Villa vs Sunderland – Is Kenwyne Jones playing against his team-mates-to-be?

January 16, 2009 by Martin Banks
Filed under: Aston Villa 

02With Kenwyne Jones being one of the main links to Villa during the transfer window (although it seems Spurs are determined to outbid us), how will he feel about facing us on Saturday? The tall striker had been linked with a £5m move and now a vastly improved £12m bid from Villa, a rumour which O’Neill hasn’t denied, but at the same time he hasn’t confirmed it either.

That’s the thing with MON, he’s very cagey about transfers. He doesn’t admit to anything in press conferences, so us Villa fans are left murmuring about the rumours we’ve heard in papers or on websites or down Honest Joe’s Cafe. Maybe he’s pondering a move for teenage whiz-kid Masal Bugduv! Bugduv is believed to be the next big thing, taking the world of Fantasy Football to new realms.

The game

With the football world still in shock over Man City’s £107m offer for Kaka, plus offering him £107m in wages over the 5 year contract, Villa vs Sunderland isn’t the most glamourous event in the world, but to us Villans it’s way more important than Abu Dhabi United’s distortion of the transfer market.

The game is taking place at 3pm on a Saturday afternoon, which apparently is what they used to do in the olden days. It’s only the 2nd time we’ve played at the traditional time since November.

The Mackems will be out for revenge after we beat them 2-1 at our place back in September. Going a goal down from Djibril Cisse early on could’ve dropped our heads, especially just days after losing to QPR, but Villa rounded well and Ashley Young and John Carew turned the game in our favour. The victory took us 3rd at the time but no-one really thought we’d still be in with a shout of top 3 (or even 2nd!) by mid-January.

John Carew and Wilfred Bouma are back in light training now, so a return for them looks likely to be around the end of this month, other than those two expected absentees, we are set to be full strength. Barry continues to play through a minor groin strain and Cuellar, Laursen and Luke Young all seem to be raring to play, so MON has a very tough job on his hands picking the team.

At the back we now have 4 central defenders in fine form, I expect Zat Knight to be the one who falls to the bench and Cuellar will go out to right back, with Luke Young continuing on the opposite flank. NRC will also find himself getting a cold bum on the bench too, as the midfield 5 remain the same as most of the last 3 months and Gabby floats alone upfront, like a Billy NoMates.

Sunderland have found form recently so we need to be tight at the back and dangerous going forward if we are to win this one, but I think we can do it.

Check back tomorrow morning for ways to watch the game.


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