You guys may only know me as 7500 to Holte's dashing and mysterious Canadian writer, but did you know I also have some pretty serious connections with the Aston Villa backroom staff? Well, I do. After Aston Villa's match at Wigan was postponed due to snow, I e-mailed my good friends working at Villa Park, Mickey O'Really and Hamish McFakename, asking them how all of our favourite Villans handled their snowbound weekend off. Here's what they told me:
Ashley Young, as we noted earlier, found out that he might be spending a little more time in the Midlands. While he was up with the team in Wigan, he visited with some good friends from nearby Manchester, Gareth Barry and James Milner. Gareth and James left Ashley with some "Learning Arabic" texts they had picked up for him. Clearly, Ash is optimistic about getting a spot on the England squad for the 2022 World Cup in Qatar.
Aston Villa's own fun-size superstar, Marc Albrighton, made a trip to the National Sea Life centre with Fullback/Heartthrob Eric Lichaj. Unfortunately, Marc saw his reflection in the glass and thought he was trapped in the shark tank. He had to be pulled screaming from the aquarium and hasn't been able to take a bath since.
Jonathan Hogg got a visit from Aston Villa's mascot, Hercules the Lion! He was very excited.
John Carew was ordered to dress up as Hercules the Lion as a character building exercise. He was not very excited.
Coming off an injury, Emile Heskey made an impressive return to his previous form by not scoring any goals all day.
Noted bookworm Richard Dunne made a new addition to his library.
Stephen Ireland spent ten to fifteen promising minutes working around the house, but then he lost interest and went back to sleep.
Barry Bannan took a trip through his closet to visit some long-lost relatives in Narnia.
That's all I could get from my contacts, but if you guys want to engage in some unofficial speculation about what the Villans did with their weekend, feel free to do so in the comments. I'll be spending my holidays hibernating out in the mountains, so if anything happens, you be sure to let me know. Merry Christmas, guys.