Boro Mania

This weekend’s fixture brings Boro head to head with the latest up and coming European hopefuls, Aston Villa.

VS

The top half of the table has been very inconsistent over the last few years with no less than 5 teams claiming European football through their final league position. Boro, Tottenham, Bolton and Everton have all had recent high finishes, and now it’s Villa who are vying for the rights to claim their place again in next years UEFA Cup, starting the season with dazzling displays of fast attacking football and clinical finishing.

Boro fans will obviously be familiar with the European mid-week games and it’s something which kind of hindered our progress in the league, the key words being European Hangover. Many a league match was played on a Sunday, only for Boro not to turn up, but hopefully we’re going to find out that it’s not just the hangovers on Teesside that make the points run off flipping their fingers shouting; “not today lady boys!”

Only six points separate Gareth Southgate’s side from fourth place but equally just three points is the margin of safety to the bottom three. It’s vital that Boro get some points from Villa Park and Goodison next week in order to secure our place in the middle of the table.

Aston Villa, or The Villains, are one of the oldest and most successful football clubs in England, having won the First Division Championship seven times and the FA Cup seven times. Villa also won the 1981–82 European Cup, one of only four English clubs to win what is now the UEFA Champions League. Aston Villa is the fourth most successful club in English footballing history, having won 20 major honours, although many of these were won before the Second World War and the most recent was in 1996.

To date Aston Villa have spent 98 seasons in the top-flight, the only club to have spent longer in the top-flight is Everton with 105 seasons. As a result, Aston Villa versus Everton is the most played fixture in English top-flight football. Aston Villa is one of an elite group of seven clubs that has played in every Premiership season, they are: Arsenal, Aston Villa, Chelsea, Everton, Liverpool, Manchester United and Tottenham Hotspur.

Despite Villa’s illustrious honours, they’ve had an up/down time in the Premiership over recent years, but times ahead appear to be brighter. Current manager Martin O’Neill has put together a mostly English squad capable of beating anyone on their day, a squad full of skillful, young and energetic attacking talent mixed with experienced professionals, surely what seems to be a winning combination.

Players such as Gabriel Agbonlahor, Ashley Young, Gareth Barry and Luke Young are all important parts of their squad this year. Agbonlahor has emerged as one of Englands brightest prospects, a pacey striker who prides himself of making a nuisance out of defenders. While his finishing still needs development, he’s shown some excellent finishes this season and is no doubt about to hit the next level of his game. If he can stay in the top-10 goalscorers this season, we’ll be seeing more of him in the England Squad.

another away day for boro

Away games have been progressively dire for about a year now and we’ve only just picked up our first away win of this season, against Wigan. It’s a game of mixed feelings for me this weekend, personally. I’m going to look on the bright side this time for a change for reason already stated… the European hangover. Villa had a difficult game midweek, but worked well to beat their European opponents who were unbeaten in 14 games.

It’s time for Southgate to start picking teams and choosing formations that are going to get us points away from home. Considering we’ve had a pretty bad time of it away in the Premier League, changing tactics may not be such a bad move. If i may ask you a question, would you rather play a defensive formation and lose or an attacking formation and lose? Fair enough if we play an attacking formation and lose, we haven’t really lost out, where as it also increases our chances of winning, that’s my take on it personally.

Boro are beginning to collect a bit of dead wood at the moment… while that may be a strong statement, there’s definitely players that need to be dropped to the bench in order to freshen up.

Gary O’Neil has slightly improved during the course of the season, but his displays certainly are lacking, while Stewart Downing looks more like Allan Johnston at the moment.

Southgate doesn’t seem to be a taker to the rotation policy and rightly so, that’s one thing i agree with him on, but he also doesn’t seem to like dropping his “reputable” players, namely Downing. A few might agree with me that if we can’t get the ball to Downing, or he can’t get into the game, then we might aswell play with 10-men… better still, just bench him and give Johnson a little run in the team to keep him happy, no doubt it will benefit the team. I guess we’ll see what his decisions are tomorrow afternoon.

