Well lads another "break" over and its all systems go until the end of March before we have to press the pause button again...!!!!!!!!
Villa versus leeds 8pm KO this Wednesday and its the start of a very difficult block of games in my opinion (everton, manure, loserpool, spuds & Leicester) so anything we can pick up on Wednesday will be gratefully appreciated.
Aston Villa Football Club was founded in 1874 and is based in the city of Birmingham.
They started playing at Villa Park in 1897, a stadium which was often used to host FA Cup Semi-finals. Founder members of the Football League in 1888, in 1982 Villa became one of few English clubs to have won the European Cup when, under the management of Tony Barton, they defeated Bayern Munich in the Final obviously they hadnt to put up with a bent official unlike another English Club a few years prior to this victory.
Aston Villa have also won both the First Division and the FA Cup seven times each.
In 2006, long term chairman Doug Ellis sold the club to American Randy Lerner. The takeover cost the American entrepreneur an estimated 62.6 million. Villa lost their status as ever-present members of the Premier League in 2016 when they were relegated for the first time since 1987.
Home ground history:
Wilson Road, Aston Park and Aston Lower Grounds - 1874
Wellington Road in Perry Barr - 1876
Villa Park - 1897
Famous Villa supporters
Violinist Nigel Kennedy
Harry Potter star Oliver Phelps
Mrs Doyle from Fr. Ted Pauline McLynn
David Cameron
Lee Child, author of the bestselling Jack Reacher Books
Tom Hanks
Ozzy Osbourne
High-jumper Tom Parsons
Brendan Gleeson - Actor (was in Harry Potter too)
Simon Le Bon and Roger Taylor from Duran Duran
UB40's Brian Travers
Black Sabbath's Tony Iommi
And so is his fellow Sabbath band member Geezer Butler
David Bradley -actor (also in Harry Potter)
Benjamin Zephaniah - Poet
Ian Bell Cricketer
Jane Sixsmith Hockey
Prince William, Duke of Cambridge
6 of the Chuckle Brothers
And Douglas Bader the treble leg amputee, south paw 8 knuckled bare first boxer and world recorder holder for eating the most amount of chilli's in one hour (2,354)
But enough of these muppet's and back to the football
Currently Villa are in 11th spot 21 games played with 26 points - 28 goals scored and with 32 conceded last 5 fixtures in the PL 2W, 2D & 1L
Leeds are 15th in the table with 22 points from 21 games also with 24 scored but a horrific 40 conceded. Our last 5 games are 2W & 3L
This will be the 103rd meeting of these two clubs Villa won 40, Leeds won 32 and there have been 30 draws in that time.
In the PL, top flight only, (1992)
Villa won 9
Draws 9
Leeds won 8
so history shows us there isnt much between us but every game is different and with slippy G in charge at Villa now and with his 1st win as manager for them in the PL under his belt away to everton he will want to show in front of his own fans that he is well capable of running their Club.
With players like Coutinho, McGinn, Buendia & Watkins they will be handful ive no doubt but with Mings & Konsa at the back we can get at them. That's their Achilles heel and if we can get James, Rapha, Jack running and turning those two in particular we can cause them plenty of problems too.
Our heaviest defeat against Villa was 5-1 in 1926 (away)
We have beaten them 4-1 twice on their patch 1982 & again in 1991 and another away 3 goal win for leeds was when Paddy B scored a hattrick in October 2020 what i wouldn't do for something similar on Wednesday night.......
On the injury / away list
Villa
Leon Bailey (thigh) is expected to be back for Wednesdays game
Nakamba (knee) out till April
Trezeget - AFCON duties with Egypt last night, may not feature
Bertrand Trarore - AFCON with Burkina Faso but they have been knocked out so should be available
Leeds
Cooper - Hamstring
Kalvin - Hamstring (could be too risky on Wednesday)
Cresswell - Shoulder
But three above have been seen on the training pitch in TA recently which is encouraging
Bamford - Foot (wont make it for Villa)
With KP & PB now after missing 9 matches its time to get these two first choice players back onto the pitch.
Possible team
my guess is that he will go back to the west ham team lineup and formation
James
Harrision Foreshaw Klich Rapha
Koch
Firpo Pascal Ayling Dallas
Meslier
While id love it for shacks and Geldhardt to see some game time i think we need some stability on the field to allow the players to produce some stable performances / results.
