The unofficial Aston Villa winter break finally comes to an end today against an all too familiar opponent. If there is a single team out there that don’t require a preview post right now, it’s Blackburn, so I won’t waste your time or mine, but let’s just take a quick refresher of who’s in and out and a few of the news stories that haven’t made the blog here recently.

Blackburn will be without Canadian David Hoillet. Carlos Cuellar is out for a month, James Collins has just joined the injury list and Jean II Makoun is suspended for three games.

Expect Ciaran Clark to partner Richard Dunne, then, with Nathan Baker possibly returning at left back after suspension. Luke Young is back in training and could be ready to re-join the match squad any time in the next few games.

At the risk of sounding like a broken record, this game is obviously a great opportunity to harvest some desperately needed points. I’ll stop short of calling it a “must win”, that’s redundant, they’re all must wins, but winning is largely habitual and this is an ideal chance to get back into a winning rhythm.

Michael Bradley has spoken of his determination to force his way into the starting XI and also of his meeting with Randy Lerner:

I met Randy Lerner the first day I was at the club. He was around and introduced himself. We were able to sit down for a little bit and talk and that was great.

The first thing you notice when you sit down with him is how much passion he has for the game and how much passion he has for Aston Villa. He’s so excited to be a part of it and excited to convey his ideas for the club.

The fans and the players and everyone involved at Aston Villa can really feed off his passion.

Habib Beye was reportedly on the brink of joining Ipswich on loan. Then nothing happened. Not hugely shocking.

Darren Bent thinks the Carroll/Torres deals relieved some of the pressure on him and he’s convinced he made the right move coming to Villa.

Barry Bannan and Marc Albrighton understand being rotated and are willing to work hard for their places.

There’s only one Ian Taylor and he’s been appointed as an AVFC ambassador, something of a no-brainer, can’t think of anyone better right now. Congrats to Tayls and thumbs up to the club; a classy move.

Martin Laursen stopped by Bodymoor, conducted a number of interviews, and interestingly thinks switching from zonal to man marking at set pieces is the root cause for shipping goals, but the boys will come good in the end.

I think that they have changed the way they defend setpieces. I think that Houllier has changed it.

He is not zone marking, but he is man marking. With Martin O’Neill we always had our zone and that worked well. I enjoyed that.

I think when I’ve watched the games they’re not just staying in their zones, but they pick a man and follow him. They might not be that comfortable with that.

If a manager wants that and you’ve been used to zone marking for a couple of seasons then it takes a little bit of time to adjust. Also it’s important everyone is sure about their job and what they have to do.

Hull would like to extend Brad Guzan‘s loan. Judging from his notoriously brief Tweets, he’s enjoying life in Championship. He’s played 10 games for Hull now, unbeaten in nine, making 48 saves and keeping four clean sheets.

The FA Cup 5th round tie against Man City will be played at Eastlands on Wednesday after Mancini’s side put Notts County to the sword in their 4th round replay last Sunday.

Amazingly, barely five minutes after the winter transfer window closed, there has already been a few names thrown around in the media for this summer’s transfer window. I’m quite certain this blog will be going into hibernation when the season is over until pre-season kicks off.

And finally, it’s emerged that FxPro will not be continuing their shirt sponsorship deal beyond the end of this season. Whatever, their loss, we’ll have someone new on the shirts next year and assurances that there will be no repeats of the manufacturing delays experienced this season.

[Photo credits: AVFC and some cowboy. Probably]