Not the greatest of shocks, it was looking dicey 10 days ago, but it’s been confirmed that James Collins and Carlos Cueller will not be available for the season opener against West Ham on Saturday. As far as I know, Richard Dunne came through Ireland’s 1-0 loss to Argentina unscathed and there should be no issue with Ciaran Clark.

Curtis Davies and Gabby Agbonlahor are both back in training and there’s some optimism that they will be available. Ashley Young played the second 45 minutes for England – where he looked really good too by the way – and should be fine. James Milner also played later in the game, but that’s of no real consequence to us.

Shane Lowry watched Australia’s first game under new manager Holger Ozieck, a 2-0 loss in Slovenia, from the bench. Marc Albrighton played the closing 20 minutes of so of England Under-21’s 2-0 win over Uzbekistan.  I’ve already mentioned Brad Guzan putting in an impressive 45 minutes against Brazil and he was flying back to Birmingham over night.

der Hammer

And finally, it’s not clear whether Thomas Hitzlsperger will be available for West Ham after being substituted while captaining Germany during their 2-2 draw with Denmark last night with what was described as a “possible muscle injury”. I don’t know how I feel about that to be honest. It’s probably a good thing, you’d certainly agree if you caught his slide rule through ball for Germany’s opening goal last night. On the other hand, even though he’d be playing for someone else, part of me was looking forward to seeing him at Villa Park again. Definitely mixed feelings.

I haven’t mentioned der Hammer joining the Hammers here before, but it’s a big mystery to me why we don’t have him. I tend to avoid phrases such as “missed out” on a player, even when we’re “linked” in the media, as I’m never sure whether we were even really after them. How do you miss out on someone you were never interested in?

But we all knew Hitzlsperger spoke about returning to Villa Park some day, I can’t say for certain of course, but it seems highly unlikely that his agent didn’t at least mention that he’d be available on a free from Lazio.

There’s some negligence there somewhere. He’s definitely the type of player we’ve been missing and would have been a hugely popular move with the fans. To play devil’s advocate though, maybe we were left in the dark about his availability, or maybe his wages were a little too salty, I don’t know, but it’s a shame he’s not a Villan again, that’s all I know.