Premiership preview: Aston Villa v. Chelsea
Manchester United extended their lead by just one point yesterday.
It goes without saying that it is imperative Chelsea win this game in hand and cut United’s advantage to four points.
After Saturday’s 2-2 draw with Fulham, Jose Mourinho publicly named several players who he felt had underperformed in recent weeks.
Paulo Ferreira, Andriy Shevchenko, Shaun Wright-Phillips, Salomon Kalou and Geremi all came in for criticism.
It was a surprise to many that Michael Ballack wasn’t included.
Ballack is suspended for this game. The impact of his absence is sure to be closely examined.
John Terry is set to play in a behind-closed-doors friendly later this week as he continues his recovery from back surgery, while Joe Cole is thought to have undergone surgery on his broken foot which is expected to keep him out for some time.
Arjen Robben is still struggling with a hamstring injury but Khalid Boulahrouz returns after serving a one-game ban.
Aston Villa will be without Gareth Barry who is suspended following his red card against Charlton, while Stiliyan Petrov could miss out with a hamstring problem.
Villa are on a run of nine games without a win and have lost their last four and their last three games at Villa Park.
The Blues have not beaten Villa at Villa Park since March 1999.
- Posted at 01:55 PM · Permalink · Print · 1668 views · Last indexed by Google on the 13th May 2008
- Tags: Andriy Shevchenko, Arjen Robben, Aston Villa, Joe Cole, John Terry, Manchester United, Matches, Michael Ballack, Premiership, Salomon Kalou, Shaun Wright-Phillips
United’s draw with Newcastle was a pleasant surprise, as I thought the Toons would just roll over. Fair play to them!
A win today is the only acceptable result after the two (by our standards) shambles of last week. If we had won both of those games like we should have, we could be ahead of United tonight. Villa have been in freefall for the past month or two,and are further weakened with their captain and top scorer missing. Getting the points difference back to four between United is crucial. The goal difference makes it five points in my eyes, as we’re not going to be pulling that back up.
I still maintain the idea that if we manage to stay at least two points behind them until the six pointer at Stamford Bridge, which is the MUST-WIN game of the season, we will leapfrog them and then not relinquish our lead, whether it consists of one point or ten.
its a new year and a new beginning of good luck. Even though we do not have terry and cech now, that doesn’t mean we should not have confidence.
common ya’ll blues and get the villa’.
A win tonight would certainly come in handy; our recent record up there is pretty dismal though. Would be good to see some sort of positive response from the players after a couple of fairly average performances (by their high standards).
I suppose the minimum requirement tonight would be to match Manure’s result from yesterday and get back to a 6 point deficit.
But ideally we want a win, as I think the weekend of 20/21st January could be rather significant!
couldnt watch the game… but these ppor results is reminiscent of chelsea of christmas past. too much drinking through to the new year..
very frustrated…
how can Kalou and SWP be in starting XI and Sheva can’t?i just don’t get it.Do they play better?I think they absolutely don’t.Another frustrating result and still 6 points behind :(
By looking at the performance of the team,it seems like everyone at chelsea is content with a draw.Jose said the same in post match reaction.
manu drew atleast by trying to win but chelsea new tried to win.When ball went out for throw,no bosy was going to pick it up.I think with this attitude,we really deserve to loose title.We can win title this time,only if manu play more worse than us.
And coming to champoins league,we have to bear in mind that Eto/Messi will be back for knockout stages.All assuming that we will meet barca in finals or before that.
Who knows…with the players playing this way,we may find it difficult to get through even porto.
My reaction is not an instant reaction..Its the result of analysis done over past 4 weeks:(:(…
Atm we are playing amazingly poor, and JM has tonight praised out attitude??
http://home.skysports.com/list.....aises+side’s+attitude&lid=&channel=Football_Home&f=rss&clid=8
WTF?? is he serious? im soo disappointed in the way we play, so poor.
Its so frustrating to realise the points we hae dropped we could have been ahead.
To think we are champions and playing like pretenders, theres no way the title will head back to Stamford Bridge if we continue on this rubbish run. Every1 said a win was only acceptable, now what??
SWP and Kalou are pony, SWP is out of confidence and Kalou is ok but his finishing is that of something else, he shoots for the bloody stars everytime! absolute wank. Not chelsea standard right now. Shevchenko, whos that? seems like a complete waste of money, yes give him time, by the time we do the guy will have lost more pace than he has already, teddy sheringham is better than shev now and hes 40! for 30 mil we could have pretty much had any striker, why him? endless names come to mind, torres, tevez, Klose,benni mcarthy,defoe,owen,adriano, even the likes of darren bent would have done better! i hate to say it but it seems like a waste.
Mourinho said hes not willing to pay crazy money, thats fair enough, but to be fair our team needs to be sorted out, because without robben,cole,terry,cech, we are soo terrible its unreal.
tonights result was our own fault, yes it was complete shit to watch, boring crap, but drogba missed a sitter and lamps did in the final minutes, clearly cost us the game, im not blaming them because we used to hammer teams like villa with our reserves, now im not so sure we could beat any team with our first team. 3 draws on the trot, and looking increasingly worse as each match wears on, im the same as suman, my reaction is over 4 weeks, from what ive seen. i just pray that we get it sorted out NOW, put the money our buy a right back, a squad player centre back whos better than KB (not hard), and a striker. If we sell SWP replace him for a quality right winger and JC is prob out for the season.
Cheers
Roman forgot to pay the referees before Christmas as he did in the last two seasons.That’s how we win the title.
