Villa To Beat Cottagers!

Chris Coleman says the clash v Villa is a 'must win' game. We leapfrogged the Cottagers at the weekend following our 4-0 thrashing of Everton, now Villa need to look to pull further away from the basement battle and get a bit of daylight between us and the teams like Fulham.

Sorenson says: 'We have a big game against Fulham. It will be nice to take the win and performance against Everton into that game and we will be confident. If we can get another win there, then we can start looking the other way as regards the table rather than over our shoulder.'

Chris Coleman says: 'there's nice you are boyo' and adds (!) about the Chelsea 3-2 loss 'We've started on the right foot and although he we didn't get the result, we gave one hell of a performance.' + 'Now we have to beat Villa and approach it in the same way we did against Chelsea. The lads will be a little bit fatigued but it will be the same for Villa.'

Pap Bouba Diop is out with an ankle injury, Jensen, Volz and Malbranque are also not fit. (from): Warner, Crossley, Rosenior, Bocanegra, Christanval, Knight, Goma, Pearce, Leacock, Elrich, Legwinski, Boa Morte, Radzinski, McBride, John, Helguson.

Linked several times to a £3million move to Villa, quite why when Doug has said there is no money to spend I don't know, but the player would apparently welcome a move back to the midlands, especially to the team he supported as a boy.

Milner may have to sit out the game with a hamstring problem, Hendrie has an Achilles injury, Mellberg is still sidelined with a hamstring, Phillips misses out as he recovers from ankle surgery and Luke Moore is a doubt having picked up a knock on Monday. (from): Sorensen, Hughes, Delaney, Ridgewell, Bouma, Milner, Bakke, Davis, McCann, Barry, Jumper Jumper, Angel, Moore, Baros, Taylor, De la Cruz, Gardner, Samuel.

I'll go for two today as Baros and Angel looked like they had finally got an understanding in the second half display v Everton.

Villa are 14th with 20 points.
Best case: 12th
Worst case: 16th
Current form league: 6th
Last six games: W W D D L W
Away form league: 12th, 2 wins, 3 draws, 4 losses

Fulham are 15th with 19 points.
Best case: 12th
Worst case: 17th
Current form league: 10th
Last six games: L W D L W L
Home form league: 10th, 5 wins, 1 draw, 2 losses.

Last season Fulham 1-1 Aston Villa (Clark 90) (Angel 55 )
Premiership record: Fulham 1 win, Villa 5 wins, 2 Draws.
Premiership record at Craven Cottage: Fulham 1 win, Villa 1 win, 2 Draws.

Richard Beeby. 2 matches, 0 reds, 3 yellows, 1 silly name (which is rich coming from someone called Fear!).

Mystic Mug said a win v Everton and is keeping on his positive run by saying a rare away win in the Capital city. 2-1 Villa. That nasty Mr Lawrenson (!!) meanwhile says a home 2-1 win adding: 'They're missing some of their bigger players but I still think they'll have too much for Villa. In fact, I've been trying to find a way to describe David O'Leary's side all season and the word that comes to mind is brittle. They didn't crack on Monday - they may well do this time.' For me Fulham are too unpredictable to be certain what they will do, they had a good battle against Chelsea at the weekend ending up losing 3-2.

31/12/2005 ARSENAL 12.45pm
02/01/2006 (WBA)
14/01/2006 WEST HAM

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