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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Sky Sports were at Villa Park as part of another successful open training day, the third time the club have done this I think off the top of my head, and there’s a nice, relaxed interview with Gérard Houllier here. The gaffer confirms that Warnock will be suspended for Burnley, that Petrov will be out for at least a couple of months, Luke Young should be back in training in a week and Gabby is a week or two
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I just wanted to take a quick moment to fill you in on a couple of things that caught my eye in the feeds this morning.
Firstly, if you’re in San Francisco, The California Lions Club says the place to watch the game will be Kezar Pub who will be opening their doors an hour before kick off at 6am. Those of us with fresh enough memories of World Cup 2002 will understand the dedication it requires to get
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Aston Villa have 8 players in the Actim Top 100 Index this week, second only to Chelsea, with Gabby Agbonlahor leading the way in 3rd place with 475 points.
Focusing on Gabby for a moment; he may well be the embodiment of the Aston Villa style efficiency I’ve been discussing a lot recently. Wayne Rooney tops the goal scoring charts with 21 Premiership goals this term, but if he had Gabby’s goal per shot ratio he’d actually have 31!!
Wayne
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I don’t know about you, but I’m pretty excited about the potential attacking force of the four players above and I’m optimistic that we’re going to see this foursome regularly celebrating scoring in front of cheering fans.
Stewart Downing, as the newest player, is the biggest unknown, but he looked good as a provider in his brief cameo at the end of the game at Burnley. He put in an impressive performance for the reserves before scoring on his full
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The Guardian seems to have a strange feature built around user submitted Photoshopped images. Gabby Agbonlahor is the subject of the latest addition and they’re truly bad.
No, I don’t know either. Note to The Guardian – please stop. Just stop.
With Wayne Rooney unavailable for tonight’s final World Cup qualifier against Belarus, Fabio Capello is expected to hand Gabby Agbonlahor his third cap, most likely alongside ex-Villan Peter Crouch.
Gabby last got a run out for the senior men’s team in the 2-0 loss to Spain back in February. If you can’t recall, care to guess who his strike partner was? Yup, our own Emile Heskey. Well, for the first half anyway. Crouch was brought on in
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England
10 men England lost 1-0 to Ukraine in Dnepropetrovsk after Robert Green won the dubious honour of being the first goal keeper to be sent off for England. Fortunately Fabio Capello’s side have already qualified for South Africa next year and the Italian will be reasonably pleased with the way the team battled with a man down. Rio Ferdinand on the other hand…
Emile Heskey played 72 minutes and James Milner came on for the second half in place
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Gabby Agbonlahor’s recent run of form has been recognised by Fabio Capello and is included in the England squad to face Ukraine and Belarus.
James Milner and Emile Heskey are also in the squad, but there’s no place for Ashley Young.