Hull 0-1 Villa – Hull contest the major decisions (including highlights video)
Phil Brown was left fuming with referee Steve Bennett last night after two game changing decisions went against the Tigers and allowed Villa to walk out of the KC Stadium with all the points. On another night they could’ve both gone their way and Hull could’ve won the game 2-1, but thats football, and unless they bring in the hotly debated, controversial video replays its not going to change.
The two decisions in question are the goal in the opening minutes, when Brad Friedel spilled the ball under pressure from Nick Barmby (what a clash of old gits!) and NRC turned it into our net and the penalty that Bennett awarded Hull in the dying seconds but then overturned his own decision.
Big decisions
Craig Bellamy – Star striker or prize bellend?
The transfer window opens at midnight tomorrow and the rumours are coming thick and fast in the media, the most dividing of which for Villa fans is ‘the one about the Welsh troublemaker’.
Craig Bellamy is like a ‘diet’ version of Joey Barton, you won’t lose as many teeth and is arguably a better drink anyway He definitely manages to split the opinions on him from love to hate, thats for sure. There’s no way to deny his talent and that he is a superb player but there’s also no way to deny the potential problems he can cause the club.
Red cards for petulance and throwing chairs at coaching staff has never been the best things to have on your CV, but it never seems to stop teams wanting Bellamy. He has played for a large number of clubs, usually only spending one season there, which says a lot about a player’s attitude.
Villa vs Hull – Match preview – Finish the year in the top four
Tomorrow night Villa take on the team that going into this month were our rivals as far as positions in the Prem table, but a poor run of form for them and a good run of form for us has seen them fall 8 points behind us and our new rivals are Arsenal.
Villa have been temporarilyknocked out of the top four by the Arsenal’s victory over Pompey yesterday, but it’s only on goal difference so provided we don’t lose up in Hull, we will finish the year in the top four. In fact if we get a better result than Man U do tonight against Middlesbrough, we will finish the year THIRD. We’re all Middlesbrough fans for a day.
To Hull and back
Villa 2-2 Arsenal – For most of the game we spanked the Gunners
For the second time this season Villa took the game to Arsenal and made a case for us as successors to their top four place. For the vast majority of the game Arsenal found us far too hot to handle and only the woodwork and a spectacular off-the-line clearance by Bacary Sagna, rescued them from a 6-2 romping. As usual Arsene Wenger had the nerve to blame the referee, but I guess that shows why his team is looking so limp this season; he’s blind to the real truth thats in front of his eyes (i.e. his team aren’t good enough to be top four unless they buck their ideas up).
The game
With Carlos Cuellar and Martin Laursen both injured, MON handed NRC the right back position and Zat Knight his first start of the season. A back pairing of young Curtis Davies and out of form Zat Knight looked a little worrying but they both played superbly defensively and attackingly. Both of them could’ve done better on the second Arsenal goal but neither could be said to be to blame for it. Davies had two good chances to score, one a poorly directed header and the other a superb looping shot that had everyone but the crossbar beaten.
Aston Villa vs Arsenal – Match preview
With Villa currently 3 points and two places ahead of Arsenal, as well as the home team, we have to fancy ourselves in this game much more so than we usually do when facing Arsene Wenger’s men. We beat them down at their place in a game that saw us play sensationally and Arsenal play as inconsistently as they have for much of the campaign.
The win would put us 6 points clear of the Arse, a loss would see them go above us on goal difference and a draw would maintain our 3 point advantage and top four placing.
In this glorious Christmas position we find ourselves in, the teams we are looking up to catch are Chelsea and Liverpool! Who’d have thought we could say that back in August? IF (and be aware that that’s a huge if) Liverpool were to fail to beat Bolton at Anfield AND Chelsea were to fail to beat West Brom at Stamford Bridge (stop laughing!) AND we beat Arsenal, then by the Hull game we would be within reach of top. OK, so it’s pie in the sky dreams, but thats not the point; we know we aren’t going to go top but its fantastic to be able to even toy with the idea.
Merry Christmas Aston Villa Blog readers
A very Merry Christmas to all the readers of Aston Villa Blog and a Happy New Year for next week too.
The blog is still a baby, being just over a month old, but already we are getting some regular readers already and a community spirit is developing. Hopefully you’ll all continue to visit and enjoy the site and get involved with comments or guest blogs in 2009.
There’ll be loads more happening in the new year, so bookmark us and get checking back everyday. So I’m off out to drink some beer, hug some friends and sing some songs!
Merry Crimble to you all!
Injury concerns for Villa vs Arsenal
Filed under: Aston Villa, Injury News, Match Previews
The bad news for Villa fans is that our captain Martin Laursen is not going to be fit to face the Arse on Boxing Day, thanks to a knee injury picked up in the victory over West Ham last Saturday. This is bad news for Villa as he has been in superb form this season.
Laursen (or as my wife calls him; Mouthbreather) has spent a large amount of his career on the physio table, so the fear is that this is a niggle not a serious injury.
Its looking good baby
The week’s games are all over and it was a VERY favourable sequence of events for our beloved Aston Villa. In fact it couldn’t have all transpired much better for us, I guess we must’ve all been good boys for Santa this year.
It started with Saturday’s 3pm games in which, amongst other surprises, Hull got spanked at home to Sunderland, giving us a 4 point and 13 goal difference cushion from them before we’d even kicked off. You’ve got to look at the table now and say that if we fall out the top four it’ll be us and Everton fighting it out for 5th place. Surely Hull will go on a bad spell and drop down the table, but even if they don’t they won’t be in the dogfight for a UEFA place.
Next up was our game against West Ham, and it was a tough drawn out affair, but it was us who showed the most guile and drove back up the M40 with 3 points. That put us out of Arsenal’s reach, no matter what result they got against the scousers.
Transfer Gossip 21st Dec 08
For years Villa have had the smallest squad in the league, but it has never been much of a problem as back then we weren’t in the UEFA Cup, we got knocked out of the Carling Cup by a lower league side and knocked out of the FA Cup by Man U. The 38 games in the Prem were coped with ably by our small squad (I think in one season we only had 8 players at the club!).
But now the ‘glory days’ are back with us, we find ourselves playing all the bleeding time and those poor old players are getting knackered (it’s a hard life for a footballer y’know, sometimes they have to work 3 hours all in the space of a week!). So we bring in the B-team boys for some of the cup games, problem solved? No. Y’see the thing about the B-team… is they suck! They lost to Hamburg, they lost to Zilina and they lost to QPR. We need better back up.
“And what would you like for Christmas Martin” “Third in the Prem please Santa”
Martin O’Neill is a realist. So much so that it annoys some fans. He knows we can’t win the league, he knows it will be very tough to finish top four and he thinks it will take us years to be regulars in the Champions League, if we achieve it at all. But I guess its better to be a realist than to end up disappointing all the fans come May.
O’Neill’s post match interview last night was hilarious, from asking if the interviewer had been drinking when he suggested Villa could win the league to his sarcasm about always being asked if we can break the top four. But one thing he can never be accused of is getting carried away. For us, the fans, we can (and will) get carried away. We’re loving every second of it and now we even have Christmas bragging rights over everyone bar two teams in the whole of English football. It also means I can go to the Manchester half of my family (they’re from Stretford so its allowed) on Chrtistmas night and rub their faces in it that we’re above them at Christmas for the first time in donkey’s years (don’t mention the games in hand, I mentioned them once but I think I got away with it).
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