Kickin' It: Unpacking the win over Cardiff and a look at the week ahead

Aston Villa won their first game in a month, and there's nearly two full weeks before they have the opportunity to let us all down once again. Let's have a party!

Just The Facts, Please

Form (Last 5, most recent first): W D L L D

Results Last Week: Aston Villa 2-0 Cardiff City (Premier League)

Upcoming Fixtures:

• First Team:
  At West Brom (Premier League) - Monday, November 25, 20:00 GMT, 3:00 PM Eastern
• U21:
  At Arsenal (U21 Premier League) - Tuesday, November 12, 19:00 GMT, 2:00 PM Eastern

• Tracking Villa's Progress

A look at how Aston Villa are doing compared to corresponding fixtures from last season. For a more full explanation of the corresponding fixtures table, see here.

Villa fell back to even in terms of goals scored compared to goals allowed in last year's corresponding fixtures, but given the clean sheet they'll likely take it; the club has now knocked 16 goals off of their number allowed last season, which is a pretty stunning number. That's real and measurable progress, and it's hard to overstate how encouraging it is to see.

Injuries

New Injuries Last Week:

• Gabby Agbonlahor - Ankle (November 25th)
• Joe Bennett - Back (December 4th)
• Fabian Delph - Knee (November 25th)
• Antonio Luna - Hamstring (November 25th)
• Andreas Weimann - Hamstring (November 25th)

Match Notes

Aston Villa 2-0 Cardiff City (Premier League)
Leandro Bacuna (76’), Libor Kozak (84’)

• That was not the prettiest game you're ever going to see, but in the end Aston Villa forced Cardiff City to play the game the home side wanted, and the end result was quite good. There's still a lot of work to be done, but considering Villa's injury list and the way they'd been performing as of late, there's no reason to dwell on the negatives.
• An interesting note about Villa's 17 shots: 15 of them came from open play. Given Villa's over-reliance on set piece goals, that's a nice development; the next trick is figuring out how to put more of those shots away.
• You can find our recap here. It mainly focuses on the positives and downplays the negatives, but it just felt right after the first win in over a month.
• The WhoScored recap is here.

Looking Ahead

• Aside from the U21s taking on Arsenal, it's a quiet international week for Villa. There will almost certainly be call-ups, but given that this is a friendly break they might be for some players closer to the periphery of their national team picture in addition to the usual suspects.

Miscellany

• Red Hot Chili Peppers drummer receives death threats for wiping backside with Flamengo shirt | Dirty Tackle

  I am now a Flamengo fan for life.

Lionel Messi injured again but Cesc Fábregas scores twice in Barcelona win | The Guardian

After several years of apparent superhuman invincibility, Lionel Messi sure has had his share of injuries in recent times. Some are making the connection between Messi's sudden fragility and the departure of Pep Guardiola, and perhaps there is something to that. Still it seems more likely that Messi is getting older and slightly less durable than he used to be, which is a grim and horrible reminder of the mortality of us all.

The 2013/14 PL After 10 Games: Strikers & Per90 Numbers | Bitter and Blue

If you haven't been reading, the folks over at Bitter and Blue have been doing a tremendous job of taking a more in-depth look at the numbers side of the game all season long. This is a look at the Premier League's strikers, with some pretty interesting findings.

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Thanks, as always, for reading. Check in every weekday for the latest edition of Kickin' It. Be sure to join us in the comments, where anything goes!

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