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Posted by: BOF
on Wednesday, April 09, 2008 - 01:30 PM
With 33 games gone in our 38 game league campaign, Villa find themselves in a 3 way battle for the lone Intertoto spot along with Blackburn Rovers and Manchester City. We take a look at the 5 remaining fixtures.
Let's start off by saying that Portsmouth are not in this race. Portsmouth have not applied for the Intertoto Cup and as such it does not matter if they finish 6th or whether they win or lose the FA Cup. If they win the FA Cup they get the UEFA place. If they lose the FA Cup then they still get the UEFA place and Cardiff will get a wildcard from UEFA.
The bottom line is, the race for the Intertoto is solely between Villa, Blackburn & Citeh.
Here's the current state of play.
P W D L F A Pt GD
Aston Villa 33 14 10 9 56 44 52 +12
Blackburn 33 13 12 8 43 39 51 +4
Man City 33 13 10 10 37 39 49 -2
We are currently in pole position with a draw and goal difference over Blackburn and a win and goal difference over Citeh.
Our remaining fixtures are as follows
Wk ASTON VILLA BLACKBURN MAN CITY
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34 Derby Cty Away Liverpool Away Sunderland Away
35 Small Heath Home Man Utd Home Pompey Home
36 Everton Away Pompey Away Fulham Home
37 Wigan Home Derby Cty Home Liverpool Away
38 West Ham Away Small Heath Away Boro Away
We all have 2 home games left. They are all winnable apart from Blackburn's game against Man Utd which they can't reasonably expect to take 3 points from.
Current form has us 16th in the table with Man City 17th and Blackburn 9th.
The critical thing for us is the fact that Blackburn's next 2 fixtures are extremely difficult. It is not unreasonable to think that they could pick up no points from either game. Going to Anfield with Liverpool trying to secure 4th place and entertaining a title-chasing Man Utd is the last thing you want when chasing something yourself. We, on the other hand, would surely be expected to beat Derby (especially bearing in mind our impressive outing against Bolton). The game against the 'noses will be huge and although it is a derby and nothing can be taken for granted, I'd like to think that at home we will have too much for them - although as you'll see later even a draw would, mathematically at least, not be a total disaster.
So it is entirely possible that going into our week 36 fixture in Goodison Park we could have a 7 point advantage over Blackburn. Man City are not out of the equation at all either. If they can navigate their way past a tricky trip to the Stadium of Light against an in-form Sunderland, they have 2 consecutive home games. The first against a Pompey team with more important things on their mind who will perhaps not use their strongest team and one against a Fulham team who look all but doomed now (and are playing as such). If Man City can get 6 points from those 3 games that puts them on 55pts with us on 58 pending the Everton game. You would not expect Citeh to win the Liverpool game in week 37 and you would definitely expect Blackburn to win the Derby County game. Our final home game against Wigan might be a tight affair, with Wigan (courtesy of Steve Bruce, remember him?) playing some good stuff at present.
So EVEN IF we lose the Everton game (and I am now resigned to fighting for the Intertoto as opposed to a straight UEFA spot through the league) and let's take a worst case scenario of a draw against Wigan (surely we wouldn't lose that game?), the league table going into the final day would look like this
P W D L F A Pt GD
Aston Villa 37 16 11 10 -- -- 59 ??
Blackburn 37 14 13 10 -- -- 55 ??
Man City 37 15 10 12 -- -- 55 ??
Now remember the table above is based on us losing to Everton and drawing with Wigan while beating the noses & Derby. It is based on Blackburn losing to Liverpool & Man Utd, drawing away at Pompey and beating Derby and it is based on Man City beating Fulham, losing to Liverpool and picking up a total of 3pts from the Sunderland & Pompey games.
If that all plays out then the issue will have been sorted before the final game. I don't think those results are too fanciful.
But it is essential that we pick up at least 7pts from the Derby, noses & Wigan games no matter in what order the 7pts arrive. If they do come, then I feel the games against Everton and West Ham will be academic in the race for the Intertoto Cup.
It does assume that the big boys (Liverpool & Man Utd) play their part though. If they dont, then we could be hoping for small heath alliance to do us a favour on the final day by taking points off Blackburn at the Sty.
All in all though, the fixture schedule has been kind to us and we look like we might just reap the rewards in the closing weeks of the season.
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