Some posititives:
1. A clean sheet - thank the gods!
2. We were the only team trying to win - something like 15 goal attempts to their 4. We have scored in every other game this season, so we should not worry too much about drawing a blank here.
3. Ricardo Carvalho - simply immense performance, it seemed he was in defense, midfield, right wing etc.
4. Makelele looked like he had rediscovered his form.
5. Drogba and Essien again put in good performances.
6. Drogba and Carvalho will get their suspensions out of the way against Wycombe.
7. Even when we are in a run of great form, we always draw at Villa anyway.
By the end of the match we looked very tired after using mostly the same players for 4 games over Christmas (apart from Essien of course). Hopefully some of our injuries are clearing up now, and we can bring in one or two new faces soon. We’re only 6 points behind having never hit top form this season, so hopefully we’ll come on strong soon.
I think we need to start using Sheva again up front with Drogba rather than wide left. He is so good off the ball that there is much more space for Drogs that way.
Looks like we have a shortage of centre halves now Boula is injured - what happened to Mancienne? Can we get him back from QPR?
It’s going to go all the way this year.
The fact Makelele played the 90 given Villa didn’t possess any attacking threat shows how important Jose felt it was to keep a clean sheet and get some confidence back in the side. Astonishing how little attacking intelligence we displayed, though. This team looked like they were really going to click in around Oct/Nov, but they’ve had all the verve sucked out of them. Last night really showed how much we miss Joe Cole.
Still, Cech, Terry and Robben are all set to return soon, so there’s still time for a final push. My prediction is that United will drop more points than us in the second half of the season - I don’t know if it’ll be enough to give us the title but I do think it’ll be enough to drag Liverpool back into it, if (and it’s a big if) they can win their home games against the big boys.
Bloody Hell these doom and gloom merchants on this site are making me think we’re in a relegation scrap.
Reality check here guys, it’s incredibly difficult to win every game we play in. It’s also very difficult to win the league three years on the trot, just check how many times it’s been done.
We’re not playing great at the moment that’s true, but we’re ONLY 6pts off the lead.
We’re in the semi final of the Carling Cup, we’ve got a reasonable draw in the 3rd round of the FA Cup, and of course we’re in the last 16 of the Champions League.
Get a grip guys, I’ve been a supporter of this club for over 40 years, and trust me this is not a crisis! there are a lot of clubs and supporters out there who would love their teams to be in our position.
Keep the faith!
Clive, it’s better here than on the official site. Some of the supporters there seem to take pleasure in our poor spell. It’s embarrassing.
Cat kickingly frustrating last night. Its difficult to find many positives at the moment when you look beyond Drobga and the magnificent Essien.
Its becoming increasingly hard to remember the last time we turned in a decent performance over the full 90 minutes.
On the SWP question, his habit of conceeding possesion in dangerous areas of the pitch with no-one behind him is worrying and I am amazed the Mourihno tolerates him. He’s begining to look like a very poor acquisition. Kalou looks similarly out of his depth. In one attempt on goal last night he domostrated such poor shooting technique that most pub team managers would have hauled him off there and then.
A marked improvement will be needed if we are to win the titel again this year.
Despite my anger and pessimism after the game last night (I spent most of the second half pointing out to my friend how often Kalou and SWP lost possession), after reading Giles Smith’s article on TOCWS and some comments here, my wary optimism has returned.
Our defence is looking solid again at least, and the immediate return of Terry, Cech and Robben by the end of the month is amazing. In this transfer window, I believe we need another centre defender and a striker. Why not play Geremi opposite Robben when playing 433?
We can still win this, but now we’re relying on the inevitably rising Liverpool and Arsenal to nick points from United, while we have to survive them. That can wait though. For now, let’s just focus on getting our solidity back after these two relatively easy cup ties. :)
Some people still think that we can make it..they think that 6 points is nothing…But we need 1 more point than ManU to win the title[because they are way ahead of goal difference]..So its 7…And for manu to loose 7,they either need to loose 2 games and draw1 OR they need to draw 4 games…By the way thier wingers and midfield is playing at the moment,they look like scoring at any moment…And ask newcastle about how difficult to get a draw aganist ManU…That needed 2 incredible goals…And that to at home…So thers no point in saying that 6 points is nothing…points is something…We will realise it only when our seaeson progresses…And we need to play away at liverpool[which are red hot at home] and arsenal[with thierry and galls on return and ashley getting boos all over the stadium] away from home…So if you think ,logically,based on stats it is very very very difficult though impossible to retain title…
But at the end of the day we have ourselves to blame..
Suman did you read my post properly. I didn’t say 6 points was nothing, but it’s not a lot when there are still 48 points available. If we don’t win the league it’s not the end of the world!
As i said it’s incredibly difficult to win 3 titles in succession, go check the record books.
hello clive,
i didnt had you in my mind when i was referring to 6 points…i was thinking abt joses comment yesterday night…
“If we don’t win the league it’s not the end of the world!”
Unfortunately,thats not what roman,peter kenyon et all thinks.If we have to make our club world number 1,we have to dominate in such a way that nobody knows what s the name of other clubs all over world apart from UK.So yes,even if we dont win anything,thats not end of world.When we say that its difficult to win it third time,i believe thats the reason for getting some fresh legs to chelsea squad and getting rid of many people.Anyways,we can just talk for hours but whats supposed to happen will happen.We can just pray for good things to happen to CFC and thats what i will be doing.