I don’t know how long it will be up, but there’s 14 minutes of highlights from the Carling Cup 4th round victory over Burnley in the video at the foot of this post.
Downing’s extra time goal was a worthy winner (it certainly made up for his atrocious earlier effort), a stinging effort from the edge of the box, and Heskey’s opener was an example to Reo-Coker on how to put those square balls away, but question marks remain.
With
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It took an extra time winner from Stewart Downing to settle this one after Clarke Carlisle cancelled out Emile Heskey’s late opener, but it was a costly game for Marc Albrighton who will be suspended for the Birmingham derby game after being sent off during extra time.
Not a game I saw or even heard, but clearly another game where we struggled to find the net. Maybe not surprising when you start without any recognised strikers, but Ashley Young, Stephen
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Aston Villa
1
Brad Friedel
30
Eric Lichaj
24
Carlos Cuellar
21
Ciaran Clark
23
Habib Beye
4
Steve Sidwell
20
Nigel Reo-Coker
12
Marc Albrighton
25
Barry Bannan
7
Ashley Young
9
Stephen Ireland
Subs
6
Stewart Downing
35
Daniel Johnson
14
Nathan Delfouneso
18
Emile Heskey
22
Brad Guzan
29
James Collins
50
Jonathan Hogg
Burnley
1
Lee Grant
2
Graham Alexander
3
Daniel Fox
4
Michael Duff
5
Clarke Carlisle
18
Leon Cort
8
Dean Marney
10
Martin Paterson
14
Tyrone Mears
19
Jay Rodriguez
22
Ross Wallace
Subs
9
Chris Iwelumo
11
Wade Elliott
12
Brian Jensen
15
David Edgar
21
Andre Bikey
24
Brian Easton
30
Steven Thompson
In a late change, John Carew pulled out during the warm-up, Stephen Ireland replaced him in the starting XI and Daniel Johnson (academy player) will sit on the bench.
Burnley came up from the Championship last season via the play-offs and rightly didn’t go crazy bringing in new players before predictably heading back down to the Championship without too many heading for the exit. They were soundly beaten 4-0 at home by Reading last weekend, two of the starting line-up – Brian Jensen and Tyrone Mears – started every Premiership game the season before and five others had at least a dozen Premiership starts under their belts.
They may
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One of the things that I enjoy about pulling the Statshacks together is that the statistics often don’t reflect my perception of the game, which really challenges what I think I know, and this one is no exception. Maybe it’s just me, but I don’t think that the scoreline flatters us much, but if you were to make a judgment based solely on the numbers below you might not agree.
You can see for yourself that the passing and possession
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Aston Villa opened what MON is describing as the most important week of his Villa tenure with a vital three points, thumping hapless Burnley 5-2 at Villa Park, but it didn’t look like it was heading that way at half time.
Burnley opened the scoring in a scrappy early period after carving the Premiership’s meanest defense wide open with some slide rule passing that culminated with Steven Fletcher receiving the ball with an unmissable chance at the back stick. That
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Martin O’Neil has been describing it as his most important week since joining Aston Villa and while I wouldn’t rush to disagree, with our season apparently continually hinging on our next game, which weeks aren’t important?
However, with a resurgent Everton now chasing on our heels, three points against Burnley tomorrow are, well, just as important as they were before Everton beat Man Utd today. It remains to be seen whether Everton can maintain their form should Landon Donovan return
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