Morning all. Today is going to be a great day and not just because the holidays are now over and we get down to the serious business of playing football again. It's going to be great in so many ways. I know it's only a pre-season friendly, but football is back, or more importantly, Aston Villa are back.
But to the match and while the result doesn't matter, the game sort of does and while it is just a friendly, we are playing it without two players that would have started for us and with no replacements. There is also every chance the match will be cancelled due to flooding, which wouldn't be nice, but if it is, we will let you know as soon as possible.
I know people started to get a little excited with the arrival of Downing and the prospect of playing 4-5-1, 4-2-3-1 or 4-3-3, but he might not play again this year and we might very well stay with 4-4-2 and actually, we're still players down and in dire need of real quality - quality the manager should have had in by now playing in this pre-season friendly match.
But that doesn't matter right now. O'Neill is back from holiday now and he's going to build his squad and add to the first team and we probably will win today, but I've got a feeling we could be beaten as they've got a team on the up and a manager that will have had a good education and should know what he is doing. But it is only a friendly and it doesn't matter and today is going to be a great day.
We won't Twitter update this match, but we will be twittering like mad on match day again when the season starts and probably even the Peace Cup, as you can watch every match live here, but don't forget, if you are not following us, you have to start to follow us, as we are going to be doing another competition soon for another England shirt but if you are not following us, you don't stand a chance as it is going out to only those on Twitter.
Did I make that clear enough? Anyway, after all that PR and bluster I feel like a General, we've got the serious business of Fabian Delph coming to Villa Park. There is no doubting the lad is a talent but there is a big difference from playing where he has played and playing in the Premier League, but you've just got to fancy that Martin O'Neill is really quite interested in him as the speculation has gone on for so long now and doesn't seem to want to go away.
Speculation is really hotting up that this deal will go through next week and there is every chance that a player might be heading in the other direction as part of the deal. If it is a case of a player heading in the other direction, I can't imagine who it would be. Would Harewood go that low or maybe even Knight? I fancy they are both better than that, so I can only imagine it will be a youngster, but I fancy they are all better than Leeds.
But, it is just speculation and it could all come to nothing but if it did, well, he would be an excellent, if not slightly expensive, prospect and would be interesting to watch develop.
But, the summer holidays are over and football is back. It isn't on TV, so I'll be looking out for a link to where you can listen online and I'll be adding it here as and when we find it. Up the Villa.