Aston Villa News 24/7Writer: Dan Jones 
Date:Wednesday December 17 2008
Time: 11:26AM
UK time is: 04:57:09
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FA Cup - Gillingham Away (My Prediction)
I would like to make a little prediction for what is going to happen.
About a week before the game a high profile player, say......Martin Laursen will come out on the Official Site saying something like 'We know how much the cup games mean to the fans, and we would love to win the FA Cup this season'.
Maybe the day before a lesser profile star say.........Nigel Reo-Coker will be on the site saying 'Winning the FA Cup is a way of qualifying for Europe and that is something we hope to achieve this season'.
At the game, it will emerge that Martin Laursen is being rested along with 5 of our other top players.
Martin O'Neill will explain prior to the game, how seriously we take this competition.
Villa's starting 11 will look like this:- Guzan, Reo-Coker, Shorey, Knight, Cuellar, Gardner, Salifou, Sidwell (one first teamer will start), Osbourne, Delfouneso and Harewood.
We will then proceed to concede a goal before half time. MON will not making any changes until the 70th minute, when Barry, A.Young and Gabby will all come on, but with little time to make any impact we will lose 1-0. Crashing out of a cup (AGAIN) to a lower league side.
Fans will make excuses for MON, and no will be allowed to question it.
Hopefully I am wrong, but i just cant get exited about the cup games like I used to.
Still hopeful we will finish 4th and i will forgive MON for everything if that`s the case.
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Your Comments
Jeez I am a miserable git.
young_jonah
3-0 to the Mighty Villa reserves!
Villan57
Give me a bl***dy razor - gonna slit my wrists. Jeez - was happy today now I'm suicidal! Give it a rest for once. Last night on the WM phpne in - got fans phoning in that even though we've qualified for the knockout stages we should play our full team. Then when we pick up injuries to Young,Gabby and say Laursen, they'll come on and say - why play them when we've qualified already - now they're injured for important league games.
nazvfc
please god stop the MON bashing
he's right to send out the reserves, we would complain if they never got a chance and they should thrash Gillingham!
gavcook83
We shall see fellas, i am just causing some debate.
young_jonah
Jesus wept. Anyone would think we were fourth bottom rather than fourth from the top. Just think back three years ago - our *first team* would have lost to Gillingham.
IanSymes
Sorry i just go in for all this our players are only capable of playing 38 games a season, they are at the peak of their fitness, and if they cannot handle 50 games a season then we should be asking questions. We are all asking the wrong questions, what if Young played in this game and got injured? Shouldnt we be asking what if Young played in this game and we won? Nah we cant think like that can we, lets keep using the league position to cover up our mediocre performances in the cups, jeez fellas.
young_jonah
Funny as **** that if anyone starts a debate about cup performances there is always an answer relating to the league. Two seperate issues ffs.
young_jonah
That's ok being concerned about the cup etc etc but do it with a bit of thought and not sarcasm - that is the lowest form of wit. The article was a tad sarcastic IMO. You seem to be phsycic - pray tell me the lottery numbers for Saturday January 3rd seeing as you can see that far in the future (see a little sarcasm there - not funny at all). I think O'neil feels that perhaps the league is more important - don't know - can't think for the chap - but seems like some can and will findany opportunity to put a "damper" on things. Anyway just my humble opinion as in my 46 years of supporting Villa I have never been more confident that better things are on the way and we no longer are a laughing stock of a club with an egotistical chairman and mediocre managers (Turner et al anyone?).
nazvfc
Hey i am just as positive as anyone when it comes to League, but as i say above, its two seperate issues, some seem happy enough to only see the team do well in 1 in 4 competitions, sorry for believing we are good enough to do well in 3 maybe all 4, if we tried. Sarcasm may be the lowest form of wit, but it is the highest form of humour.
