Last season’s 6-1 victory over Sunderland spurred on Villa’s survival efforts. Today it’s a rather different story for Aston Villa but a similar story for Sunderland. Aston Villa are currently in mid-table and now have the opportunity to climb into the top 10 with up and coming fixtures against teams around Aston Villa. Sunderland have improved under new manager Gus Poyet, they have been playing better and with more confidence. Yet their only win under Poyet have come at home and Sunderland are still struggling on the road without winning a single away game.
Team News:
Aston Villa welcomed back Delph, Weimann and Agbonlahor last game against West Brom. The trio may well start against Sunderland. Meanwhile Antonio Luna and Gary Gardner have resumed training. Okore, N’Zogbia and Bennett remain long-term causalities. Marc Albrighton is back following a loan move to Wigan
Wes Brown’s red card has rightly been overturned and will return to the side. Dossena and Cattermole also return after serving a three-match ban. Former Villa player Carlos Cuellar is out with a hip-injury and keeper Kieran Westwood is struggling with a slight knock.
Match Facts:
Sunderland have won just one and lost 11 of their last 13 Barclays Premier League away games (D1).
There have been four red cards in the last three league meetings between Sunderland and Villa at Villa Park, with the Black Cats being given one in each game.
The Black Cats have lost their last five Premier League away games in a row and failed to score in the last four. The last time they went five away matches without scoring was in May 2009 (six games).
Predicted Lineups:
Guzan
Lowton-Vlaar-Baker-Clark
Bacuna-El Ahmadi-Westwood-Agbonlahor
Weimann-Benteke
Fletcher
Larsson-Giaccherini-Cattermole-Johnson
Ki
Dossena-Brown-O’Shea-Bardsley
Mannone
Predictions:
Aston Villa 2-0 Sunderland
Sunderland aren’t playing well and Aston Villa are playing better. Plus Lambert has so many players back from injury making our squad much stronger and our bench can now make an impact. Lambert will change the way we’ll play against Sunderland and surely we won’t be playing on the counter today. Squad-wise, the only surprise will be the inclusion of Lowton and exclusion of midfielder Delph following both Westwood’s and El Ahmadi’s goals.
What can i say im well fucked off with a point against that lot.fuck it im off to do some damage to my liver.
God damn, we’re as bad as Tottenham. Woopie, Villa can finally defend… And never score. Kozak needs to start… He actually gives a fuck, does well at it too. Surely this finally shows why a striker was bought, while true, we have no creativity, that’s 100% down to the tactics of Lambert and not the team as this team has creative players that can create, they’re just pretty much told to keep it extremely tight.
Though we only scored 10 goals last season in our first 13 games and conceded 22 goals, compared to this season’s 13 goals for and 14 against. I guess it argues improvement in both ways, though as boring as fuck.
Yawn! Zzzzzz……
Poor performance, Benteke was shocking not for the first time lately either. Only good cross came from albrighton, he needs to start next game simply because of that! Vlaar was solid, Clark Luna and bacuna all dodgy, Weimann a headless chicken, gabby worked hard and fairplay only one who looked like creating anything. Delph and almhadi can only pass sideways and backwards, Westwood ok but sloppy. Will we ever just win comfortably?
Why is benteke still being caught offside Ffs. Why hasn’t lamberk told him about this he did it time again last season. Benteke not doing himself any favours with lukaka pkaying well in wc year. I still think he is trying I just think defenders have him sussed and are doubling up on him knowing that the rest of our forward line will do fuck all with extra space
Saints next shit.
Disappointing performance. Southampton on Wednesday. Benteke, poor, and more worrying disinterested!
5th clean sheet (never thought I would say that again). Fulham, Palace, Stoke and Cardiff all lost so result not quite as disappointing as the performance!
Oh for Gareth Barry in this young team….what a difference he would have made!
Substantial funds should be made available in January, but they wont be! Lowton back in with Bacuna doubling up with him on the right is the way I would go against the Saints.
To sum up…..not the end of the world, results better than last season on the whole, but football is worse…boring to watch!
Oddly enough I think we will draw at least maybe win v saints. Think Wev only lost one away game nothing wring with away form but home form awful. As for bringing in players in jan forget it. Why would we spend in jan this year when were already safe from relegation and 10th in league. We spend hardly anything last jan when we were in trouble. Sorry Langford all Lerner cares about us avoiding relegation anything better than that is a bonus. He’s certainly not going to spend big just to get us a couple of places higher in the league and tbf I don’t blame him.
