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!
