I’m doing something a little different with this today. Any of the news links that crops up between now and kick off will appear here on the first page, with the latest at the top. The live blog will be embedded on the second page (there’s also a link at the bottom of the page) so you don’t have to load that up if that’s not what you’re here for.

Once again, the live blog will be mostly fed from the Aston Villa Central Live Twitter account, so there will be a little lag – I think it looks for updates every minute of so. You can add your comments to the Live Blog if you wish, but it’s not designed to act like a chat room, so comments do require approval before they appear.

Clear as mud? Good. [Simple version: Pre-match news below, live blog on page 2]

Starting XI: Friedel, Cuellar, Dunne, Collins, Warnock, A Young, Milner, Petrov, Downing, Carew, Agbonlahor. Subs: L Young, Sidwell, Delfouneso, Delph, Heskey, Guzan, Beye.

In case you missed it yesterday, I recently spotted an old video on TV of Johnny Dixon making an acceptance speech of sorts following victory in the 1957 FA Cup final. Unfortunately I can’t grab that video, but I did record the audio which you can listen to below. A completely different era for sure.

Premiership Fixtures

Just two games in the Premiership today; both involving teams fighting relegation, so no real consequence to our own league campaign, but interesting appetizers to our match at Wembley. Both kick off at 3pm.

• Hull v Burnley
• West Ham v Sunderland

Also, the Grand National will be running at 4.15pm if that’s your bag. And football fans all around the world will surely be watching the El Classico which kicks off at 9pm.

The James Milner interview on BBC’s Football Focus is worth checking out. James is always good value, a thoughtful and honest player. [AVFC OS]

I know a couple of the usual suspects speculated that James Collins had deleted his Twitter account after issuing a public apology for the 7-1 defeat under some kind of instruction from the club. Of course, that’s absolute nonsense. James explains that he simply decided “it was time to concentrate on playing football”.

James Collins
It was tough to take for myself. I’ve been pretty happy with my form over the last couple of months and to drop that [performance] in the middle was quite strange so I thought I would put [the apology] out there. It was maybe a comment that I shouldn’t have made looking back on it. But it did give the fans a chance to see how I was feeling. It’s all right taking all the hype and the congratulations but I think when you play bad you’ve got to be the first to admit it. And I’m big enough and ugly enough.

Martin O’Neill says that the confidence is back. [The Guardian]

The last time we were at Wembley, for the Carling Cup final, I seem to remember making a reference to entertainers being dragged into finals of yore. For some reason Stan Boardman springs to mind, but it could be anyone of his ilk for all I care. Anyway, apparently the team were “entertained” by a magician before the last Wembley game, but James Collins reveals that’s not the case this time. [The Telegraph]

This is not strictly related to the game and I probably will refer to it again in future posts, but Randy Lerner and COO Paul Faulkner have recently given an interview with The Independent’s Tom Watt and, as ever, have had one or two interesting things to say.

Randy Lerner
You know, I think back to the final in February. Manchester United are a huge club, a one-off, for all sorts of historical reasons. But I wasn’t sitting at Wembley, looking at United and thinking: ‘I wish we were them.’ I’d rather celebrate the things we’ve got that they don’t.

I looked along at our end of Wembley and it was rammed: scarves, banners, non-stop singing, absolutely behind the team. And this wasn’t a little club out on a jolly. It was 10 years since we’d been there and it felt like our supporters were dusting themselves down and saying: ‘Yes. That’s us. We’re the Villa.’

If you’re worried about the effect that the 7-1 beating has had on us, as I and many Villa fans are, Rob Smith has some excellent examples of teams that have bounced back from heavy losses to inflict revenge and vanquish their conquerors. [The Guardian]

The Wembley pitch has been relaid for the 10th time this season, following heavy criticism after the Carling Cup final and England vs Egypt friendly. [The Guardian]