Definitely news we already knew, Stewart Downing may be fit before Christmas. Or New Year. Basically, nothing different from when he came to the club in the summer. Still, it’s nice to be reminded of his existence.
The reserves were recently held to a scoreless draw in Stoke, but the Academy smashed Reading for six at home. New picks Halfhuid and Carruthers were involved. Nice.
You can listen to MON interviewed by Stan Collymore on Talk Sport here. Worth
As a rule I try to avoid the more scurrilous stories, but as I decided to opine on Emile Heskey’s apparent cry for first team action recently I feel strangely compelled to continue the trend with the most tenuous of links.
Apparently there was a story in one of the Sunday rags about an unnamed England player sending Fabio Capello into fits of rage for using their mobile phone during dinner while away on England duty.
Well, guess who’s not endearing himself
In a lot of ways this game reminded me of the 3-1 win at Anfield and looking at the stats it’s easy to see why. Statistically speaking, Villa took a bit of a battering, but I’m not sure how many neutral observers could reconcile the game they witnessed with the stats below. I’m struggling myself, but I’m biased and I admit it, I thought MON’s men gave an enormous performance.
Unsurprisingly, as you’ll note in the average position map,
Regular readers will not need reminding that I’m an ardent supporter of the Lerner/O’Neill management of our club. Aston Villa are barely recognizable from the club they were a little over 3 years ago. In fact, they’re almost polar opposite.
However, no one is beyond criticism and I must confess one trait of Martin O’Neill’s that frequently leaves me scratching my head is his apparent willingness to ask players to perform roles outside of their natural positions. Sure,
With Wayne Rooney unavailable for tonight’s final World Cup qualifier against Belarus, Fabio Capello is expected to hand Gabby Agbonlahor his third cap, most likely alongside ex-Villan Peter Crouch.
Gabby last got a run out for the senior men’s team in the 2-0 loss to Spain back in February. If you can’t recall, care to guess who his strike partner was? Yup, our own Emile Heskey. Well, for the first half anyway. Crouch was brought on in
We’ve all seen the type of blog comments I’m aiming this at. They’re usual derisory comments following rumours of a player moving from one club to another. Why would player X leave massive club Y to join little club Z?
In Aston Villa’s case, you might want to point them to the all time Premiership table which currently looks like this:-
But hey, points are all well and good, but it’s silverware we all love. In that case,
…Emile Heskey is considering his future at Aston Villa…
…I lied about the bad news.
Sorry Emile, I couldn’t resist. I’m sure you’re a really nice guy, your fellow professionals often sing your praises from the rooftops and they are surely in a better position to appreciate your talents than we fans, but it just isn’t working for you at the Villa. With all due respect, I don’t think you’ll find too many Villa fans who will go out of
England
10 men England lost 1-0 to Ukraine in Dnepropetrovsk after Robert Green won the dubious honour of being the first goal keeper to be sent off for England. Fortunately Fabio Capello’s side have already qualified for South Africa next year and the Italian will be reasonably pleased with the way the team battled with a man down. Rio Ferdinand on the other hand…
Emile Heskey played 72 minutes and James Milner came on for the second half in place
I started keeping tabs on Aston Villa players in the Actim Index Top 100 last year, although I didn’t keep records of every week. In fact, my records aren’t very good at all, but one week I do happen to have from last year is the current week – i.e. after 7 games.
It’s interesting that the record of the first 7 games for this season and last is near identical, yet Villa’s representation in the Actim Top 100 looks