Burnley travel to Villa Park for the fourth round of the League Cup. This fixture is one that Aston Villa, by virtue of being in a higher division, should easily win. So why the sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach?
Should Villa wish to advance to the semi-finals of the cup and once again challenge for hardware, they need to do something they haven't done since the sixteenth minute of the Spurs match: score a goal. Ok, that's not quite true. Richard Dunne scored a goal last Saturday, but the problem there is that the goal was counted for Sunderland. So we'll amend that statement: Villa need to score a goal by putting the ball into the opposition's net. Or, I suppose, getting the opposition to flub it and put the ball in their own net. At this point, either way works for me.
Aaron and I discussed the fact that he'd rather see the team lose 4-3 than 1-0. Could we see that today?
Aston Villa Starting XI:Friedel; Lichaj, Cuellar, Clark; Beye; Sidwell, Albrighton, Reo-Coker, Bannan; Ireland, Young, Carew
Reserves:Guzan, Downing, Johnson, Collins, Hogg, Delfouneso, Heskey
Burnley Starting XI:Grant, Mears, Carlisle, Duff, Fox, Alexander, Rodriguez, Marney, Cork, Wallace, Paterson.
Reserves: Jensen, Iwelumo, Elliott, Edgar, Bikey, Easton, Thompson