With us having survived the drop, it’s easy to say this game doesn’t really matter, but it actually does, in that each league position is worth around £1.2 million.
We can finish 14th at best and 17th at worst. The difference between those two positions?
A cool £3.8 million (£4.9 mill for 17th and £8.7 mill for 14th), although the Daily Mail has it at £6.2 million, with some maths I don’t quite understand.
Whatever, it’s a good few quid.
In an ideal world, that could make the difference between a good player and a very good player.
I don’t think it’ll quite work like that under our current ownership, but the point is, there’s still a fair bit to play for.
Not that many of us care too much about the money side of things.
Tim Sherwood gave an interview yesterday and said he won’t be resting loads of players and playing the second string by default, as he feels the fans want to see the team going for the win.
More power to him, I say, as surely any team should play the game to the best of it’s abilities and aim to win every match it plays. Anything less is just cheating the fans, in my opinion.
So the manager is going to go with his strongest side, with only anyone genuinely not up to it getting a day off.
He also intimated that there might be kids on the bench, who’ll get a run out if things are going our way.
So what’s the injury situation then?
Richardson and Okore are both doubtful, with both not having trained this week.
Baker, Clark and Kozak are still out.
Burnley have Dean Marney and Kevin Long out with long-term injuries.
It seems Steven Reid will get a runout, with the game being his final bow before he retires from the game.
If your football history only extends to the Premier league, we’ve only played Burnley once at home and we beat them 5-2, so the omens are good in that sense.
And in a stat that surprised me, Burnley have only scored once in their last eight games.
Not that I think this will be easy.
Burnley have only conceded six goals in that same eight games, which is pretty good and might lead me to think that we might scrape a 1-0 win.
While I have no doubt that Burnley will be fighting as strongly as they always do, I see Sherwood wanting to entertain what’s going to be a full house (with the away fans bringing a big contingent from what I’ve heard) and he’ll go for it, full belt.
This approach, combined with the fact that we might see three youngsters coming on, where they’ll be told to enjoy the day and mistakes might happen means I’m predicting goals.
I’ll go for a minimum four goals and a prediction of 3-2 to us.
I’ll be stuck at work again, so won’t get to see it, but for all of you who are going, have a great day people and here’s to a good game of footy.
Up the Villa!
This is not Good enough by gabby last week and today hit the ball straight at the keeper does he not know you can put the ball either side. Pissed of at the minute lads
New keeper?…..he’s playing for Burnley today and as been excellent!
In fairness every cross has gone right too him, as has most of the shots that weren’t put over.
Andrew… I was watching the game LIVE, NOT on the TV…..Heaton was excellent, shot stopping, agility, positioning, clean handling….the lad done it all really well!
And on TV you can see every shot, so that means nothing. I’m not disagreeing he wasn’t good today, in fact man of the match imo. But most of the shots were at him, or over. All of our crosses were either not making it into the box, or right at him unchallenged.
Andrew….thats the point that you(purposely)? Keep missing, its NOT all about shot stopping etc…..on TV it is impossible to see ALL of his attributes i.e. …….distribution, awareness, organisation, positioning, mentality, agility……thats the problem with being an armchair fan…..you only see the ball, that the cameras, logically follow…..but thats only one tiny part of analysing a player!
think today last week shows how poor really we are gabby westwood cleverly
Westwood’s been our best midfielder today…
Delph was slowly changing my opinion of him as a player, thought he’d finally come good and then he goes and has a game like today. Walking pace, awful passing, crap crosses, crap corners. Ridiculous shots he’s not good enough to take.
Agree jv, I’ve said all along we are shit and got slagged off for it, all the dim deawood apologists are having a wank fest (for Langford) Still we’ll spend 10 million in the window and lerner will expect us to survive. deadwood has been found out, he’s clueless, no better than lamberk. clubs a joke ffs
Why is it every game it’s Hutton for Bacuna? It’s a ridiculous sub that changes nothing as Hutton is garbage.
Andrew so is Bacuna, Sat and watched craps football , how can any fan like me see us winning againe Arsenal, watch the twat drift inwards and let a wing man get past. He is craps in understanding his job.
we are gonna finish 17th haha
Just what Lerner wanted
You’re pretty good at this.
