Villa – Forest; A possible FA cup pre-cursor?

First, some good news. My fibre install looks like it might be happening on Tuesday. It’s amazing how the threat of the Ombudsman can give a company like Openreach a kick up the proverbial. An engineer turned up on spec and did the exterior work midweek. I’m not generally the sort to complain, but 3 months and delay after delay, to do an hour’s work?

Other good news was that brilliant win at Brighton. The strange part is that I’d previously predicted us to lose that, but just before the game I changed my mind and actually thought we’d win it. I think it was reading the pre-match mail from the club, where it pointed out that we’d won our previous six games that did it. You may well be thinking that it’s easy to say that after the game has happened, but I couldn’t exactly say it beforehand as it was another period where my signal was just non-existent. I’m sure it varies depending on the wind.

Anyway, a few of us got together and we predicted the rest of this season’s games. Following my usual way of thinking, in expecting the worst with anything else a bonus, I think I’ve predicted us to lose the lot, apart from one draw.

But I’ve now changed my mind for this game and whereas I thought this would be way too tough for us, the fact that we’ve won our last seven has demonstrated to me that we really are quite a good side, albeit I think some of our football is boring as sin. I read an article the other day, that talked about Real Madrid being the masters of winning ugly in Champion’s league games and it reminded me of us. You don’t have to play swashbuckling, pretty football to be a good side is my point and I might be doing myself a favour if I try and keep that in mind. I do try and do that already, but knocking it round at the back and trying to “draw them in” is something that tries my patience.

Not that I’m expecting a boring game today. Forest are particularly good in counter-attacking and do it with real pace. But we’re pretty good at that too and it should make for a pretty open game with some end to end type stuff, you would think.

Squad news and Leon Bailey is close to returning after his paper cut heavy knock. Hmm.

And Ross Barkley is back in full training with the squad. I wouldn’t think he’ll take part, apart from giving someone a bit of a rest, but given that it seems Unai really rates him, I think Bailey might get more minutes if he is indeed fit. Certainly his pace could come in handy. It’s also just come to my attention that Ollie is nursing a knee problem which explains his absences of late.

As for Forest, Ola Aina has a calf issue, Chris Wood will have a last minute assessment and Callum Hudson-Odoi is available. It seems they’re in pretty good nick otherwise, but their website isn’t very forthcoming.

I like Forest as a neutral and am honestly pleased that it looks like they’re certs for the champion’s league. I always like to see new faces in Euro competitions, as I’m sure most footy fans do. Indeed my car’s previous owner was a “Nottingham Forest in the community” worker.

Not that I want them to win today and unfortunately, it looks like they might be one of the clubs keeping us from qualification this season.

For those who like to use previous meetings as a guide, we’re unbeaten in our last eight home league games against them. We’ve also scored at least twice in each of the past seven, a stat which surprises me.

So we’re on a roll, but Forest are too, because they’re unbeaten in their last six. Couple this with our previous recent history and the way both teams play, I’d expect a few goals. What concerns me is that Forest have a very good defence that may prove tough to break down, whereas we can leave ourselves very open at the back when we attack.

I’m tempted to predict a victory here and it would be great if we could do it, as it would massively boost our chances of fifth place.

But I’m going to remain cautious and say it’ll be a draw.

2-2 it is then.

UTV!