Leicester – Villa; Hooray, the proper footy’s back!

I’m writing this early on Friday morning, mostly because I’m itching for the proper games to come back after the utterly pointless England games that I have no interest in whatsoever.
It’s probably a bit unfair of me to say that, as I’m sure many do care about England, but it’s just that I feel we’re wasting our time. I doubt even the most one-eyed England fan feels we have the slightest chance of winning any competition.
To be fair, you could probably say that about the Villa, but well, that’s different isn’t it?

There’s also a second reason I wanted to write this so early, as I want to say how much I think there is no way on earth we will sign any significant player before the transfer window closes at 5pm, as much as the usual clickbait sites are suggesting otherwise.

Which leads me to Birmingham Live, or the good old Birmingham Mail, as most people still know it.
What happened to this paper?
While it was never known for it’s accuracy on all things Aston Villa, it was by far the most respected source for news and certainly my “goto” place if I wanted to hear reliable rumours. To be honest, apart from the national papers, there wasn’t anywhere else to look, possibly the Argus apart, but while the Mail didn’t really have any inside track, it did seem that there was a healthy respect between the paper and the club, where the reporters wouldn’t write anything fabricated or outrageous and the club wouldn’t mislead the reporters.

Whereas all it does now is constantly regurgitate all the rubbish that is posted by the usual clickbaiters.
Which in turn makes it look more and more silly, because it’s now the central point for all the stories that invariably prove miles off the mark.
The Benrahma saga is a point in hand. If we were going to sign him, we’d have done it weeks ago. Yet, I can hardly recall a day for weeks where Birmingham Live hasn’t pushed this story, via one source or another.
And all it does, is make the site look more and more unreliable, to the extent where I don’t bother to look past the headlines half of the time, as I just know it’ll be recycled rubbish.
The paper/site has it’s own reporters and while I use the term loosely and the videos etc are not my sort of thing, I feel they should be left to do what they do without perpetuating the clickbait stuff.

So that’s two of my big moans out of the way, but I still have another one.
What’s this stupid 7.15pm on a Sunday kickoff time about?
There’s something just wrong with that, but to be fair, there’s never anything on telly on a Sunday night anyway,is there?
Then again, I’m probably showing my age there, as with all this streaming, Tv schedules don’t really matter nowadays do they?
Except they do for me. Streaming’s nice, but it doesn’t cut it.
Perhaps it’s the regularity and routine of TV schedules that I like?
And perhaps that’s why I dislike these daft kickoff times so much?

Heh, I guess I’d better get on to the proper stuff, which is the game.

Both teams have got off to a great start, having taken 9 points, with Leicester sitting third after 4 games, whereas we sit second after only 3 games.
Shock, horror, I think it’s fair to say that our league position is probably a bit distorted, but I don’t think this is a game that Leicester will be relishing, as we do beat them occasionally. A certain League cup victory quite recently comes to mind.
Then again, the last time we played this fixture, in March of this year, we were on the receiving end of a 4-0 drubbing, although I don’t think we’ll be anywhere near that scoreline this time.

It’s a bit early for squad news and I think that apart from the usuals, we’re all good.

As for Leicester, Caglar Soyuncu was left out of Turkey’s squad in midweek, with the manager reporting that he had a hamstring problem.
That could lead to them giving Wesley Fofana his debut.
I haven’t heard anything else.

What’s the prediction then?
I haven’t got a clue.
I predict goals, 3 or more, but which way, I don’t know.
It’s too early into the season for me to have seen any patterns and having played two of the weakest sides in the league has probably put us in a false position. That said, there was no fluke in caning the world champions, was there?
I’m sure you get my point though and everything is just a pure guess.
If you’re going to push me, I’m going for a 2-1 defeat, I’m afraid.

But how good would it be if it was the other way round?

The game will be available via Sky’s PPV rip-off, but I won’t be having any of that.
Hopefully there will be other possibilities.

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