Agree Andrew, I’m a rare talent.
westwood crap today ,last week,, every week, can t tackle ,score ,assist goes backwards 90percent time
Delph hasn’t scored a Premier League goal this season either… Westwood has an assist. And he passes it forward as much as any midfielder we have. Do you watch Villa play?
Or are we not aware there are multiple types of midfielders?
JV…agreed, Westwood just does not cut it. Time for him to move on IMO
He won’t. Sherwood said Westwood was one of his favorite players.
andrew
don t think delph is the bees knees either but westwood is just awful
Just found it interesting how its “attack Westwood”, but let others off for not scoring either.
Two completely different players, Delph is meant to get goals, Westwood is meant to protect the defense. Only one does their job correctly, and it’s not Delph.
check out how many times westwood passes to centre half or keeper
Can’t find stats on how he passes, I do know though people criticized Sanchez for not being able to complete passes, yet they were wrong… So I’m gonna go on saying yes he probably passes back or sideways around 60-70% of the time, but that’s not surprising. 90-95% of midfielders do.
We really do need a clear out but don’t see anybody buying the crap we hav! That was just awful today, need a lot of changes for the final sanchez has to start simply because without him the arse will put 6 past us! This is a bad omen I mean this team should hav wanted to put right the shambles that was last week but instead they showed that they are simply not good enough. look at our defence, arse will destroy that defence without even trying. Tim will hav to do some massive motivating because tactically he seems 1 dimensional.
West Ham not renewing Sam Allardyces contract!!! Deadwood out Big Sam in!
Sherwood’s gotta learn for the final we can’t play a high line. Walcott and Sanchez will kill Villa with pace, it’ll be another Southampton.
they say winning becomes a habit and so can loosing . well this team are in the habit of losing and nothing will change unless there is major investment in the squad, its shocking gil can’t get into this shambles. arsenal must be rubbing there hands together unless there is a miracle we have no chance against them in the cup. 17th in the league no fight and no pride showed in the last two games of the season and iv a feeling we are going to be shown up in the cup final. sherwood might have saved us this season but im not convinced by him or his selections and when things go wrong he does not know how to change things.i hope the team will make me eat my words but i don’t think so .
andrew
we need complete overhaul far too many substandard players,players like gabby living on past memories ,only for benteke we would be bottom
1point from burnley qpr newcastle
3 points hull bottom4 this morning says it all about our squad even sherwood is not god todays team a joke his subs a joke ,what has happened to gil
cup final next week where was effort today
Oh I full on agree, I just didn’t get the claims Westwood was awful when he was our best midfielder today is all. We need at least 2 LB’s, a RB, a CB, a CM, 2 wingers, an AM and a striker. And a goal keeper still. (i know I keep changing my mind on how many of what we need).
I hope they don’t turn up at Wembley with their beach towels otherwise we’ll get railroaded,we need a good clearout in the summer there’s too many who don’t cut it.our final league position is totally justified.dismal performance
Ps at least the bin dippers put a smile on my face
Well….that was really poor, I’m not going down there again this season 🙂
I’ve said the same Langford, not going to see that shite football this season. Might go to Wembley though.
Not happy over today’s preformance player’s on that amount of money can’t pass or cross a ball should hang their head in shame. Am a Sherwood fan I will judge him next season,these are Lamberts players and half of them need to go. I am worried about next week but I hope we can turn it around .
It’s lucky that Arsenal are in terrible form and we’re grinding out results – oh, hang on.
Need to sort it out for next week – we will get murdered if we set up like that. Has anyone else noted how we were much better without Gabby? Did I dream it that N’zogbia was played at full back today?
Yes I noticed it he shouldn’t change a winning formula,unfortunately Tim’s a big fan of gabby.
actually now that I think of it he played that position for newcastle and Wigan quite a bit. in fact he was initially signed as a left back when he came to england. Not saying he is any better there but not as surprising as some make out
I can’t comment about today, but agree Villa are a better side without Gabby.
He just doesn’t do enough over a season to justify getting in the side imo, but while he’s “Mr Aston Villa”, I don’t see much changing.
Sherwood played in midfield behind Sutton and Shearer when Blackburn won the league…….how can he think Gabby is any good? He is neither a striker or a winger.
Have we got a real left back for the cup final?