Not the greatest surprise in the world, but the news is just breaking that Marlon Harewood will be joining Newcastle on loan and is expected to travel with his new team mates to Ipswich at the weekend.
A move like this was always on the cards and it’s frankly quite surprising that it’s taken this long. Marlon has effectively dropped down the pecking order to be fifth choice striker at Villa, but that’s never stopped him giving 110%. Anyone
Making the Carling Cup fourth round draw really shouldn’t be such a big deal, but when you consider that Villa haven’t progressed any further than the fourth round for 5 years you’d be forgiven for hoping to get a decent draw.
I certainly am. Here’s the 16 teams left in the draw, what odds on Man Utd at home?
Aston Villa
Arsenal
Chelsea
Bolton
Barnsley
Everton
Liverpool
Man Utd
Sunderland
Peterborough
Portsmouth
Blackburn
Stoke
Scunthorpe
Spurs
Man City
The draw will be held on Saturday 26th September.
Aston Villa will be in the Carling Cup fourth round draw this Saturday after beating Cardiff City 1-0 at Villa Park tonight.
The news that Reo-Coker would not be included this evening proved to be accurate with MON electing to use a 4-4-2 system – Guzan, Beye, Cuellar, Collins, Shorey, Gardner, Milner, Delph, Petrov, Agbonlahor, Carew with Friedel, Sidwell, Dunne, Clark, Albrighton, Delfouneso and Warnock on the bench.
Gabby got the home side off to the best of starts scoring on 2
That’s the word on the street anyway. I’ll be confirming the team sheet on Twitter, as always, but I’m hoping this little snippet of info isn’t accurate.
Stuart James at The Guardian had me confused on Monday with his view of what was likely to happen. His opening paragraph contained this information:-
Martin O’Neill has sought to draw a line under the incident that saw him clash with Nigel Reo-Coker during a training-ground practice match after the midfielder apologised for swearing
Let’s be honest here, the Carling Cup is only taken seriously by clubs who recognise that winning it is their best hope of qualifying for Europe. I don’t think we’d be getting too big for our boots to think we’re a little way above that point, although top six in this league is a massive challenge.
The conventional wisdom would probably suggest that MON’s approach to this game would be a bit different if he had the distraction of the
I won’t do this after every game, but it’s probably worth looking at how things are going this season in comparison with last year every 5 or so games. There’s two comparisons that can be made:-
Chronological – i.e. compare the first 5 games this season with the first 5 last season, regardless of opponent.
Apple for Apples – compare identical fixtures from last season, regardless of when they occurred. Since 3 teams are relegated and 3 promoted each year this
I was recently contacted by a YouTube user and fellow Villa fan by the name of Godzvilla offering me a picture he’d taken of Villa Park for a wallpaper. For someone who genuinely wants to stay within the oppressive copyright laws, and probably fails, this is too good for me to pass up.
I’m always on the look out for high resolution images and will never turn down any offers, although I’ll offer no guarantee that I’ll use them.
2
Aston Villa
Sep 19th 2009
Portsmouth
0
48
Possession %
52
7
Shots
17
4
On Target
6
7
Corners
5
2
Offsides
2
34′ Milner (Pen), 43′ Agbonlahor
Scorers
Cuellar, Agbonlahor
Booked
Sent Off
202
Passes
240
72
Bad Passes
62
6
Interceptions
16
28
Tackles Won
40
25
Tackles Lost
24
5
Blocks
2
15
Free Kicks
19
Starting XI:
1. Friedel
24. Cuellar
25. Warnock
29. Collins
5. Dunne
19. Petrov
4. Sidwell
7. Young
8. Milner
11. Agbonlahor
10. Carew
Subs:
22. Guzan
18. Heskey
23. Beye
21. Shorey
26. Gardner
16. Delph
14. Delfouneso
Average Position Map
It probably says more about how poor Portsmouth are right now that Aston Villa playing 4-4-2 really only needed to step up a gear for 15 minutes or so in the first half to win this game.
Very little happened during the first 30 minutes with Pompey probably edging things. Villa finally showed some creative spark in the middle which culminated with Petrov making a surging run into the box on the right hand side and was fouled by Belhadj.