While Stephen Ireland was busy signing his Aston Villa contract, most of his new teammates were travelling to Austria for tomorrow’s Europa League play-off first leg encounter with Rapid Vienna. I think the 20 man squad (16 1st teamers + 4 reserves) caused a few sharp intakes of breath among some Villa fans:-

Of the 12 members of the first team squad who didn’t head to Austria, Cuellar, Collins, Delph and Gabby are all injured. Richard Dunne is suspended from European competition after being sent of in City’s Europa League quarter final 2nd leg against Hamburg back in April 2009.

Luke Young, Ashley Young, Petrov and Carew have all been listed as “rested”. Your guess is as good as mine about Salifou.  I suppose things dragged on too long to expect Stephen Ireland to have headed out to make his debut.

Curiously, Steve Sidwell got a specific mention at 8.15am in the live blog, but apparently didn’t travel. Make of that what you will.

So, four key available players left behind to “rest”. If the players that are there get a result, it won’t matter. A poor result though… well surely it’s too early in MacDonald’s tenure, temporary as it is right now, to create a Moscowgate style grudge?

I’m desperate to see us progress in the Europa League this year, so I can’t pretend not to be a little nervous. However, there’s a long season ahead and there should be enough quality in that squad to at least get a draw, possibly a score draw, and set up the second leg at Villa Park with a clear advantage. Who knows, if Marc Albrighton tears the place up the way he did at the weekend, they could easily be coming back with the tie more or less wrapped up.

On the positive side, after selecting Milner at the weekend and now leaving a few of the big names behind, KMac’s demonstrated that he’s not afraid of making big decisions. Whether he’s motivated by not having much real interest in the job on a permanent basis, or the opposite, only he knows, but he’s clearly not intimidated by it. That’s encouraging.

If you’re interested, my match report from this same game last year is here. It’s worth a quick read, I think it conveys how the game really was a continuation of the insipid performance in the opening day loss at home to Wigan.

Although we’re very much in a state of flux, I feel the vibe is much more positive 12 months later and I’m reasonably optimistic, despite the nerves, that this game will end in a decent result.

We do look a bit light in the middle though, don’t we? Reo-Coker could well have to put in quite a shift tomorrow.