The probability stats read Villa win 53%, 24% the draw and leeds win 23% so id gladly take a point and hopefully the path to PL survival is another step closer
MOT
So who's doing the Everton thread?? Looking for a hero!!!!! 😉
I must say Dan James put in a top class performance last night, absolute quality. We have a gem of a player.
Great game!
Congrats Bull. Lead us to total safety please!
What a night
Well deserved our point, as the commentator said both teams deserved more so in a sense that means both teams deserved something for their efforts. It will probably go into MB's top 50 list of great games of the beautiful game. At work today and i still need a lie down after last nights ultimate blood pressure and stress test
Great game to watch, I imagine there are big q's outside Doctor's surgeries today for prescription beta blockers!!🤣. I think Rapha was still flying over the Atlantic as not really at the races yesterday until late in the day. I think we still good for 3 points against Everton, but after that we could be in for a torrid time.
Villa sliced us open on more than one occasion and so will Manure & Liverpool and possibly Spuds. I would imagine that Forshaw will be drafted into the side to add a more defensive midfield role, which may assist, but we'll see.
I only watched the highlights because I was at work.it looked a cracking game.
some nice goals and looked end to end.
did anyone else think that we should have had a free kick for Villa's 3rd goal?it looked to me that the villa defender was pulling Harrison or Rafa's arm/shirt back before there was a coming together,the highlights I watched did show a clear replay of it.
either way it shows great character from the lads to fight back from 3-1 down.
hopefully we can beat fat Frank's Everton on Saturday.
Quality MDT.lets get a run going...
And a word for the ref who was excellent tonight by letting play go on for BOTH teams and letting tackles get stuck in.... Koch was excellent in his pressing and would have had a mountain of fouls against him as he was all over their players.
Football would be a better game for BOTH teams and the fans if the refs stop start the game every 2mins for namby pamby players rolling around
The ref played an unbelievable advantage (gutted though!) for one of the Villa goals and every other ref would have stopped the game.... cockface Mike fkn Dean would have celebrated that and made it all about himself!
We actually looked threatening at our set pieces for once with Strujik, Llorente and Koch! 👍⚽
Pity we can't fkn defend them though and get sliced open at the back. It's the way we play though and so entertaining so hope we keep it like this and try to tweak it a bit at the back!
Well done Bull and good point but we got to at least draw with Everton to keep them 4pts behind....
American Peacock TV was an excellent channel and had Stephen Warnock commentating.... was it a BT channel I got?
Looking forward to Saturday game if I can get away with watching us again but it starts 10am USA time and finishes at midday so I may have a chance!
Great game overall and why we're everyone's 2nd favourite team! 🤣🤔😲😜
My hero Bull - stay in the saddle chief! Nobody wants me writing the MDT
We dominated the second half and the point was the least we deserved.
The defence looked much more solid in the second half.
Llorente improved a lot in the second half (not only because of his great finish), James was very effective in the first half and caused them all sorts of problems.
Rodrigo & Koch starting to look the part in their respective positions.
Raphina got more involved but was far from his best.
Pascal coped with a lot and did very very well!
If1 → as Steve said, it's not good for the ticker, my heart must have skipped several beats.
I’m happy to take a point, but anybody else had a heart attack watching that? 😂😂
Well at the end of the day it’s a good point away from home against a good side. Still thought we might have nicked it at the end tho, with them tiring.
Well done Bull, you get to go again at the weekend👍
Cant see villa not scoring again
Not good for my dicky ticker
3-2 down at HT.
Cracking game (up & down), but just far too open from us.
We gave away some silly corners to start with, but we got away with them.
Great goal from James (good football) , unlucky not to score a second (hit the bar) from another wonderfull piece of football.
Instead of going 2 up, Coutinho equalizes, Llorente at fault stood miles away from his man. Klich unable to keep up with his man for their second.
For the 3e Raphina loses the ball and again we're cut open and looked flat footed.
Corners from Raphina have in general been poor, hope he comes to life in the second half.
Great advert for football, but the way it's going it looks like we're gonna go home empty handed.
Wow! What a first half of football!!
we can win this Cummmmmmmmonnnnnnn U Mighty Leeds💛💙
Watching us needs a proper health warning 😫
Get innnnnn
Cracking MDT Bull and LOL at you TC
I am going for a 2-1 win, James will no doubt start up top but hope Gelhardt will get some playing time Harry and Joe to score
Love what you done with your hair...
Very snazzy😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