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!