Oaha im starting to think the same about lerner now,as for your optimism at saints well im not too sure mate.
Giddy if I was Lerner I’d be doing the same now. Why would I spend £30 m when I don’t need to as stayin up us all that matters and that’s virtually achieved already. To make a CL challange again he would need to spend at least a £100m and maybe more with no guarantee whatsoever of achieving it. On that basis who can blame him as does it it really matter much if we finish 8th from top or 8th from bottom. Saints will be ok as Wev only lost once away so should get a draw.
No chance of funds in jan Langford not when we already 10th with zilch chance of going down. Lambert has achieved target already. Remember we are 6 points clear of bottom 3 with superior gd so effectively 7 points clear already. Why would Lerner spend just to get us a few places higher when he spent fuck all last year when we were in trouble.
Ooha…if you read again…I said there WONT be funds in Jan!
Whoops sorry Langford my mistake
Langford i think benteke’s mind is away from villa park mate,i could be wrong though.
Getting very similar to how we were under mclown. Keep a clean sheet and draw our way to safety and keep gd respectable.
Fwiw I think we will get something from saints game as we always get something usually away from home
Oaha i hope so mate but saints push hard for the 90 we normally do it for 45.
Well we only played well for 45 mins v WBA and got draw. Why we only seem to play well for one half though is beyond me. They will attack us and that will suit us as we can play on the break so could see it be a 2.2 draw or 2.1 to us.
Yes Giddy, all his international team mates are in good teams and probably earning twice as much…..London bound me thinks!
True but it makes me wonder if he is deliberately playing crap to drive fee down so we will be happier to sell him for less and more clubs will bid and pay him more with the savings!!! IMO of course
Big problem ooha…is, whatever we get for him will not be handed to Lambert in full. We will be left scratching around trying to get lucky again by getting someone on the cheap whilst Randy pockets the surplus……becoming more and more pointless. I really dont know how we manage to keep the attendances so high!
Fuck off Lerner, the Villa is OURS
Agree Langford I think lambert will be lucky to get 25% of potential £30m fee. But as I said earlier if I was Lerner if do the sane thing. Why spend £30m when he can achieve his objective this season for £5-10m. This is all we have now unless Lerner sells but if and when he does I think it will be years as he can make good money just spending the bare minimum.
How we didn’t lose that game today I will never know.We started ok but after 15 mins it was all down hill.We couldn’t retain possession,hardly any attacking prowess I just am lost for anything positive to say about a nil nil against Sunderpants….I see comments about January and funding we can’t really say about that can we as we don’t know….Clean sheet is the only positive as well as gabby UTV
What a day for Prince William to turn up…..bet he doesnt come back for a long time! Ah well, he least he didnt have to pay like the rest of us….wonder if he had a pie and bovril?
🙂
Nice to have the future King of England at Villa Park Langford officially Royal Aston Villa we know what we are lol UTV REGAL
Good God what a shower that was today, only players worth the shirt were Gabby, Vlaar and Guzan.
Delph he hangs onto possession to long in the last third of the field instead of just playing the ball and to be honest for all his endeavour he couldn’t pass piss.
Benteke, did he win a header in 90 minutes? Looks like he’s got other things on his mind like f**king off in Jan.
We break to slow and allow the opposition to get 11 behind the ball, we can’t string 2 passes together and there appears to be a total absence of any game plan, it’s simply piss poor.
Lambert needs to put Benteke on bench to give a kick up the backside. Though in cbs defence he was awesome before the injury so maybe he’s not a 100% fit.
We got a point we are 10th 4 points behind Spurs 16 points have to move forward from this game and try and beat Saints.A result is possible as we have beaten sky 4 teams this season……Moving on to the next game and go again UTV
Weird but I fancy us to get at least a draw v saints
Absolutely no excuses can be made, we simply shloud be scoring against the worst team in the league, ive seen them and palace play this season and palace are better side.
Cant believe we couldnt get even one goal. Not good enough. Boring viewing, no leader on the field and no evident game plan…again.
Positives, clean sheet and up to 10th (albeit six points from the relegation places).
Southampton will beat us next game and we probably wont score again. UTV
You on about my new thoughts post Bill?
It’s still there.
As for the attendance, I’d have guessed about 32k, so not far off, imo.
Agreed about the Sunderland turnout. Shame that, as they usually have a decent following.
Oops yep, sorry all. 🙂