Aston Villa 0 Birmingham City 0 – A Dire Derby

Howard Webb didn’t bother playing the minimum five minutes the fourth official had indicated should be added and he won’t get many complaints for bringing this laborious goalless derby to a premature end. Preventing the winning streak being extended to seven games will feel like a big victory for City, but we’ll be left looking at the performances of Ciaran Clark and passion shown by Nigel Reo-Coker for positives.

The teamsheet suggested that Houllier was going to set the home

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Aston Villa vs Birmingham City – Teamsheets

Aston Villa

1
Brad Friedel

2
Luke Young

3
Stephen Warnock

29
James Collins

5
Richard Dunne

21
Ciaran Clark

7
Ashley Young

6
Stewart Downing

20
Nigel Reo-Coker

4
Steve Sidwell

18
Emile Heskey

Subs

22
Brad Guzan

10
John Carew

14
Nathan Delfouneso

9
Stephen Ireland

24
Carlos Cuellar

25
Barry Bannan

30
Eric Lichaj

Birmingham

26
Ben Foster

2
Stephen Carr

5
Roger Johnson

6
Liam Ridgewell

15
Scott Dann

7
Sebastian Larsson

8
Craig Gardner

12
Barry Ferguson

18
Keith Fahey

22
Alexander Hleb

19
Nikola Zigic

Subs

1
Maik Taylor

4
Lee Bowyer

9
Kevin Phillips

10
Cameron Jerome

17
Michel

21
Stuart Parnaby

23
Jean Beausejour

No Preview Required – Aston Villa vs Birmingham City

Actually, I’ve already read what feels like a thousand previews, you may have read a similar number yourself, there’s little I can add. All the tactics and stratagems go out the window for these ones. All bets are off.

As it happens, I’m going to be out all day Saturday anyway, so instead I’ll leave a couple of windows to the chatter happening on Twitter right now below. You never know, there might be a nugget or two.

I’ll

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Statshack – Aston Villa 1 Birmingham 0

I intended to open this post talking briefly about the penalty, but once I dived into the subject I found it deserved its own post. This post got left on the back burner. I apologise, but I realise that you don’t really care about the statistics from this game; if ever there was a game where only one stat counted it was this one, right? Yup, we won, that’s all that matters.

So, let’s be brief then.  I’ve

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The “Erroneous” Penalty And Parroting The Pundits

It happens in almost every televised game.  A tasty tackle is made, bodies go flying and the commentators confidently call the incident a foul.  Then we see a replay, in slow motion, possibly from a different angle and we hear “oh, he got a touch on the ball first”.  It’s repeated to the point that the average football fan, and presumably those repeating this meme, actually believe that a glancing blow between the leather of boot and ball are enough

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Aston Villa 1 Birmingham City 0

It wasn’t a bad day for Aston Villa yesterday in the chase for fourth place. Arsenal seemingly couldn’t summon up the desire necessary to beat an unadventurous City side at home, but Utd restated their title credentials by finishing off Tottenham, not an unimpressive feat given form over the last couple of games.

Today was even better, although it wasn’t pretty. Not that any Villa fan will care right now; it’s local bragging rights and, more importantly, 5th place

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Passion / Spirit / Desire / Jubilation / Determination

20th April 2008, Villa Park. A brace each from Ash and Carew topped with a 5th from Gabby. What a day. Some great, great moments. From the goals, to Carew and the ball boy, to Ollie pumping his fists with unbridled joy in the 85th minute. I think that look on his face will be etched in my mind forever!!

Just over two years later and they’re back…

…hopefully for more of the same!!

UTV!!

I’d love to give these

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