Aston Villa: possible team line-up and team news

Martin O’Neill looks set to field his strongest team, after receiving positive news of Milner’s recovery and resting key players during Friday’s game.

Goalkeeper Brad Friedel, captain Martin Laursen, in-form Gareth Barry, Nigel Reo-Coker and Luke Young were left on the bench and should now return in place of Brad Guzan, Zat Knight, Curtis Davies, Craig Gardner and Moustapha Salifou.

Villa have been relatively lucky with injuries this season compared to other teams in the division. Their only two players out at the moment are Wilfred Bouma [Foot injury] and Stilyan Petrov [Hamstring] so O’Neill can pretty much chose any line-up he see’s fit.

Middlesbrough: Possible Team Line-up, team talk and news

Gareth will be forced to make one or two changes this week to the squad, but for once it’s not due to injury. Mido is showing to the manager that he deserves a start from his excellent free kick that gave us the equaliser against West Ham last week, which should see Alves relegated to the bench, with Tuncay retaining his place alongside Mido. With Arca still recovering from injury, that leaves Digard and O’Neil to take up the central midfield roles with Aliadiere taking his usual place on the right wing.

Chris Riggott has been solid in defense and he’s tipped to start the game alongside Pogatetz. With Justin Hoyte also set to reclaim his place at right-back, that means Wheater will take his place on the bench bar any late injuries to either Riggott or Poggy.

On the injury front, we’ve only three players left in the treatment room at the moment. Mohamed Shawky is currently suffering from a Thigh Muscle strain and isn’t due back until early December, while long term injury victim Rhys Williams remains out of action until January.

Robert Huth on the other hand has resumed training with the squad, and is making good progress on his ankle. We’ve plenty of defensive cover at the moment so Huth, while fighting for contention, is doubtful and will most likely not be apart of the squad.

With Downing still in the squad, it gets me wondering what it will take to actually see him dropped out of the team. People are probably getting sick of hearing me bang on about this now but unless he miraculously gains some confidence over night, i can’t see him making a major impact on the game. What makes it even more depressing is Adam Johnson, full of energy and drive, biting at the bit waiting to get his chance in the team… surely at this stage, he’d give much more to the team than an invisible Downing.

Didi also needs to be given more time on the pitch in my opinion. He does brilliant in the games he comes off the bench, but seems a bit less effective from the start, however, he’s yet to be given a full 90 minutes in a premiership match. For me personally, he hasn’t been at all bad from the start, but im sure a full match will do him the world of good… knowing you’re going to be subbed after 55 minutes isn’t going to be a great confidence boost to such a young player, either!

team vs team statistics

Overall, a total of 137 matches have taken place between Boro and Villa. Unfortunately our record at Villa park isn’t one to brag about. 69 games have taken place in the Midlands, but we’ve only managed to win a meager 16, drawing 15. Aston Villa have won the remaining 38 ties! another unsettling fact is, they’ve also beat us more times at home than we’ve managed to beat them! Looking at the overall stats though, it looks a little better to look at with Aston Villa winning 64 games, Boro winning 41 and a draw amount of 32 times.

- Aston Villa are currently unbeaten in their last 5 home games
- They also haven’t drawn a match in their last 5

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Boro are currently unbeaten in 3 games

We havent had much luck recently either, with Villa mostly dominating the scoring charts

This is our current form and league position

Match Predictions

I say this every week, but again, yes… another tricky tie.

A lot of us will be hoping that Villa’s exploits on Friday will see them tired and not really up for a game of football. The fact that O’Neill rested a few players will mean that Villa won’t be as fatigued as one would hope, but we can always speculate and hopefully the players will go into the game believing they can take some points away from Villa Park.

Villa have only had one full day of rest, so even the players that came off the bench, hopefully, wont be as energetic as they usually would coming from a game Wednesday or a week previous.

Gareth should have his players up for a fight, but Villa are a very good team this year and they have goals from all over the park. Personally, i think it will be a very entertaining game of football, but Villa may just be too strong on the day i reckon.

My prediction is, Boro will get a point. The game will also be a very entertaining 2-2 draw.

Aston Villa 2 - 2 Middlesbrough

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