Aston Villa v Liverpool – as it happened

Liverpool scored from two early corners and strolled to victory against a poor, pretty much attack-free Aston Villa side Preamble: Aston Villa must carry particularly good memories for Liverpool fans. I'm not even a Liverpool fan, but I can remember half a dozen stonking moments between these two clubs.

Squad sheets: Aston Villa v Liverpool

Stewart Downing, who scored the only goal of the game in the corresponding fixture at the end of last season, can expect a hostile reception from Aston Villa supporters on his return to his former club. The England winger has still to score for a Liverpool side that have lost only once in their last 10 league matches.

Team news: Agbonlahor ruled out and Henderson set for midfield start

Fabian Delph returns for home side

View the full story here: The Mirror

A news article on 2011-12-16 10:34:15 from: The Mirror

This news item has been reproduced from today's media.

Team news: Agbonlahor to miss Liverpool visit

Fabian Delph returns for home side

View the full story here: The Mirror

A news article on 2011-12-16 09:40:15 from: The Mirror

This news item has been reproduced from today's media.

The game went ahead amidst many calls for its postponement following the tragic news of Gary Speed's death. The result doesn't seem that important in the scheme of things right now, but it's probably a point that will prove invaluable at the end of the season.
Following a heart warming and entirely spontaneous round of applause in place of the planned minute of silence, the first half didn't provide any shocks.

Emmanuel Adebayor helped himself to a first half brace, but should have had at least a hat-trick during a game that Tottenham barely had to break a sweat to dominate. In fairness, such was the gulf in quality, we should consider ourselves fortunate to have left with the score only 2-0.

There were rumours before kick off that Alex McLeish intended to field Alan Hutton as a right midfielder and Carlos Cuellar behind him at right back to deal with the threat of Gareth Bale and that's what he did.

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"Making the Arsenal" – the book of Arsenal's decline and rebirth Untold Arsenal on Twitter @UntoldArsenal

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By Ref Reviewer 03

Ref Taylor did Manchester City – Aston Villa. Lets see how he did.

Not the scoreline we hoped for, but certainly one we feared. Not a great deal to discuss really, we were soundly beaten by a side who are clearly superior in every single position.

Mario Balotelli opened the scoring by leaping on the opportunity to pull a bicycle kick out of his toolbox, scoring from six yards.

By Alan Duffy

Aston Villa 2-0 Wigan Athletic Premier League 1st October 2011

Fleet-footed attacker Gabriel Agbonlahor must surely be in line for a recall to the England squad after another superb and speedy performance on Saturday.

Wigan had no answer to the forward's pace, with Agbonlahor scoring one and providing the assist for the second (converted by Darren Bent).

It's just under five months since Wigan were last at Villa Park and they've proven to be something of a bogey team for us in our limited history of playing them. This will only be the 7th time this league fixture has been played, but we're yet to win one. The pattern so far is LDLDLD; clearly we need to break that pattern one way or another today.

It's our first away trip to QPR since 1995 and we're in dire need of a better result than the 1-0 loss we suffered that day after the downbeat nature of our Carling Cup exit.

With Darren Bent and Emile Heskey injured, here's how the managers will go looking for three points today:

QPR Aston Villa 1 Patrick Kenny 1 Shay Given 18 Luke Young 2 Alan Hutton 35 Anton Ferdinand 6 James Collins 5 Fitz Hall 5 Richard Dunne 13 Armand Traore 3 Stephen Warnock 11 Alejandro Faurlin 25 Barry Bannan 17 Joey Barton 19 Stiliyan Petrov 4 Shaun Derry 16 Fabian Delph 32 Shaun Wright-Phillips 7 Stephen Ireland 10 Jay Bothroyd 10 Charles N'Zogbia 7 Adel Taarabt 11 Gabriel Agbonlahor Subs Subs 26 Brian Murphy 22 Brad Guzan 2 Bradley Orr 23 Habib Beye 14 Ákos Buzsáky 34 Shane Lowry 16 Matthew Connolly 38 Gary Gardner 21 Tommy Smith 12 Marc Albrighton 22 Heidar Helguson 14 Nathan Delfouneso 9 DJ Campbell 26 Andreas Weimann Probable Formation Castrol Football Prediction Last 10 results for this fixture: 12/23/95 QPR 1-0 Aston Villa 10/29/94 QPR 2-0 Aston Villa 12/04/93 QPR 2-2 Aston Villa 05/09/93 QPR 2-1 Aston Villa 11/02/91 QPR 0-1 Aston Villa 04/10/91 QPR 2-1 Aston Villa 03/20/90 QPR 1-1 Aston Villa 03/27/89 QPR 1-0 Aston Villa 08/30/86 QPR 1-0 Aston Villa 12/17/85 QPR 0-1 Aston Villa

Dare I suggest that we can concentrate on the league now? No? Didn't think so. Nevertheless, we are out of the Carling Cup thanks to a 2-0 loss at home to Bolton in what, by all accounts, was an utterly dismal performance.

