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Pre-match thread


John

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On April Fools Day at 15.00 we welcome Norwich City to Villa Park. Our visitors were relegated alongside us last season finishing one place as well as 17 points ahead of us. They were also one of only two teams to taste a league defeat at Villa Park last season going down 2-0 thirteen months ago.

This season they are 6 points above us and that lead could be down to 3 points after this latest meeting between the two clubs. They last won at Villa Park (3-2) in 1992. We have won 4 and drawn 3 of our games at Villa Park since then. We have won the last two home games and will be looking to make it three on Saturday week.

Two games stand out for me against Norwich. The first is the 1-0 1975 League Cup Final win at Wembley against them that gave us our first trophy for 14 years as well as the first of 4 between then and 1982. The second is our 4-1 win at Carrow Road on the last day of that same 1974-75 season when we were promoted as runners-up to Manchester United with Norwich in third which is coincidently the same order that all three teams occupied at the end of the first Premier League season in 1992-93.

We have won our last 3 home games and 5 of our last 6 games in all. Another home win would dent Norwich's play-off hopes and would leave us just 7 more wins from what could yet be a very unlikely top six finish. Another win, another clean sheet and another 2-0 home win would do very nicely!     

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Their recent problem is that they draw too much.  Sound familiar?  They've only lost 3 of their last 15 games, yet in this inconsistent league that has only moved them from 12th to 8th, and has cost them a manager in the process.

They score a lot of goals.  They're 3rd overall and they're top scorers at home.  Only 9th away though.

Fixtures involving Norwich contain the most goals of any team in the division (121) and that trend is even moreso away from Carrow Road, so maybe back over 2.5 (their away games AVERAGE 3.26 goals).

They've only failed to score 6 times this season which is the best in the league.  They're also best away from home where they've only failed 4 times.

Where they're not so good is at keeping clean sheets.  9 all season and 2 away from home (compared to Brighton's 19).  They've also lost over half of their away games.  10 from 19, and the most recent 3 mentioned above were all away from home including Rotherham of all places.

So we can say they blow hot and cold but they give the opposition chances.  Our recent defensive upturn should stand us in good stead and if we can take some of the chances that come our way then I think we can continue on our winning run.

3-1 Villa.

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2 hours ago, sheepyvillian said:

Anyone remember the Ugo debut against Norwich .?,  At the time he was being hailed as the next God ,not too much pressure on him then . I think that was the 92 defeat ,courtesy of the aforementioned Ugo .

He's the closest we've had since imo.  Better than laursen, mellberg or southgate defensively.  Towering in the air.

 

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Another positive that I just noticed is that we haven't dropped points from a winning position since the Forest game back on 4th Feb.  That's 9 games, 5 of which we've been in winning positions (the other 4 were defeats).  Keeping clean sheets is obviously massively key to that.  Also in that time we've only conceded 1 goal beyond the 70th minute (Ipswich '83).

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Ugo was superb after a dodgy start. He played in a very good villa team and his prime was when he was partnering Southgate who also was superb. I would not like to compare him to Laursen or mellberg but he was definitely as good.

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On 21/03/2017 at 09:50, sheepyvillian said:

For the record , April 1st happens to be my birthday , don't laugh , the upside being no one ever forgets . A fine performance on Saturday , and if that's the only present I receive, then I'll be more than happy. 

It's also my wife's birthday. And my future son-in-law's. Unfortunately she hates football and he supports Leeds. 

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It's really weird where Leeds are concerned , I mean considering how long they've been in the doldrums, there as always been a kind of aura about them . That Revie era had a certain romance about it. What a team of characters, Lorimer ,Bremner ,the elegant, dirty Johnny Giles and many others who were part of a great side . They never really got over the debacle of the European cup final against Bayern Munich, and then Cloughie took the reins and told them they'd been nothing but cheats, wonderful man management, I think he lasted about a month, oh well, such were the days then . There was something about football in the seventies .

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13 minutes ago, siminjo said:

I know they are missing wes holahan, are anyone else suspended/injuried? And how can one find out about that?

Suspensions are fairly easy to find, but I'm struggling to find anywhere reliable regarding injury lists :wacko:

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On 3/21/2017 at 12:43, Rugeley Villa said:

Ugo was superb after a dodgy start. He played in a very good villa team and his prime was when he was partnering Southgate who also was superb. I would not like to compare him to Laursen or mellberg but he was definitely as good.

I was at Ugo's debut in '92 against Norwich which we lost 3-2. He basically gave them 2 goals with terrible back-passes. Ron had been bigging him up before the game but he looked like he was going to be a disaster that afternoon! 

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On 23/03/2017 at 22:05, sheepyvillian said:

It's really weird where Leeds are concerned , I mean considering how long they've been in the doldrums, there as always been a kind of aura about them . That Revie era had a certain romance about it. What a team of characters, Lorimer ,Bremner ,the elegant, dirty Johnny Giles and many others who were part of a great side . They never really got over the debacle of the European cup final against Bayern Munich, and then Cloughie took the reins and told them they'd been nothing but cheats, wonderful man management, I think he lasted about a month, oh well, such were the days then . There was something about football in the seventies .

65-75 was a great era for Leeds and they should of won more trophies. They definitely have something about them as a club and their fans play up to that image. The reason you have leeds  fans all over the uk is because of that great team they had and a lot of people were attracted to the dirty Leeds tag. 

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