Last week’s game did a lot to restore my faith in the side, mainly because I was actually entertained for the first time after months of poor, dull football.
Man Utd games tend to be quite decent so I’m looking forward to a decent performance.
Unfortunately history isn’t in our favour, as I’ve just read a couple of shocking statistics.
1) Aston Villa have picked up just one win in their last 44 Premier League matches against Manchester United (D11 L32).
2) They are also unbeaten in 21 matches at Villa Park in all competitions, last losing in the league there in August 1995.
Now I’m sure we all knew our record against the reds was poor, but when you see it written down, it just seems much worse. 1 win in 44!
And then add in that Man U are unbeaten all season in away games and we’re worse at home and it seems to be a bit of a foregone conclusion really.
TEAM NEWS
It’s all quite boring on our part, as nothing has changed. Jack Grealish has apparently started training if you actually believe what Dean Smith says. I suppose it’s a case of having to, but whatever, he’s obviously nowhere near fit enough to play. No doubt he’ll make an appearance or two before the end of the season, but you have to wonder what the injury is doing to his England chances?
Sanson and Trezeguet are still out.
As for Utd, Daniel James, Anthony Martial and Phil Jones are all out.
Utd have 4 games in 8 days and Solskjaer has said he will heavily rotate his side. I’m not sure if that’s a good or bad thing for us. It possibly means they don’t play their best side, but it also means fresh legs.
On the face of it, it doesn’t look like we have much of a chance today. But we’ve been involved in some very strange results this season, winning some very difficult games (Everton last week and of course Liverpool are good examples), yet losing what ought to be very easy games (Sheffield massively wrankles).
So you never know.
If we can play with the energy and desire we showed last week, I think we can beat Utd.
Indeed, that was the sort of performance where I think we’d have a chance of beating anyone.
It all depends which Aston Villa turn up really and it could go either way.
Play like last week and I’ll go for a Villa win, 2-1.
Play like we have done in the weeks beforehand and it’s a comfortable Man U victory, 3-1.
Here’s hoping. UTV!
So Dean Smith is looking at a replacement for Jack Grealish so it was said in the week so I guess that is the reason he’s not playing so he can go to Manchester, United or City injury free and by the way DS is not playing are star academy players I’m sure we will lose than as well VTID Warrior
I wouldn’t necessarily believe any Grealish rumours, but everyone has a price.
£130 mill and I’d take it, myself.
Now if we can spend £130 mill without selling him in the summer, I don’t think he’d want to leave.
It all depends on how ambitious our owners are.
And I wouldn’t blame them if they wanted to pull some money back in before investing again, tbh.
As much as I hate Man Ure, the fact is they are probably the form team for the second half of the season. How many of our players would make United’s first eleven?
I still think McGinn would be much better if he had better players alongside him. Barkley isn’t going to be playing for us next season and I still have my doubts about Luiz and Nakamba. We need someone with presence and strength which we sorely lack. Someone like a Pogba maybe.
Traore and El Ghazi drift in and out of games and neither of them work hard enough tracking back.
I think our defence is decent but Mings always has an error in him and usually it’s costly.
I don’t want to criticise Ramsey because this is his breakthrough season and it’s a massive step up from U23’s anyway.
How many times do we comment that Davis gives us more clout in the final third when he comes on, only to be back on the bench next game. Now Watkins is suspended against Everton surely he will start! And why not give game time to Chuky to see how he adapts to first team.
I think our owners will invest again with 3 or 4 top players because doing nothing means we will go backwards. If we don’t see any signings then Grealish will want to leave. He needs to see intent from the top brass to keep him believing we are going to challenge top six next season.
I also want to mention our corners and set pieces which has been commented on already. You would think with the likes of Mings and Konsa that we would get the odd goal now and then. I don’t know what they do in training sessions but whatever it is it’s piss poor!
I agree with Badger that Hourihane is probably a too lightweight but we certainly don’t have anyone else with his ability from free kicks. Is Sanson the answer? I think probably not unless he improves dramatically by next season.