James Collins Out For Aston Villa Match Against Blackburn, Ciaran Clark Likely Shifts Over

Gotta love Twitter as the best source of up-to-date Aston Villa news. Timothy Abraham is Tweetporting that James Collins will be out for Saturday's Villa match with Blackburn Rovers, suffering again from a calf injury. Reaching back into the depths of my mind, I recall Collins sitting out for the first 20+ of the Blackpool match, which I'm fairly sure took place two months ago. I'm also confident I had my eyes closed much of that match. Anyway, Carlos Cuellar was injured, Collins came on, and the goals stopped.

Of course, that also means Collins didn't score with his head again, so it's clear the ginger isn't our savior. With Cuellar out for another couple weeks, it seems that Ciaran Clark will shift over to center back once again -- which is good, we like seeing him there -- and Nathan Baker, returning from his red card suspension, will slot in at left back:

So it seems there will still be no Stephen Warnock. It's strange to think that a man could spend the summer in South Africa and then wind up on the reserve squad this season, but Warnock really was having a torment of a year. I'd be curious to see if this knock to his ego changed anything, but I guess tomorrow won't be the day of discovery. Nathan Baker earned his straight red in the FA Cup match against Blackburn, with a poor challenge on David Hoilett, so let's hope someone gives the kid a talking-to before the match. Then again, he also sent in the cross that allowed Nathan Delfouneso to score the third, so maybe I should stop trying to critique Gerard Houllier's every move and just wait and see.