Finally, we’re going to get so see some Aston Villa today. FINALLY!! This will be a blog post which I’ll just update bits and pieces throughout the day as we head towards kick off tonight at Ewood Park. It seems like forever since we last had a game, which incidentally was Blackburn at Villa Park on January 2nd. Just in case you couldn’t remember.

One little story that’s bouncing around the Twittersphere as I write surrounds Nathan Delfouneso‘s stated desire to battle for a first team spot at Villa rather than go out on loan. Good on him I say, there’s something of the predatory striker’s nature about that, which can’t be a bad thing. With Carew and Heskey both sporadic with their form, both less than spring chickens and not immune from injuries and MON apparently not looking to bring in anyone new, the youngster has a great chance to get his opportunity some time this year.  Hey, maybe he thinks he can grab a spot on absolute merit and that would be an admirable level of self belief.

Back to today’s game and Blackburn are looking to bounce back after a poor run of form.  Actually, it’s not just the form.  You can have a bad run of results, as Villa have done form time to time, but not look so insipid as Blackburn have done recently.  There was a big bust up between frustrated players and manager at Eastlands following their appalling display in the 4-1 loss and there’s a growing level of pressure on Sam Allardyce to turn things around.

The Guardian also says that Blackburn have currently only sold 11,500 tickets for tonight’s match, with Villa expected to arrive with more than 5,000. The Villa away support are always fantastic and it looks like it will be down to them to supply the atmosphere in a stadium that will be less than two thirds full. If they’re lucky.

Martin O’Neill doesn’t have any major injury concerns that I’m aware off, so we should probably expect a strong line up and there’s no reason to suspect that Guzan won’t keep his place in the “cup team”. Should we make it, I would hope that continues all the way to the final. He’s certainly earned it.

As always, I’ll update on Twitter as we get closer to the game, but I’ll drop other bibs and bobs in here during the day as they arise.

For the Americans with friendly ISPs, ESPN360 will have the game live.  Elsewhere on the net, BET365 customers will also have access to a legitimate feed.  There may be less legitimate feeds floating around the interwebz, but I couldn’t possibly comment.  In the UK this game will be televised on Sky Sports 1 and HD1.

I just saw a Tweet that made me laugh claiming that Thierry Henry has signed for Aston Villa in a swap with John Carew!!  Oh yes, I laughed and then checked around the interwebz just in case….. and found nothing at all.

When Sky Sports are listing the unavailable Villa players as Bouma (toe), Davies (shoulder) and Salifou (on leave) I think it’s fair to say that MON pretty much has all his first choices at his disposal.  Not so for Big Sam who is definitely without Jason Roberts and Vincent Grella, and possibly without Benni McCarthy and Gael Give. El-Hadji Diouf is also still suspended.  Not ideal when rumours about your future being on the line coming into this game.

Has anyone tried Football3‘s yet?  I remember it floating around a little while ago (it’s still in beta), but I had honestly forgotten all about it.  To be fair though, I’m already generally using 3 or 4 screens during a game, depending on whether it’s televised or not, so I’m not sure if I could look at anything else.  Anyway, they dropped me a Tweet to let me know that they’re featuring the game at Blackburn tonight and there’s a hundred quid up for grabs.  Or something.  If anyone does play it, let me know what it’s like.

Good luck to the youth team who are playing West Brom in the FA Youth Cup 4th Round at The Hawthorns.  Kick Off at 7pm GMT.

Final update, team for tonight’s game: Guzan; Cuellar, Dunne, Collins, Warnock, A Young, Milner, Petrov, Downing, Heskey, Agbonlahor.

Now over to Twitter. UTV!!!