Sunderland
22
Simon Mignolet
15
Nedum Onuoha
2
Phillip Bardsley
4
Michael Turner
19
Titus Bramble
6
Lee Cattermole
10
Jordan Henderson
8
Steed Malbranque
17
Danny Welbeck
27
Ahmed Elmohamady
11
Darren Bent
Subs
1
Craig Gordon
33
Asamoah Gyan
16
Cristian Riveros
5
John Mensah
14
Paulo Da Silva
29
Anton Ferdinand
7
Boudewijn Zenden
Aston Villa
1
Brad Friedel
5
Richard Dunne
29
James Collins
23
Habib Beye
3
Stephen Warnock
7
Ashley Young
6
Stewart Downing
9
Stephen Ireland
19
Stiliyan Petrov
20
Nigel Reo-Coker
18
Emile Heskey
Subs
4
Steve Sidwell
10
John Carew
12
Marc Albrighton
21
Ciaran Clark
22
Brad Guzan
24
Carlos Cuellar
25
Barry Bannan
It’s been a reasonably quiet week on the Villa front so I elected to make a rare foray into the realms of off-the-field antics at another club, mainly to get to the little nugget about Sir Alex not fancying Villa Park because of Deadly, but I suppose the Rooney story was the story and worthy of a mention.
Football’s resembling a cheap Mexican soap opera more and more every day. Frankly, I was never a soap opera type and it
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Blackburn return to Villa Park in the Carling Cup tonight, but if it’s to be a repeat of the 6-4 thriller back in January, it will likely be for different reasons. Sam Allardyce has stated explicitly that the Premier League is their priority at all costs and after a bruising encounter with Fulham last weekend, on top of a Lancashire derby against Blackpool next weekend, Sam’s unlikely to field his strongest possible XI.
But neither will Houllier, who’s hit the
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I haven’t had chance to pull together a proper preview for Bolton’s visit to Villa Park, but this game is definitely more about various intertwining story arcs off the pitch than tactics and strategy on the pitch.
It is, of course, Kevin MacDonald’s final game in charge and it goes without saying that he and the players will want to both finish on a high note and attempt to atone for the slip-ups in the past few weeks. MacDonald’s grace
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People are fond of claiming that Stoke is a tough place to go, but the truth is that they lost six games at the Britannia last season and their overall home record ranked 13th in the league. Villa were 12th if you’re interested.
We haven’t beaten Stoke at the Britannia yet, the last league win on their own turf being a 3-1 win at the old Victoria Ground in 1984.
So far this season, their home record is played one, lost
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Team News Will Appear Here When Available:
Starting XI: Guzan, Cuellar, Collins, Davies, Beye, Reo-Coker, Ireland, Petrov, A Young, Agbonlahor, Heskey.
Subs: Delfouneso, Clark, Lichaj, Bannan, Albrighton, Hogg, Friedel.
Half way through this tie, it’s advantage to Villa and I’m hoping this is going to be a great game. Rapid have to come looking for goals, a goalless draw is no good to them, a 1-1 draw would force extra time, they have to score twice to gain the advantage, but Villa
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There are several key narratives going into Sunday’s game against Newcastle at St James’ and it’s tricky to establish any sort of order of priority. Firstly, I suppose, Kevin MacDonald’s presumably temporary, but possibly not, reign continues to breath fresh air into everything Aston Villa. Long may it continue and having steered a young, makeshift side to a result in the hostile cauldron – albeit of the mini variety – in Vienna, he’s unlikely to be intimidated by
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It’s probably fair to say that I underestimated Rapid in last year’s preview, the final sentence in particular was way off the mark. However, they had been struggling up to that point in their season and, having made the group stage, they surprised one or two people in the Europa League too.
They beat Hamburg 3-0 at home in their first group game and then managed a 1-1 draw at Celtic Park. From there, they lost their
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I inadvertently covered much of what would be worth mentioning ahead of the curtain opener the other day, but it’s worth adding that Curtis Davies and Gabby Agbonlahor join Carlos Cuellar and James Collins on the injury list.
Surprisingly though, a name that’s caught most people by surprise in the match day squad is James Milner. With the frequently promised “done deal” still not actually done, James Milner is still a Villa player and his mid-week England run out seemed
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