With us having survived the drop, it’s easy to say this game doesn’t really matter, but it actually does, in that each league position is worth around £1.2 million.
We can finish 14th at best and 17th at worst. The difference between those two positions?
A cool £3.8 million (£4.9 mill for 17th and £8.7 mill for 14th), although the Daily Mail has it at £6.2 million, with some maths I don’t quite understand.
Whatever, it’s a good few quid.
In an ideal world, that could make the difference between a good player and a very good player.
I don’t think it’ll quite work like that under our current ownership, but the point is, there’s still a fair bit to play for.
Not that many of us care too much about the money side of things.
Tim Sherwood gave an interview yesterday and said he won’t be resting loads of players and playing the second string by default, as he feels the fans want to see the team going for the win.
More power to him, I say, as surely any team should play the game to the best of it’s abilities and aim to win every match it plays. Anything less is just cheating the fans, in my opinion.
So the manager is going to go with his strongest side, with only anyone genuinely not up to it getting a day off.
He also intimated that there might be kids on the bench, who’ll get a run out if things are going our way.
So what’s the injury situation then?
Richardson and Okore are both doubtful, with both not having trained this week.
Baker, Clark and Kozak are still out.
Burnley have Dean Marney and Kevin Long out with long-term injuries.
It seems Steven Reid will get a runout, with the game being his final bow before he retires from the game.
If your football history only extends to the Premier league, we’ve only played Burnley once at home and we beat them 5-2, so the omens are good in that sense.
And in a stat that surprised me, Burnley have only scored once in their last eight games.
Not that I think this will be easy.
Burnley have only conceded six goals in that same eight games, which is pretty good and might lead me to think that we might scrape a 1-0 win.
While I have no doubt that Burnley will be fighting as strongly as they always do, I see Sherwood wanting to entertain what’s going to be a full house (with the away fans bringing a big contingent from what I’ve heard) and he’ll go for it, full belt.
This approach, combined with the fact that we might see three youngsters coming on, where they’ll be told to enjoy the day and mistakes might happen means I’m predicting goals.
I’ll go for a minimum four goals and a prediction of 3-2 to us.
I’ll be stuck at work again, so won’t get to see it, but for all of you who are going, have a great day people and here’s to a good game of footy.
Up the Villa!
The result ALWAYS matters to me. With a full house at VP, I am looking forward to an open, entertaining and attacking performance. Hope we dont get any serious injuries with the Cup Final just 6 days away. I am predicting goals aplenty with a 4-2 victory for the lads. I also predict a few choruses of que sara 🙂
Can’t see us getting anything out of this game, 2-1 or 3-1 Burnley.
Morning oohah 🙂
Afternoon Langford 😉
Bentekes last game at VP today, Lets hope he signs off in style although can’t see him trying to hard as he won’t want to get himself injured and miss next weeks opportunity to put himself in the shop window………………YAWN!! 😉
Lol…….thats more oohah, than oohah……if you get my drift? 🙂
I’m having an “oohah day” today. All my comments are going to be based on oohahs attitude. Today I am being negative….it’s like a tribute to our great joint owner…OOHAH!!
Great joint owner of this great site, not our great club…..
4-1VILLA bring on the gooners.
No chance Giddy, Dim Deadwood has picked a team to avoid defeat most players are already on the beach!
LOL ooha#2 NZOG left back?????
Vlaar poor marking
Looks like I’m right again, Benteke hasn’t moved yet, he’s like a statue ffs probably already agreed a transfer to Liverpool
Arsenal 3 up ffs might as well not bother turning up next week
Passing has been awful today.
At last Andrew you are finally seeing the light. I’ve been saying that all game and been slated for it ffs
Why is Delph on free kicks and corners? He sucks at them… Grealish proved he can do it well and the fact he’s not taking them is wrong.
A poor half of football. N’Zogbia needs to go – no movement, can’t pass, or dribble.
In that case he’s perfect for us
lol – sign a bumper contract and keep him at left back!
He deserves it
Awful crosses so far today. If Westwood scored that shot, that would’ve been some beauty.
Arsenal destroying West Brom 4-0 at half time. Villa really need to get off the beach and start building some momentum.
Terrible so far, hopefully tim sees what kind of players we need to sign now, preferably ones that can pass, nzogbia, gabby and cleverly are all a waste of space, cleverly could be off the pitch completely and it would make no difference to us. Players could just be thinking of the final but at the same time that should spur them on to try get a place in the team! Gil should really be getting a game today and the fact he isn’t shows he is already gone which is a disgrace if u ask me.
Fucking Ada….what the fuck is Tim doing? Zoggy left back erm! Very poor first half…..lol….Stoke 5 Liverpool 0.. ….. Rodgers to get the bullet on Monday?
Conserving our energy for the Final??? No Gil in squad, he’s clearly on his way out!
Disagree, Zoggy has kept us in this game the rest of the team re already on the beach ffs
For 2 weeks we have had nothing about us. Play like this next week and it’ll be over inside 20!!
What does ffs mean? 🙂 You’ve not mentioned ‘wankfest’ yet, so your doing a really poor job as oohah’s standin 🙂
ffs means for fucks sake….as for wank fest, I didn’t want to be premature, was saving it till later
What about ‘crossdressing cock suckers’? 🙂
Not really my thing but if you’d like me to give it a mention i’m easy
Amount of crosses Villa’s had, if any one of the players could cross, Villa would be up by 4 now.
Crossing is diabolical
What about cross dressing?
Better so far this half, but the passing is still sloppy and other than a break away I just can’t see us scoring. The team looks just lost going forward as we did under Lambert – every time the team builds something it comes to nothing.
This is not Good enough by gabby last week and today hit the ball straight at the keeper does he not know you can put the ball either side. Pissed of at the minute lads
New keeper?…..he’s playing for Burnley today and as been excellent!
In fairness every cross has gone right too him, as has most of the shots that weren’t put over.
Andrew… I was watching the game LIVE, NOT on the TV…..Heaton was excellent, shot stopping, agility, positioning, clean handling….the lad done it all really well!
And on TV you can see every shot, so that means nothing. I’m not disagreeing he wasn’t good today, in fact man of the match imo. But most of the shots were at him, or over. All of our crosses were either not making it into the box, or right at him unchallenged.
Andrew….thats the point that you(purposely)? Keep missing, its NOT all about shot stopping etc…..on TV it is impossible to see ALL of his attributes i.e. …….distribution, awareness, organisation, positioning, mentality, agility……thats the problem with being an armchair fan…..you only see the ball, that the cameras, logically follow…..but thats only one tiny part of analysing a player!
think today last week shows how poor really we are gabby westwood cleverly
Westwood’s been our best midfielder today…
Delph was slowly changing my opinion of him as a player, thought he’d finally come good and then he goes and has a game like today. Walking pace, awful passing, crap crosses, crap corners. Ridiculous shots he’s not good enough to take.
Agree jv, I’ve said all along we are shit and got slagged off for it, all the dim deawood apologists are having a wank fest (for Langford) Still we’ll spend 10 million in the window and lerner will expect us to survive. deadwood has been found out, he’s clueless, no better than lamberk. clubs a joke ffs