Gerard Houllier says he’s determined to erase memories of the “lowest moment of his career”; the 4-0 loss at Eastlands to close out 2010. How’s he going to do it? Here are the starting lineups:
Man City
Aston Villa
25
Joe Hart
1
Brad Friedel
2
Micah Richards
31
Chris Herd
17
Jerome Boateng
5
Richard Dunne
19
Joleon Lescott
21
Ciaran Clark
5
Pablo Zabaleta
16
Fabian Delph
24
Patrick Vieira
25
Barry Bannan
18
Gareth Barry
19
Stiliyan Petrov
21
David Silva
13
Michael Bradley
42
Yaya Touré
11
Gabriel Agbonlahor
13
Aleksandar Kolarov
14
Nathan Delfouneso
45
Mario Balotelli
18
Emile Heskey
Subs
Subs
12
Stuart Taylor
33
Andy Marshall
32
Carlos Tevez
36
Kyle Walker
11
Adam Johnson
8
Robert Pires
10
Edin Dzeko
20
Nigel Reo-Coker
27
Jo
12
Marc Albrighton
38
Dedryck Boyata
7
Ashley Young
57
Reece Wabara
6
Stewart Downing
Since the analysis of Gabby’s goal at Blackpool was well received, I thought I’d repeat the task for the goals against Blackburn yesterday. This time the solid orange lines represent player movements without the ball, the dashed orange lines indicate movement with the ball (dribbling) and the blue lines show the path of the ball between players (passes).
Goal One: Build up to the penalty
With the opening goal coming from the spot, there’s obviously nothing to look at with the goal
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There were no signs of rust today as Villa returned from the two week absence and put in a confident, dominant performance to beat Blackburn 4-1 with two goals from Ashley Young – one from the spot – Stewart Downing and a Grant Hanley own goal, turning Marc Albrighton‘s low shot/cross into his own net.
All five goals came in the second half, Nikola Kalinic grabbing a late consolation with nine minutes left – possibly receiving a fortuitous deflection sending the
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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
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Live Blog: Aston Villa Reserves vs Chelsea Reserves at Hinckley.
This is how today’s lone Villa goal came about at Bloomfield Road:
Blackpool were in possession and launching an attack through the centre of the pitch with Ash and Makoun tracking back, Reo-Coker in a holding position in front of the back four.
Makoun makes a sliding tackle, winning possession back and cleverly plays a sort of “roundhouse” style back heeled pass into Reo-Coker’s path while he was still on the ground.
Reo-Coker plays a first time ball up to Darren Bent who
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It finished a point apiece at Bloomfield Road after neither side were able to improve on early goals from Gabby Agbonlahor and Eliot Grandin in a frenetic game that saw Jean II Makoun receive a straight red card for a two footed tackle with 20 minutes left to play.
It was a game that kicked off with a vibrant pace, both sides creating early chances, but it was Gabby Agbonlahor who opened the scoring with a superb run from the left,
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YouTube Video
Saturday 12th February 1994 – Aston Villa 5 Swindon 0
Dean Saunders (31, pen 66, pen 84), Steve Froggatt (55), Kevin Richardson (73).
Villa Starting XI: Bosnich, Cox, Barrett, McGrath, Froggatt, Houghton, Richardson, Townsend, Daley, Saunders, Atkinson.
8th placed Villa hosted newly promoted Swindon who were bottom of the league. Villa went on to finish 1993/94 in 10th, Swindon would only win one more game, remained bottom and were relegated.
(This video has just been uploaded, but I was thinking of trawling around
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Blackpool have lost their last five games, Ian Holloway will be desperate to avoid a sixth straight defeat. He’ll have half an eye over the horizon to his next game against Tottenham, perhaps hoping that Wolves might offer an opportunity for points after that. And then Chelsea will come to town.
By the time Holloway takes his men to Ewood Park, inside the final seven games of the season, he knows full well that his team could be in the midst
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