It’s back to the meat and potato business of Premiership action at Villa Park on Sunday when Fulham come to town in what, at this early stage of the season, is a six pointer. Villa and Fulham both have played two, won one, lost one records right now. Fulham more predictably beat Portsmouth, but lost to Chelsea. Villa don’t do predictable.

Fulham have never beaten Villa at home in a Premiership match and have only managed 4 wins from all of their 25 visits to Villa Park in league football. As Fulham have only been in the top flight since 2001, you’d have to go back to 1974, when Villa spent a few seasons in the old Second Division, to find Fulham’s last league win at VP.

Don’t get too carried away, the historical league record between the two teams is almost exactly the same in reverse at Craven Cottage. Fulham are good side, especially since Hodgson took the reigns, and they deservedly secured the final European place 9 points behind Villa last year.

It’s clear that we can’t look at Rapid Vienna’s place in the Europa League group draw and see what might have been, but it’s entirely possible that Fulham’s name was drawn in Villa’s place. I wonder how the prospect of shortly having to face Roma, Basel and CSKA Sofia might weigh on their minds as they plot a path through 4 competitions this season.

Personnel wise, Fulham have a few issues right now. Simon Davies and Andrew Johnson are both unavailable through injury, while captain Danny Murphy, Clint Dempsey, Bobby Zamora and Paul Konchesky are all doubts. That’s possibly their two leading scorers out in Johnson and Zamora, although much of this may be assumptions based on the side put out to get a job done in the Europa League play off this week.

No one gets a cookie for guessing that Curtis Davies will be doubtful for this game. If he starts, the likelihood of his shoulder popping out again is now so high it might be worth doing a sweepstakes on the minute it could happen. If anyone is game, I’ll stick a fiver on minutes 56-60.

Richard Dunne seems on the verge of signing, but there are some minor complications that need resolving before he puts pen to paper on a deal. In any case, he won’t be signed in time to be eligible for this game so MON will have some decisions to make at the back for sure. Distin, the other potential new centre half, will be even less eligible having now signed for Everton. Meh.

Lowry has been the preferred covering option on the bench so far and I’m not sure why as I believe his natural position is left back. Oh, did I just answer my own question? Seriously though, Ciaran Clark looked a great prospect when he stepped in for Davies during the summer, he’s the Captain of the Reserves and bagged a brace in the recent 4-0 win over Chelsea Reserves. No disrespect to Lowry, but square pegs and round holes and all that.

Nicky Shorey has recently stated that he’s unconcerned about Stephen Warnock joining the club and is relishing the competition. I’m not sure Nicky is being entirely honest with us and speculation suggests that Warnock will make his debut in this game. So much for competition if Shorey is dropped at the first opportunity.

The major concern I would have at the back is that Carlos Cuellar could be the only player with any significant experience for Villa and that is hardly extensive. Beye has a handful of games under his belt now and is looking a little more settled, but he’s got to be up to speed for this game faced with the prospect of the other side of the pitch being manned by Lowry/Clark and Warnock.

In the middle, well your guess is as good as mine. This is exactly the sort of game that you might expect the manager to start blooding new signing Delph with 30 minutes or so if the game’s going well. As we know, Delph has already been thrown to the wolves twice and I’m far from convinced that was the right approach.

I’d hazard a guess that there will be no shortage of takers among the Villa fans if offered a 5 man midfield. Again, I don’t disagree and believe we need to play in whatever fashion it takes to get the result, but my reservation is that I don’t want to see a two man strike force abandoned entirely. Every side out there will employ two strikers at some time or another and I can’t see how far we can progress if we’re unable to do the same when necessary.

I know the argument that 5 men beat 4 men in midfield, but it’s not that simple at all. If it were, surely you just stick in 6 midfielders and will be unbeatable until someone trumps that with the genius move of employing 7 midfielders.

Up front, Gabby looked good at Anfield. Carew looked strong at Villa Park. Heskey… well, his skills are more subtle, but he would certainly help his cause by grabbing a few more goals. MON has certainly shown his willingness to shuffle things around already this season, possibly a little over-willing, but I doubt we should be expecting to see a repeat of the side that played Rapid Vienna this week.

Compared to last season, MON is looking something of a tinkerman so far. Perhaps somewhere in between these two extremes would be better, but as he no longer has the distraction of European competition to worry about we’ll possibly see a bit more consistency.

Closing out August with a win will be particularly useful as there’s definitely some low fruit in September, while October looks a bit tougher. To continue the agricultural metaphor, we should definitely be looking to make some hay while the sun is shining.