Martin O’Neill took the opportunity to send a much changed Aston Villa side out to face Blackburn in the FA Cup 3rd Round at Villa Park today and it paid off with a 3-1 victory. Clearly with an eye on Tuesday’s Carling Cup Semi-Final 1st leg at Ewood Park, MON gave some periphery players a run out with James Milner and Gabby Agbonlahor not even asked to sit on the bench.
Heskey
Delfouneso
Downing
Reo-Coker
Delph
A Young
Warnock
Collins
Cuellar
Beye
Guzan
Subs: Friedel, L Young, Dunne, Sidwell, Albrighton, Petrov,
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Congratulations to Richard Dunne who wins the AVC Player of the Month award for the second time this season, reiterating what a fantastic acquisition he has been.
Player of the Month – December
1st – Richard Dunne – 7.67
2nd – James Milner – 7.44
3rd – Brad Friedel – 7.25
Previous Winners
1st
2nd
3rd
November
James Milner (7.15)
Carlos Cuellar (7.04)
Brad Friedel (6.89)
October
Richard Dunne (7.21)
James Collins (7.14)
Gabby Agbonlahor (6.69)
September
Gabby Agbonlahor (7.34)
Brad Friedel (7.28)
James Milner (7.23)
August
James Milner (7.03)
Brad Friedel (6.91)
Stiliyan Petrov (6.57)
With James Milner also winning two awards and
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For some reason or another I neglected to create a Statshack for the 3-1 victory over Liverpool at Anfield, so I’ll take the rare step here of including it below the stats from last night’s 1-0 loss at Villa Park. It might be interesting to compare the two.
0
Aston Villa
Dec 29th 2009
Liverpool
1
42
Possession %
58
9
Shots
15
4
On Target
4
8
Corners
10
0
Offsides
1
Scorers
93′ Torres
Dunne
Booked
Lucas
Sent Off
214
Good Passes
325
60
Bad Passes
81
35
Interceptions
18
36
Tackles Won
37
21
Tackles Lost
29
7
Blocks
1
12
Free Kicks
13
Starting XI:
1. Friedel
2. Young
25. Warnock
24. Cuellar
5. Dunne
19. Petrov
20. Reo-Coker
8. Milner
6. Downing
10. Carew
11. Agbonlahor
Subs:
22. Guzan
14. Delfouneso
4. Sidwell
12. Albrighton
29. Collins
23. Beye
16. Delph
Average
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I’m probably not alone in feeling this loss a bit harder than the previous losses this season. I’m trying to put my finger on why and I can come up with little more than Liverpool probably deserved to take the three points the least out of the 5 teams who have beaten us so far this term. I don’t know, maybe it’s just the freshest wound since we probably should have got something from the Blackburn and West
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Absolutely heartbreaking. An injury time mistake sent Fernando Torres through clear on goal and he didn’t miss. That was all that separated the sides in the end.
It doesn’t matter than it was an even first half with the best chance falling to Stewart Downing.
It doesn’t matter that Villa were the only side to offer anything in the second half.
It doesn’t matter that MON made a really positive substitution when he brought Reo-Coker
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Can you believe that we’re already at the half way point of the season, played everyone else in league once and about to begin the rematches, starting with Liverpool tomorrow? As promised, it’s time to again compare this season’s league performance with last year. As it’s the half-season point, we’ll also take a quick look a bit deeper into the history books.
Firstly, let’s just look at the usual “Chronological” and “Apples for Apples” comparisons. Last time I did
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Statistically speaking, this game closely resembles the three victories over Liverpool, Chelsea and Man Utd. The one major detail that differs significantly is the scoreline of course.
Villa presented little threat to Almunia’s goal in the second half, but it was certainly more a case of Arsenal eventually making their chances pay after the break and there will be little argument about who can be credited with that fact.
It’s not often that a single player comes off the bench to
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The headlines for this game will rightly belong to Cesc Fabregas after his 26 minute cameo performance was enough to put Aston Villa to the sword and deny us a grand slam of victories over big four teams. In fairness though, Villa weren’t exactly setting the world on fire when the Spaniard stepped on the pitch with just over half an hour to go and a victory didn’t appear likely. When the Spaniard left the pitch with 6
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ABthegiant is back with another Pre-Smack video prior to the game against Arsenal. All being well he’ll be following up with another gloating video.
“Don’t make me pull out my gunners!! I’ve got gunners!! I’m armed and dangerous!!” Nice work again, Andy.