I’m going to leave this post open and at the top of the home page all the way up until we get the team news for the Carling Cup Final on Sunday. I’ll drop links to all the latest news and opinion that attracts my attention on the wires and feeds, with the most recent at the top. Feel free to draw my attention to anything I miss.
I’m not completely sure how I’m going to handle the match
I know Twitter isn’t everyone’s cup of tea, but you ought to know by now that I’m a big fan. Some people seemingly just want to use it as an additional method of publishing their blogs, and it is good for that, but I prefer to look at it as two-way communication. For me, it’s about having a conversation and that’s the theme of this Follow Friday Team of the Week on the last Friday before our Carling
I just wanted to take a quick moment to fill you in on a couple of things that caught my eye in the feeds this morning.
Firstly, if you’re in San Francisco, The California Lions Club says the place to watch the game will be Kezar Pub who will be opening their doors an hour before kick off at 6am. Those of us with fresh enough memories of World Cup 2002 will understand the dedication it requires to get
Aston Villa have 8 players in the Actim Top 100 Index this week, second only to Chelsea, with Gabby Agbonlahor leading the way in 3rd place with 475 points.
Focusing on Gabby for a moment; he may well be the embodiment of the Aston Villa style efficiency I’ve been discussing a lot recently. Wayne Rooney tops the goal scoring charts with 21 Premiership goals this term, but if he had Gabby’s goal per shot ratio he’d actually have 31!!
Wayne
That’s ‘The People’ as in the “news” paper, not some grandiose reference to the citizenry of any particular country by the way. Just needed to make that clear straight away.
Look, here’s the thing folks; whenever we start challenging for honours, like when we’re riding high in the top four for several weeks or, oh I don’t know, about to take on Man Utd in a Wembley final, the tabloids always start publishing stupid stories about the club. It’s
One of the things that I enjoy about pulling the Statshacks together is that the statistics often don’t reflect my perception of the game, which really challenges what I think I know, and this one is no exception. Maybe it’s just me, but I don’t think that the scoreline flatters us much, but if you were to make a judgment based solely on the numbers below you might not agree.
You can see for yourself that the passing and possession
I’m just checking Rafa’s Wikipedia page to see whether he has any background in accounting as this might have been what he had in mind when he guaranteed that Liverpool would finished in the top four. We all know how close Portsmouth are to total collapse. Today I saw a suggestion of what might happen if they go out of business and it’s not great news for us, but it would be a disaster for Arsenal and the
Martin O’Neil has been describing it as his most important week since joining Aston Villa and while I wouldn’t rush to disagree, with our season apparently continually hinging on our next game, which weeks aren’t important?
However, with a resurgent Everton now chasing on our heels, three points against Burnley tomorrow are, well, just as important as they were before Everton beat Man Utd today. It remains to be seen whether Everton can maintain their form should Landon Donovan return
Last season, possibly around this time of year, Aston Villa were looking fairly solid in the top four and, by contrast, Arsenal were really struggling to show their quality. We all know how it turned out, so no need to go over old ground, but one particular piece of banter from a section of the Arsenal support stuck in my mind. On a number of occasions I stumbled on a Gooner opining that Aston Villa would not be