Eight changes, first starts for Chris Herd and Michael Bradley. It didn’t work, not at all. A routine beating at the hands of a frankly bemused City. A lacklustre and, at times, completely inept performance during the first half deserved the 2-0 half time scoreline. The third goal wasn’t entirely merited, there was a little fight about Villa after the break, but overall it’s probably a fair reflection on City’s superiority.
There was much head scratching before the game when the
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Gerard Houllier says he’s determined to erase memories of the “lowest moment of his career”; the 4-0 loss at Eastlands to close out 2010. How’s he going to do it? Here are the starting lineups:
Man City
Aston Villa
25
Joe Hart
1
Brad Friedel
2
Micah Richards
31
Chris Herd
17
Jerome Boateng
5
Richard Dunne
19
Joleon Lescott
21
Ciaran Clark
5
Pablo Zabaleta
16
Fabian Delph
24
Patrick Vieira
25
Barry Bannan
18
Gareth Barry
19
Stiliyan Petrov
21
David Silva
13
Michael Bradley
42
Yaya Touré
11
Gabriel Agbonlahor
13
Aleksandar Kolarov
14
Nathan Delfouneso
45
Mario Balotelli
18
Emile Heskey
Subs
Subs
12
Stuart Taylor
33
Andy Marshall
32
Carlos Tevez
36
Kyle Walker
11
Adam Johnson
8
Robert Pires
10
Edin Dzeko
20
Nigel Reo-Coker
27
Jo
12
Marc Albrighton
38
Dedryck Boyata
7
Ashley Young
57
Reece Wabara
6
Stewart Downing
Edin Dzeko’s late equaliser earned Man City a replay at Eastlands which ought to ensure their place in the 5th round of the FA Cup, meaning that’s where we’ll almost certainly be heading. It wasn’t the re-match with the Blues many fans feared or hoped for, but it’s far from ideal.
I suppose there is still the chance that Notts County could beat City, but it’s slim.
FA Cup 5th round draw in full:
Fulham or Tottenham v Bolton or Wigan
Man Utd v
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Houllier’s much rotated side ensured their place in the draw for the 5th round of the FA Cup thanks to goals from Ciaran Clark, Robert Pires and Nathan Delfouneso, but were forced to see out just under 30 minutes with 10 men after Nathan Baker was shown a straight red card for a dangerous tackle on David Hoilett.
If you weren’t at Villa Park, you didn’t see this game live, and that includes me, so I’ll just briefly describe what I
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I’m sick of the sight of Blackburn Rovers. We’ve played them eight times in the last two years; four times in the cups, four times in the Premier League. Villa have a 100% record in the cups, but Blackburn have won the last three league meetings.
It’s the 4th round of the FA Cup, form largely goes out the window, but for what it’s worth, Villa are obviously riding high on back to back league wins for the first time this
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I have good news and bad news. The good news is that we finally won a game thanks to goals from Kyle Walker, who made one of the most impressive debuts we’ve seen in claret and blue in recent memory, Marc Albrighton and Stiliyan Petrov.
The bad news is that the scoreline flatters us; it wasn’t pretty at times, and we finished the game with ten men after Ashley Young was dismissed for what was a very soft second booking,
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I don’t expect an answer, so I’ll use this post to draw a line under the disappointment of the FA Cup semi final at the weekend, but Howard Webb, The FA, The Referees Association, anyone with any kind of vested interest, should consider this an open letter of sorts and feel free to respond with an explanation.
We all know what happened in the 16th minutes of this game. Just about anyone who is honest and has the use of
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Does what it says on the tin, these are quite literally the random thoughts I have running through my head right now. Apologies if this turns into an incoherent ramble, it’s tricky to assemble much order at the moment. I’m not looking to make excuses here, the better quality side won through in the end.
Officiating
I’m generally not one to moan about referees. The reason for this is simple; I want humans refereeing, not robots, and humans make
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The scoreline flatters Chelsea, every honest Blues fan will admit it.
The positives: we were fantastic during the first 45 minutes. Defensively immaculate from front to back. Chelsea weren’t exactly at their best and unforced errors littered their play, but take nothing away from the Villa boys who all knew exactly what they had to do and carried it out to the letter.
Of course, you know a major game officiated by Howard Webb would not be without controversy.
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