Villa-Chelsea; Covid still the main story, but at least the games’s on

I’ve actually been avoiding any Villa news over the last few days, as I didn’t want to build my expectations for the game. There’s nothing worse than a game being called off and particularly at the last minute for causing disappointment or depression for me.
I’ve even left this post as long as I could, because I was fully expecting it to be cancelled.
Fortunately it’s still on except that Steve Gerrard has tested positive for Covid and will miss today’s game.
The Leeds game is off anyway, but I’m guessing Gerrard will also miss the Brentford game on next Sunday.

Will Gerrard be missed?
Well, yes he will because he physically won’t be there, but no doubt even if he’s been isolating, he’d have been fully involved in the training for the game. Would yesterday have been a day off anyway? Maybe not, as there would probably be fitness checks etc, but I would think the vast majority of the build up work would have been done previously.
I’m guessing the manager will be in contact with the coaches during the game, so he’ll still have some input.
Even the half time tongue lashing will probably go ahead via Zoom or something. The wonders of modern technology, eh?

I’ve seen mention that fixtures should have been called off and a pause to the game introduced, but I disagree.
You’d have to be very much an optimist if you think we’re going to win this game and while it’s by no means impossible for us to get something out of it, I think the chances are we will lose and if that’s so, we might as well just take the loss and get it over with. We’ve already got two games to squeeze in somewhere and the last thing we want is fixture congestion. We don’t have the squad for it, in my opinion.

Squad news and Keinan Davis, Marvelous Nakamba, Morgan Sanson, Anwar El Ghazi, Bertrand Traore and Leon Bailey were all unavailable with a variety of problems, but Gerrard confirmed “a couple” of players were back in contention.
A “couple” is interesting, because I would have thought most of them would be available.

As for Chelsea, Romelu Lukaku and Callum Hudson-Odoi are available after previously testing positive, along with six others. Defender Andreas Christensen is also available after a back injury.

Thoughts then and it’s going to be tough, although, by no means impossible.
Chelsea have only drawn to Wolves and Everton and lost to West Ham. They have beaten Leeds and Watford, but they weren’t exactly convincing victories. So they’re by no means unbeatable.
In fact, looking at their last few results, I don’t know why I’m so pesimistic.

I’m tempted to change my mind totally and say we can beat them, but a lot depends on who starts for us.

There are too many variables to be confident of anything with Covid, but I’m going to be optimistic and say we’ll get the draw. We’re still ninth in the league and if we could get a win, it would really get us into a good place.

There’s going to be goals, so I’ll go for 2-2.

UTV!