Chris Eagles picked up on a Marc Albrighton mistake to score a screamer from 20 yards.

Another game, another draw. That's four draws and a win now in the Premier League. Gabby Agbonlahor gave cause for optimism when he opened the scoring somewhat against the run of play during the first half, but Leon Best cancelled that out during a second half the visitors largely controlled.

The Geordies are back at Villa Park for what is a battle between two unbeaten sides, albeit after just four games. Alan Pardew's side managed to hold Arsenal to a goalless draw in their opening game, took a credible three points at Sunderland and the same again against Fulham at St. James'.

Newcastle have lost this fixture for the last three seasons and have only managed to leave Villa Park with all three points twice in the last ten years.

There's no getting away from it, that was a poor performance against an Everton side unable (or unwilling) to field a single recognised striker. We might owe a somewhat sheepish nod in the referee's direction, but Petrov and Gabby somehow managed to cancel out Leon Osman's opener and Leighton Baines' second half penalty to grab a hugely valuable point we barely deserved.

Everton's troubles continue as they were only able to name 18 players, seven short of the maximum, in their official squad submitted to the Premier League.

However, that 18 does not include Under-21 players, so the likes of Ross Barkley do not feature but are still eligible to play as clubs can use an unlimited number of younger-age players.

The fans who stayed away from this dirge fest in droves were the lucky ones; only surprise inclusion Chris Herd and Gabby Agbonlahor provided anything worth getting excited about. The ~12k empty seats generated more talking points during the game than the "action" on it.
There's nothing to say about the first half, it was truly awful.

Guess who's coming to Villa Park... again!! I'm sure their fans are as sick of the sight of us as we are of them. Fortunately, if we can avoid being drawn against them in both of the cups, we won't have to see them again until the reverse of this fixture in March next year.

So, here's how the two Glaswegian managers are sending their sides out today in what will be Alex McLeish's first home game since taking over at Aston Villa.

When James Milner re-joined Villa from Newcastle our side was so conditioned to channel the ball down the left in search of Ashley Young that Milner struggled to get involved and spent far too much time as a spectator. That soon began to change, bit by bit, and it wasn't long before we were finally achieving the balance we'd missed for so long.

Neither side were able to break the deadlock at Craven Cottage in a game that failed to ever spark into life. As the visiting manager, Alex McLeish will rightly be happier with his point, but will have Shay Given to thank for a number of important saves and might be concerned about the lack of any real threat at the opposite end today.

Charles N'Zogbia matched Darren Bent's achievement of scoring on his debut in tonight's final pre-season game in Braga; a 1-1 draw that would probably be given to the home side on points by the judges. If we did such a thing.

Vagner Love's stunt double, Alan, opened the scoring for the home side with a wicked effort from 25 yards that nestled the top corner and left Shay Given no chance.

I like pre-season. A lot. It frequently gives us a chance to see promising youngsters mixed in with the established senior players and can provide clues to what lies ahead. Notice the emphasis on the words 'can' and 'clues'.

The truism I keep returning to is that more can be learnt from a failure than a success.

Two second half goals gave Derby the win in a game missing a lot of our big names, including new boy Charles N'Zogbia, but provided a useful, if uninspiring, run out for a lot of young squad players.

This post is more a stake in the ground to record the result, I managed to pick up very little during what was very much a low key, perhaps even dull, affair.

There is apparently a quote from Alex McLeish doing the rounds this evening which has caused a few knickers to get well and truly twisted. It doesn't take much admittedly, if it's not the colour of socks, it's something else equally earth-shattering. The new gaffer has said something to the effect that he only expects to make one more signing before the season starts.

I've covered the Premier League 25-man rules several times since it first cropped up so I won't dwell on the details in this post. If you recall, last summer we named 22 players within our maximum of 25 players 21 years old or over on January 1st 2010 without any problems with the quota of "home grown" players.

New Aston Villa manager Alex McLeish has challenged midfielder Fabian Delph to start living up to his £6 million price tag.

