For me the highlight of last season was the 2-2 home draw against Manchester United.  For the first 80 minutes Villa were firmly in control and at times dominant.  Villa then ran out of gas in the last 10 minutes and withstood a barrage from Manchester United conceding two goals to claim a draw.

While the result was certainly credible, the performance was what was noteworthy.  At this time Villa was decimated by injuries.  The starting XI named by Gerard Houllier was:  Friedel, L. Young, Collins, Dunne, Warnock, Albrighton, Hogg, Bannan, Downing, A. Young, Agbonlahor.  Forced by injury to play an attack minded setup, Villa took the game to United.  The majority of the action was played in Manchester United’s half as Villa’s back 4 played a high line.  The two best players on the pitch were the wingers Downing and Albrighton.

The bench for this match would have been poor if this was the 2nd round of the Carling Cup against a League 2 side:  Guzan, Delfouneso, Herd, Lichaj, D. Johnson, and of all people Isaiah Osbourne.  As the club had a two goal lead, Houllier literally had no defensive substitutes available to change shape and tactics and hold the lead.  Delfouneso came on for Gabby who was not fully match fit, and Lichaj and Herd made their Premier League debuts late on.  Given the performance of the team under these circumstances this was one of the few bright spots from last season.

Sadly with Alex McLeish having more or less a full squad to choose from it is exceedingly unlikely Villa will duplicate this performance.  Expect to see Stiliyan Petrov leading the line if he is fit.  Emile Heskey will be in midfield on the oft chance he can flick on long balls from James Collins to Darren Bent.  Speaking of Bent I expect him to be blankly staring at the sky for long stretches of the match as the ball is rarely within 25 yards of him and the manager has nobody on the pitch capable of delivering a cross.  Villa fans shouldn’t be shocked if Hutton is on the right again.

I told an Arsenal fan on twitter that I expected the effort to be better than the Tottenham match but not the result.  Villa could play with more passion, but against Manchester United with this manager’s tactics and selection Villa could still easily lose 5-0.  If the manager watches video of last year’s match he will see that one way to prevent the opposition from scoring is to keep the ball in their half.  I’m sure he understands this concept, he just doesn’t trust his players to successfully apply it on the pitch.  At the first sign of adversity we have come to expect this manager to hide in his defensive shell.

Villa fans are not fickle and most of us are realistic.  The majority of us do not expect to get anything from this game.  What we do expect is for our lads to have a go on the pitch.  We can accept losing to a bigger club, but we want our team to at least try to win.  Against Spurs, Villa did not try to win.  They played better and with more passion against a vastly inferior team in Swansea and managed a 0-0 draw.  As Matt and before him Einstein used to say, “The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.”

Sadly the personnel is still on hand to play better football and emulate the setup that was employed last season.  If we want to have a go at United I’d play a 4-4-1-1 of Given, Warnock, Dunne, Clark, Hutton, N’Zogbia, Herd, Bannan, Albrighton, Agbonlahor, Bent.  I’ve been hard on Warnock and Hutton, but they can get forward better than any of our other options in the fullback spots.  Supposedly even a blind squirrel finds a nut once in a while so maybe one of them will actually cross the ball to a Villa player.  Collins has been overdue to be dropped and the fact that Clark has played so little is yet another indictment on the manager.  Albrighton was arguably man of the match in this fixture last year scoring in front of the Holte.  If he can deliver a performance in this match it will help him get his confidence back.  This XI has pace which could trouble United and might be able to actually counter attack.  Remember when all Villa was was a counter attacking side?

If this XI lost 5-0 I would accept this more than I would a repeat of the debacle at White Hart Lane.   There is no chance of it actually happening because our manager will think he is being “pragmatic.”  I suppose it’s too late to lock him in a closet and have Kevin MacDonald pick the team.  The team will be playing in front of the biggest crowd at Villa Park.  A passionate, attacking display might encourage them to come back as well.

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