Villa Preview & Game Thread

By: travis | December 26th, 2008

Huge game today, start in about 30 minutes. Another season defining moment in a campaign where little has gone right. Villa sits ahead of us by three points in fourth place – a win today and we’ll hop back over them into the top four. As I type this, the top three have already won their respective Boxing Day match. The title is the least of my hopes, and securing a Champions League spot is much more important after the loss of Cesc. The BBC have just posted the lineups:

Aston Villa: Friedel, Reo-Coker, Davies, Knight, Luke Young, Milner, Sidwell, Petrov, Barry, Ashley Young, Agbonlahor. Subs: Guzan, Harewood, Delfouneso, Salifou, Shorey, Gardner, Osbourne.
Arsenal: Almunia, Sagna, Eboue, Djourou, Silvestre, Song Billong, Denilson, Nasri, Diaby, Gallas, Van Persie. Subs: Fabianski, Toure, Vela, Ramsey, Wilshere, Clichy, Bendtner.

It’s now time for the players only Wenger seems to believe in to step up. Many other blogs I’ve read seem to think that Song, Denilson, Diaby, and Eboue are quite poor players. They now have a chance to solidify a spot in the first XI for the next few months. Times are bad when a 17 year old and a 16 year old are your first choice back ups off the bench. Odd to see Clichy starting on the bench – he must have picked up a knock and Silvestre will probably be on the left. I’m real nervous about today. Last match against Villa was a 2-0 defeat at the Emirates, with the pace of Agbanlahor and Young really bothering the backline. If there is anything last week shows us, it’s that the current defense has trouble dealing with the direct ball over the top. Here’s hoping for a solid result to get this Cesc-free portion of the season underway.