Just a few quick notes for the day, and a fantastic read from Dan at Aston Villa Central. If you only click one thing today, make it that.
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Shay Given will be ready to play this Saturday for the match against Blackburn, according to Mat Kendrick. This is a huge relief, as last week showed us how important solid goalkeeping can be for Aston Villa's success.
- In another fitness-related piece by Kendrick, Alex McLeish details his plan for keeping Fabian Delph injury free this year. Apparently Delph has been given his own personal training regimen that is going to allow him to avoid some of the harder workouts done by the team. I'm interested to see if we can notice any difference this year. Delph certainly looked good in week 1.
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Carlos Cuellar appears on-pace to at least join training by the end of August, according to the Birmingham Mail. McLeish still hasn't ruled out the Spaniard leaving Aston Villa, but it appears increasingly unlikely.
- Aston Villa's U-19 squad travel to Holland to play the first match in the group stage of the Next-Gen Series against the youth of Ajax tonight. In addition to the B-Mail story above, you can read more about the match from the official site.
- Finally, Dan at Aston Villa Central analyzes why Villa had so much trouble putting together a continuous attack at Fulham on Saturday. It's a fantastic piece that's accompanied by some of the best graphics I've seen. The long and short of it is that our wingbacks had trouble getting into the final third of the pitch, and it really hurt production. Take the five minutes and read this, as it's superb.