Wigan Athletic were finally beaten in the league at Villa Park in a comfortable win for the home side thanks to a goal in either half. The first, a brilliant effort from Gabby Agbonlahor, who then turned provider for the second; setting up an unmissable effort for Darren Bent in front of the Holte End.
If you were to glance at the statistics, you’d be forgiven for assuming that Roberto Martinez might be leaving Birmingham thinking that his side deserved something
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Another international break has come and gone, time to focus on the bread and butter stuff. If you watched England labour to three points against Wales at Wembley this week, as a Villa fan, the line-up may have looked a lot like the image below. It probably stung quite a bit for most of us.
This is a relatively rare experience for us, but it’s been coming and it’s easy to lose sight of an important fact amongst the bitterness. In
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Alex McLeish kicked off his first Villa Park match with a near perfect start thanks to goals from Gabby Agbonlahor, Emile Heskey and Darren Bent. Only Morten Gamst Pedersen’s very well taken header spoiled the perfect result. Most importantly though; three points and a convincing performance were required today… and we got both.
McLeish made no changes from the starting line-up at Craven Cottage last weekend, although the system was slightly more attacking in nature; much more of a 4-2-3-1 instead
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It’s been a while since anything surfaced here at Aston Villa Central, I know. The last post confirmed Ashley Young’s somewhat low key move to Man Utd and since then very little of substance has actually happened. Well, the Stewart Downing “situation” has threatened to develop into a “saga”, but aside from a couple of actual bids from Liverpool being reported, nothing has changed yet; Downing is still an Aston Villa player. For now.
McLeish has stated categorically that he’s “not
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There were four, possibly five, Villans involved as England drew 2-2 with Switzerland and the United States were comprehensively beaten 4-0 by Spain yesterday. Darren Bent and Eric Lichaj started for their sides, Ashley Young and Michael Bradley entered their games at half time and Stewart Downing made a late appearance for England and almost won it with the final kick of the game.
England 2 Switzerland 2
England gifted Switzerland a two goal head start with some comedic set piece defending
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Darren Bent completed the trio of Villans on England duty taking their turns in front of the media ahead of the Euro 2012 qualifier against Switzerland. He talks about his ability and willingness to play in either a one or two striker system and how moving to Villa was the right move for him. I agree.
And if you’re after a little reading material, I’d recommend this Guardian interview with Bent where he reveals how out of place he felt during
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Fabio Capello has named a 26-man squad to take on Switzerland in the next Euro 2012 qualifier at Wembley on June 4th and Ashley Young, Stewart Downing and Darren Bent are all included. As is Kyle Walker, although he’s no longer technically a Villan, he more than deserves a mention here.
In fact, Walker’s also included in Stuart Pearce’s confirmed 23-man squad for the European Under-21 Championships in Denmark next month along with Marc Albrighton and Nathan Delfouneso, who definitely are
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I was one of a number of people to Re-Tweet this little gem before the kick off at Upton Park last weekend:
I noticed one or two people copy & pasting the contents, including both hashtags, to pass it off as their own (which is pretty lame), but I believe @Jacko442 is the originator.
By the final whistle, Bent had added to his tally and had another one chalked off for a foul only the referee saw. (You can add that to
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Another FATV interview with Ashley Young, this time post-match with what looks like Kyle Walker stuffing his face in the background. As you’ll no doubt be aware, the Villa lads were once again instrumental in England’s 2-0 win over Wales in their Euro 2012 qualifier with Ash winning the penalty for the first goal thanks to a clumsy challenge from our own James Collins.
Ash was the provider for the second, squaring Glen Johnson’s superb long ball for Darren Bent to
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