This is the second in InTheStands' Transfermation series exploring the potential summer ahead for all Premiership clubs involved....this addition: Aston Villa

Where they stand:

Well, well, well, if I was an Aston Villa fan I would be sceptical – looking down the barrel at another mid-table finish.

Bradley, ready to get some consecutive run in 2011....

A report by German's RP Online states that US midfielder Michael Bradley's option has been picked up by Aston Villa, ending his tenure at Borussia Monchengladbach.

With a vote of confidence from Villa's 2nd in command Gary McAllister at the end of the campaign and the departure of Nigel Reo-Coker even more so, Bradley's likely destination appeared to be Villa for some time now.

Update:

What's changed since we did this piece below in March:

• The Resurgence of Stan Petrov at Aston Villa

The skinny: After coming back from injury, the captain increasingly found the pitch for Villa as they navigated away from relegation waters.

Aston Villa duo Stewart Downing and Ashley Young have been on Liverpool's radar for some time and manager Kenny Dalglish witnessed first-hand their qualities as his side slipped to the defeat which ended their Europa League hopes.
Liverpool rarely troubled their hosts on an afternoon when Villa's two wingers provided the main attacking thrust.

Liverpool are off to Villa Park on the final day of the 2010-2011 season.

The season that seemed like it would never end finally does tomorrow, and ushers in a hotly anticipated summer that could see a tremendous amount of turnover. Ninety minutes separate a club that stuttered and stumbled for much of the first of the season from the chance to improve across the board, with reinforcements promised and the feeling that everything's finally in place for Liverpool to make the improvements needed.

Liverpool are off to Villa Park on the final day of the 2010-2011 season.

The season that seemed like it would never end finally does tomorrow, and ushers in a hotly anticipated summer that could see a tremendous amount of turnover. Ninety minutes separate a club that stuttered and stumbled for much of the first of the season from the chance to improve across the board, with reinforcements promised and the feeling that everything's finally in place for Liverpool to make the improvements needed.

Hands up if you saw that result coming. Hey. You there are the back... put your hand down, you little fibber!

Well, okay, Arsenal have really gone off the boil as this season has lumbered to its conclusion, but I can't honestly claim to have expected a win today. A draw perhaps. I'd have been delighted with the point that would have finally guaranteed our Premier League survival regardless of other results.

Hands up if you saw that result coming. Hey. You there are the back... put your hand down, you little fibber!

Well, okay, Arsenal have really gone off the boil as this season has lumbered to its conclusion, but I can't honestly claim to have expected a win today. A draw perhaps. I'd have been delighted with the point that would have finally guaranteed our Premier League survival regardless of other results.

Lineups are in:

Arsenal: Lineup: Wojo, Sagna, Vermaelen, Squillaci, Gibbs, Song, Wilshere, Walcott, Ramsey, Arshavin, RvP Bench: Lehmann, Denilson, Eboue, Chamakh, Bendtner, Henderson, Miquel

Aston Villa: Lineup: Friedel, Walker, Collins, Dunne, Luke Young, Petrov, Reo-Coker, Delph, Downing, Bent, Ashley Young Bench: Marshall, Pires, Agbonlahor, Albrighton, Bradley, Heskey, Cuellar

The big news is Vermaelen's return to action.

It's the last away game of the season. Here's the team Gary McAllister is sending out at the Emirates to grab a point or three against an Arsenal side eager to ensure they finish in the top three at least to guarantee themselves a place in the Champions League next season.

Should be interesting tactical battle, it looks like a 4-2-3-1 vs a 4-3-3.

It's the last away game of the season. Here's the team Gary McAllister is sending out at the Emirates to grab a point or three against an Arsenal side eager to ensure they finish in the top three at least to guarantee themselves a place in the Champions League next season.

Should be interesting tactical battle, it looks like a 4-2-3-1 vs a 4-3-3.

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- Jason Davis
Michael Bradley's loan move to Aston Villa in the closing hours transfer deadline day was rightly hailed as a step forward for both American players and Bradley himself. There may be some debate as to whether the English Premier League is definitely a better place for Bradley to improve than the Bundesliga, but there's no doubt that his profile will grow at a respected club like Villa in a highly visible league like the Prem.

Aston Villa have completed the loan signing of Kyle Walker, Tottenham's young right back signed from Sheffield Utd about 18 months ago, before being promptly loaned back and then playing at QPR on loan this season. He'll be on loan with Villa until the end of the season, I don't know yet if there is any option to make the move permanent.