Bright future?





The Villa slogan is 'proud history and bright future', obviously having an American owner cranks up the bullshitometer a few levels, but yesterday's performance at Peterborough would suggest that the future is bright for Villa.

Villa started the game with some established players namely Brad Friedel, Carlos Cuellar, Zat Knight, Curtis Davies, Nicky Shorey, Nigel Reo-Coker, Steve Sidwell and Marlon Harewood, but by the end of the match it was virtually a youth team on the pitch. Furthermore in the starting line up it was youngsters Andreas Weimann and Barry Bannan who impressed the most. It looks like Marlon Harewood's days at Villa are numbered though as he was guilty of squandering a series of chances.

Talking of squandering chances Peterborough looked good for the first 20 minutes and squandered chance after chance. However, and not wishing to be nasty as I had a good day out I think that Posh will be out of their depth in the Championship, their ground looks more like that of a league 2 club, not surprisingly as they have spent most of their history down there and are in the Championship after 2 consecutive promotions; but more worringly for them their players looked out of their depths even later in the game when they were basically playing the youth team with Osbourne and Sidwell thrown in. It seems like their big hero is George Boyd, maybe he was having an off day, but he looked and played like Juan Pablo Angel on a very bad day.

That said Boro started off well and if it wasn't for flapping in front of goal could have taken the lead. However, on 25 minutes Austrian youngster Andreas Weimann scored for Villa and from that moment on Villa dominated.

Peterborough started the second half off well, but this obviously had the effect of annoying Curtis Davies, who on 53 minutes walzed through the Posh defence before playing a one-two with Marlene Deadwood to put the ball in the back of the net. After this Villa didn't look back and on 71 minutes Steve Sidwell hammered home to make it 3-0. His prize was to stay on the pitch, as for the last 10 minutes Villa played with 10 different players to those they had started with.

A good day out especially with a fine Villa win. The Peterborough fans seemed alright and the divided programme with one half being dedicated to the Villa game and the reverse half for the Spurs game was a good idea. I wouldn't mind going there again although Peterborough can't be described as a good place for a drink or for football. The only boozer we found was a Yates's where if you didn't have a Brummie accent you were drinking orange juice or coffee. This does have its advantages though: On the drinking front the bar near the ground is welcoming to away fans and doesn't try to fleece you for a pint. On the football front the prices for league matches are about the same as some Conference teams charge and judging from the programme it shouldn't be too hard to get in if you aren't fussy about which end you go in.

Anyway, not a bad birthday game and I even got a cheesey game souvenir scarf for 2 quid

Notes on the photos from top to bottom
The main stand before the match
Brad Friedel in goal for Villa
A Villa attack
Villa do some rare second half defending

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