Let’s be honest here, the Carling Cup is only taken seriously by clubs who recognise that winning it is their best hope of qualifying for Europe. I don’t think we’d be getting too big for our boots to think we’re a little way above that point, although top six in this league is a massive challenge.
The conventional wisdom would probably suggest that MON’s approach to this game would be a bit different if he had the distraction of the
Let’s be honest here, when the Premiership fixture list was published, this was the first fixture most City fans would have been looking for. Personally, I’m less interested in this opponent, but I’m nonetheless happy to see them back in the top flight – the six points each year are always welcome!
As is the nature of derby games, form and class can go out the window as the playing field is somewhat levelled by the passion. All the
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
The mood going into this game is markedly different from a few days ago. Funny what a little victory at Anfield can do, isn’t it?
On a serious note though, Martin O’Neill has voiced his confusion at the half-time boos the team received during the opening day match at home to Wigan. ‘Confusion’ is probably the wrong word – to quote the manager; he was “staggered” at the fans’ reaction, as was I.
However, Villa go into this game needing
Never an easy fixture, but there sure could be better times to head up to Anfield. Avoiding a repeat of the last scoreline up there might well seem like a result in itself, but it would take that very scoreline to send Villa to the foot of the Premiership.
But who wants to get swallowed up in such a defeatist attitude? Our run of poor form will come to an end and Burnley have admirably demonstrated that every team
I pointed out in the preview for the Rapid Vienna game that the Austrian side weren’t having the best of starts to their domestic season either. You’d never have known that from the quality of the support the team received from the home fans throughout the game.
I made a couple of comments on Twitter about the Villans facing such a hostile crowd and half-joked about them having to face another one for the second leg at Villa Park.
If you’ve seen the squad that Martin O’Neill is taking to Austria then you know that he’s taking this tie seriously. Then again, when I looked at who he left out, this squad must have practically picked itself. Luke Young, Bouma, Downing, Harewood are all injured and Salifou has been sick for a while.
Obviously we’re all looking for both a performance and result from this game, it’s important that the team bounce back from the opening day debacle.
When new manager Roberto Matinez was recently placed in charge of the Lactics he was returning to the club that he had spent 6 years at as a player. Before coming back to Wigan, he spent a couple of seasons managing Swansea, another club he spent a few years at as a player, and by all accounts he did a bang up job. He lead Swansea to the League One Title and picked up Manager of the Season
You only have to cast your mind back to the final day of January this year to recall this fixture from last season, which is useful as it allows me to showcase a nifty little feature of the blog. If you click on the ‘last match’ or ‘next match’ links in the sidebar on the right you will be taken to all the content I have for that game. That might contain previews, reviews, wallpapers, videos, basically anything