young_jonah
Well I didn't find the article humerous - suppose you did cos you wrote it. I'm not saying that I don't regard all competitions important, but when someone writes something PRESUMING what is going to happen and "seeing" into the future!. I want Villa to win every game and cup going but I know as sure as my ex-wife is gonna screw me for as much child support as she can that it ain't gonna happen. Maybe just maybe the "fringe" players will have too much for Gillingham (no disrespect meant), Remember playing there when we went down to the third division (Dave Peach was the manager of the Gills then) was like a cup final for them then but we won. I bet you MON will put out a strong team as possible. It'll be the first game after Hull and the players would have had 4 days from that game and prbably be "fresh" don't know can't speak or think for MON
nazvfc
nazvfc, we all want to see the team do well, I just think that too many on here expect us to walk that game when the fact is looking at MON's track record in games that we should walk, we seem to have a habit of losing. Gillingham will not be an easy game and i really hope that he wont be arrogant enough to think its a foregone conclusion as he seems to have in the past. We are all in agreement that we can win this game, but we have said this before the Leicester, QPR and Zilinia games, lets hope we take this one a little more seriously.
young_jonah
Agreed mate - but no matter who we play full strength or not will be hard - who would have said Barnsley would beat Chelski last year - who would have thought Arsenal would lose to Hull - no game is easy - even against "lesser" teams, I think MON is not that arrogant or stupid - as for the QPR game - he perhaps gave the lesser squad members a chance - they failed. he gave them a chance against Zilinia - but that was their "cup final" and they were not as easy as we mightthink - they had actuallyplayed in the Champions League. No team has a divine right to win games. Let's see what happens but what irks me is this constant whinging and putting a dampner on everything. It must be the years under that old codger that has made some of us this way, but I am living this rollercoaster. We WILL have times when we lose to so called lesser teams. Every team no matter how big does. I personally think they will play with no fear (not THE FEAR) we have nothing to lose tonight - a win is a bonus in only that we will have the home leg second. It would be great to play say one of the "big" teams in the UEFA Cup (Shoudl really post that in the other thread). Maybe MON will find out who can cut the mustard from the frings players and get players in and ship out those that fail.
nazvfc
Agreed. Tonight is a different kettle of fish, we are through and we have to take on all comers in the next round, so it doesnt matter to me if we finish 1st, 2nd or 3rd in the group, let the reserves have their chance. And i am not putting a dampner on anything, i think the performance in the league this year has been great. And I really believe we can make the top4. Still doesnt stop me from wanting a run in the UEFA/FA or both!! I sincerely hope I am proven wrong in the Gillingham game though.
young_jonah
Same here - be nice to say tomorrow - the young 'uns (and the second string) did us proud. If they can't perform tonight then they'll have no chance against the Wigans and Fulhams of this world (no disrespect to those teams)
nazvfc
Who cares about the F.A. cup. Really, who cares. There's two competitions to care about. The league, and the Champions League. Everything else is a distraction. Yes, even the UEFA cup. Though perhaps the UEFA cup is in that grey area where I'm not sure if I care or not.
evoflash
Small correction nazfc. When we played Gillingham in the early 70s Peach wasn't the manager, he was the left back. The manager was called Basil Hayward (I had to look that bit up).
As for tonight I reckon Hamburg will take one look at our lineup, decide there are lots of goals to be had and go for all-out attack. And when the Villa are the away team you just don't do that without paying the penalty. I hope that's what happens anyway.
TheSaucyVicar
Cheers - I stand corrected Well It was over 30 odd years ago - I just remember at the time a quote form Dave Peach that they wouldn't mind losing to Villa every week as we took thousands of fans (broke attendance records at away grounds all over the place) and the gate money made up for it. And I can see Hamburg going for the goals and hopefully we can counter attack with purpose. Even without Gabby and young we still have a few pacey players.
nazvfc
gills fan here, ive just travelled back from watching gills against dagenham and redbridge and with what i saw today you might hit double figures against us.... we were extremely poor... your reserves will beat us.
gfc-julian
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