Aston Villa vs. Swansea City, open match thread

So things have not been going well as of late, in case you hadn't noticed. Boxing Day saw a last-minute winner for Crystal Palace, the side being booed off the pitch, and rumors that one of Ian Culverhouse or Andi Weimann killed a man on horseback with a trident. Villa's now just three points clear of the relegation zone, they've lost four in a row, and they've looked like an especially gross pile of wet garbage for the better part of two months.

But! These things happen to all but the best teams, and there's an entire second half of the season to play. Maybe that's not an especially exciting prospect at the moment, but it can get better! It probably will get better, at least for some stretch of the remaining season! Maybe that will happen today! Maybe not, also. But if we knew what was going to happen, we wouldn't be watching the games in the first place!

Lineups:

Aston Villa: Guzan; Lowton, Clark, Baker, Luna; Bacuna, Westwood, Delph, Tonev; Weimann, Agbonlahor.

Bench: El Ahmadi, Albrighton, Kozak, Bowery, Steer, Helenius, Sylla.

Swansea City: Tremmel; Tiendalli, Chico, Williams, Davies; De Guzman, Cañas; Hernandez, Shelvey, Lamah; Bony.

Bench: Routledge, Britton, Rangel, Amat, Alvaro, Pozuelo, Zabret.