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While Aston Villa crashed out of the FA Cup as early as was possible for them to do so, it seems as if they will be getting a taste of the competition anyhow. Unfortunately, this does not mean a chance at hardware, but rather fixture congestion that may wreak havoc on the club's schedule. Manchester City have advanced to the quarterfinals of the Cup and will be facing Wigan on March 8. That was originally supposed to be the day that Villa traveled to Manchester to try and beat City for the second time this year. And now the match must be moved.
For this sort of thing, moving a match is usually pretty straightforward, but City have an awfully crowded schedule already. On March 2, they've got a Capital One Cup final at Wembley to be a part of, but they've got the middle part of that week free. After that, things get a bit dicier. The week of March 9, they've got two matches on the 12th and 15th. Then they've got three in a week with the 22nd, 25th, and 29th being taken. At that point, we've got to assume that the match will have already been made up.
So where will Villa likely slot in? The 4th or 5th of March look like good candidates, as do the 18th or 19th. The former option would put them on short rest coming off of the Norwich City visit to Villa Park, and the latter would give them three away matches in a week, coming between Chelsea and Stoke City. Neither option is particularly good for an injury-prone club with little depth at anywhere except striker. The first would likely be better, though, as it would give Villa an extended spell off to rest.
If there is any good news to be had in this, it's that Villa will be facing a Manchester City squad on short rest no matter what. They're also far enough into their competitions that playing a severely weakened side (thus resting players for Premier League play) seems unlikely. So the City squad that Villa will eventually take on won't be at 100%.
We'll hear in the next few days when the match will be moved to, but what do you think? How does this move affect Villa, and when do you want the match switched to? Let us know below!
