not quite my original prediction of 2-0 but certainly a fantastic scoreline, and thoroughly deserved. I ventured up to Villa Park with my best mate Nick, and I’m still smiling now watching Match of the Day. Was a cracking game, I’m really pleased with our new look defence, we are really working as a team, we defend as a team, attack as a team, its fantastic to see. Dunne and Collins play like they’ve been playing together for years!

We worked hard, very hard, especially Abonglahor, Petrov and Milner (as always!) they all covered a lot of ground and helped out the defence a number of times. My only gripe with the team today is with Ashley Young, tremendous last season but lacking in this one. Countless times he either lost the ball, failed to cross, failed to shoot when on the edge of the box in acres of space and even failing to back up the attack a couple of times, once I remember Warnock pushing forward with Young walking in his own half. But saying that, he did put in a few great balls, and of course assisted both goals from the corner flag, just a little bit more effort needed Young, take a leaf from Milner’s book. Carew should always get a mention, but I should be writing about Villa’s third goal here, because he should of buried a brilliant move from Young to Milner to Carew, but it went straight over Cech’s goal.

Not taking anything away from Chelsea, they played some fantastic football, and really put the pressure on us in the second half, this certainly wasn’t an easy win, but that just makes the victory that little bit sweeter.

This result proves we are genuine Top 4 contenders, but looking at the table, there are a few more contending for that spot, its gonna be a close one. But bring it on, we’re ready for ya!

I really thought Milner would be starting too, lets hope he at least gets subbed in with enough time to make an impact.

65mins in Gabby is subbed for Carlton Cole, not a bad innings, would of liked to seen more though. Overall Gabby did well, didn’t get the goal, but made a valuable contribution. Lets hope he’s on that plane next summer!

Rx

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In my opinion Heskey is past it, Capello doesn’t have unlimited options up front, but he certainly has better options than Heskey, Abonglahor for one, not to mention the likes of Defoe, Cole, Crouch and even Owen!

For Villa this couldn’t be better news, I remember reading a statistic which stated that during his time on the pitch, Villa have only scored 5 goals, and without him on the pitch scored over 20. Maybe this will put Heskey in MON’s bad books and he wont play him, we have a much much much better striker in John Carew, who actually scores goals and makes a difference on the pitch, so lets sell up and buy someone who can compete with Abonglahor for a starting place.

R x

Follow me on Twitter : http://twitter.com/StagediveRy

Better late than never then, Villa have had a decent start to the season, maybe if MON had pulled his finger out we would of made the key signings before the Wigan game and we would of had a better start to the season, but lets not dwell on the negative. We now have one of the best defense’s in the league (as far as stats are concerned) level with Chelsea with a total of just 6 goals against. Thanks for this go to our completely new back four, Richard Dunne in particular, who has been fantastic since he joined us.

We have depth now, something we haven’t had in recent years, and when some of our injured players return, MON will really have a tough time deciding the starting eleven. Lets just hope he realises Heskey really isn’t good for the team.

My tickets for the Chelsea match next Saturday came today, and I really cant wait for this one, we have had some good results against Chelsea, lets make it another.

Until next time.

R x

Follow me on Twitter : http://twitter.com/StagediveRy

Villa Park will need to be our fortress this year, isnt it beautiful…

Match Preview After the Jump!

The pre-season ended well for MON and his men. They went on and won the Peace Cup after a penalty shoot-out against Juventus (with some superb goalkeeping by my boy Guz) and defeated Fiorentina at home 1-0. They also went out and signed Habib Beye and Fabian Delph. Habib is a versatile defender and Villa got him on the cheap. In my last post I also called for him to be signed, so that makes me happy Fabian Delph looks to be quite a prospect and he should blend in well with our talented youngsters. He should get a great chance, especially with the questionable availability of Stiliyan Petrov. In addition, I think the youngsters will definitely get looks tomorrow, with some of them seeing significant time after particularly impressive pre-seasons.

Wigan has had a disappointing offseason so far, with both their manager and some key players departing for greener pastures. Their defense is still relatively intact and they will bunker down and play as physical as ever. Chris Kirkland is a solid keeper and I predict he will have to be at his best as Villa will lay siege to his net. With all of this being said, I can’t look beyond us for this game. Wigan are one of the favorites to go down this season and I think starting against them at Villa Park will be a great way to begin the year. Here is my predicted lineup:

-Friedel (although Guzan has been great and I could see him here too)-

-Lichaj, Davies, Cuellar, N. Shorey-

-Reo-Coker-

-Milner- -*Petrov- -A. Young-

-Gabby- -Heskey-

* If Petrov can’t go, I would like to see Sidwell here but it could be Gardner too.
Also, I think Reo-Coker or Gardner could slide back into the RB spot if MON is not completely ready to throw Lichaj into the fire.

Well there we go folks! I will be watching the game and if I can figure out how to do the live blog thingy, maybe I will get that going for some of the big matches.
!!TOM HANKS SAYS GO VILLA!!

Today Villa played in the Peace Cup today and apparently they defeated Atlante 3-1 with goals from Marc Albrighton, John Carew, and Ashley Young. I didn’t have a chance to watch the match but from the reports I have read they came from 1 down and scored 3 unanswered to secure their spot in the semi-finals on Friday night. Porto now await them after an impressive win against OL. A friendly is a friendly so I don’t take too much stock in this result but unfortunately Stiliyan Petrov came off injured. He was diagnosed with a dislocated shoulder and he should miss a few weeks, hopefully to be back by the beginning of the season. I would love to bring a little bit of insight on how the team looks right now, but since I didnt have a chance to see the game, I’ll leave the conclusions to you!

Now on to how our team looks on paper:

GOALKEEPERS

There is not much to say which hasn’t been said already. In my opinion, this is the strongest part of our team. Bradley Friedel will be the starter come Matchday 1, but Brad Guzan has put in some impressive performances as of late and we should expect to see some split time as the season progresses. For me, a good keeper is a luxury, not a necessity. Unfortunately our strength at keeper will keep us in a few games, maybe win a game or two, but it will not make or break the season for the Villains. Again, the goalkeeper position is great for us to have depth at, but its the men in front of the net who are going to either help us crack the top four or keep us mired in the Europa League.

DEFENSE

As of today, Villa Park has only seen transfers out of the back four and the squad is in desperate need of some reinforcements, especially on the wings. Currently our only established wing backs are Luke Young on the right and Nickey Shorey (who was not impressive last year) on the left. And really the only two we have in the middle are Curtis Davies and Carlos Cuellar, with Carlos not being a regular last year in the middle. It is obvious that we are weak along the back line, and with MON insisting that the lack of depth hurt Villa down the stretch last season, I would love to see some of the Barry money spent in the back. With the retirement of Martin Laursen and the recent sale of Zat Knight, we are currently down two centre-backs and we have no proven back-ups at any position. Obviously the return of Wilfred Bouma will give the squad a solid player who can play at multiple positions, but he has not played in a long time and it will take him match practice to get back to the player he used to be. Villa have recently been associated with some defenders in the transfer rumors lately, but nothing has come to fruition. Last year, Craig Gardner and Nigel Reo-Coker both filled in admirably at the back, but they are not natural defenders. After the loss of two more centre-backs, MON NEEDS to go out into the transfer market. I would like to see someone like Gianni Zuiverloon of West Brom, or Habib Beye or Sebastien Bassong of Newcastle step into the fold at Villa Park. There are some promising youngsters within the club and they are seeing plenty of time in the pre-season, but we still lack depth and this must be addressed ASAP.

What do you think? Let me know!

Next Up: Midfield