Wednesday's friendly between England and Denmark featured eight former or current Villa players, with current Villans Darren Bent and Ashley Young firing home England's two goals in a 2-1 win.
With the strikeforce feeling that much more confident, Villa travel to Bloomfield Road to take on Blackpool, a return of a match that cost Seasiders' gaffer Ian Holloway 25,000 GBP, who now feels like he's no longer a manager. Holloway played ten players not in his usual XI, and was thus judged to be fielding an "uncompetitive side" that Villa still struggled to put away.
Villa will be without Fabian Delph and Luke Young, both out with knee injuries. American fullback Eric Lichaj has left on a month's loan to Leeds to get some first team experience.
The Capital Villans will be taking in Saturday's match at 4:30, for the tape-delayed broadcast, at Lucky Bar on Connecticut and 18th. Join us!
Thursday, February 10, 2011
Friday, February 4, 2011
Hello, Old Friend- Villa v. Fulham, 5 February 2011
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| One of Gerard Houllier's masterstrokes: The Ginger Ghost in a pale shirt |
What a transfer window for Gerard Houllier. In his first opportunity to truly put a stamp on the Villa team, he added a goal-poaching striker (Bent, on 2 goals in 3 games since joining), a young attacking fullback prospect (Walker), a classy midfield general (Makoun, who put on a passing masterclass in Tuesday's defeat to Manchester United), and he closed out the window by adding the American midfield dynamo Michael Bradley, who progressed from MLS to the Eredivisie to the Bundesliga (and popping up with a vital goal (see the 3:40 mark in the linked video) over the Summer in the US's Group E win) before joining Aston Villa.
Bradley is available for his debut on Saturday as Villa Park plays host to Fulham. Fulham, in addition to helping us with our wage bill by purchasing ballboy extraordinaire Steve Sidwell, have been on a solid run of form of late. Villa come in on the back of a 3-1 defeat at Old Trafford in midweek, though the team passed and possessed the ball a little like Arsenal at times, led by Jean Makoun's 85 completed passes from midfield and Darren Bent's 10th goal of the league season (second with Villa). Defender Luke Young is a miss, having visited a London specialist over the week to sort his nagging knee injury, as is Fabian Delph, who is out after aggravating last year's season-ending knee injury in the win over West Brom in December. Fullbacks Stephen Warnock and Habib Beye are also unlikely starters, as Gerard Houllier has banished them to reserves training with Kevin MacDonald, telling them to "demonstrate their desire to play for Aston Villa."
The match will occur at 10 a.m.; however it is not showing until 5:00 p.m. on Fox Soccer Channel. The Capital Villans will convene at Lucky Bar. Though it's not on their schedule, we could surely convince them to play the match there. Avoid the score, and see you in the afternoon!
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