After the excitement of the FA Cup at the weekend, we have a midweek feast of football with a full Premier League programme over tonight and tomorrow.
Portsmouth (will attempt to) entertain Aston Villa in what promises to be the most interesting of tonight’s matches. The likelihood is, however, that Pompey (who have looked somewhat beleaguered since Adams seized the reigns) will be the ones entertained by a Martin O’Neill side who have looked more than good for the sought after fourth spot this season. Oh and there’s the small matter of Villa having won their last 5 games away from home. There could be debutants in this one, as Adams could hand a starting berth to his recent and somewhat underwhelming signings of Hayden Mullins and Pele, replacing the injured Diop and the ill Davis…
Footie Frog knows that a more exciting possibility awaits the Villa fans though, as their bargain bin capture Emile Heskey could make his bow, and if the Portsmouth defence looks as shaky as it has recently, it could be a goalscoring one. An away win seems to be on the cards here.
Unfortunately for both the neutral and Spurs fans, most of Tottenham’s new signings won’t be appearing tonight as they welcome Stoke to White Hart Lane. Wilson Palacios is suspended, and another ‘new’ boy Pascal Chimbonda wasn’t registered in time. Carlo Cudicini will undoubtedly make his Premier League bow for Spurs tonight though, with Heurelho ‘the Count’ Gomes has a slight injury and is…well…not great (despite recent improvement). With the consistently consistent Cudicini now at the Lane a place on the bench awaits The Count on his return from his strained thigh methinks.
With Jenas, Bent, Hutton, King, and O’Hara all out, and Woodgate, Lennon and Modric all carrying knocks, a match against a physical Stoke side will not be what Redknapp wanted. Both sides have the same number of points (21 - the lowest in the league) and Footie Frog can see a scrappy affair, just edged by the more physical Stoke.
West Brom will be thanking their lucky stars that Man Utd’s trip to the Hawthorns could be made a little easier thanks to the Red Devils having as horrendous an injury list as the Baggies. With captain Greening added to the list of Meite, Barnett, Martis, Morrison, Moore, Beattie and Miller all out, on top of the fact that they are rooted to the foot of the table, things are looking bleak in the black country. United’s list is scarily long too, with Patrice Evra (ankle), Rio Ferdinand (back), Wes Brown (ankle), Jonny Evans (ankle), Fabio (calf) and Rafael (groin) Anderson (ankle), Nani (groin) Ji-Sung Park (ankle) Owen Hargreaves (knee) Wayne Rooney (hamstring) and Danny Wellbeck (ankle) all set to miss out. This means Fergie could hand a debut to Tosic on the left wing, which at least gives everybody a point of interest, as the match is bound to be poor.
Footie Frog thinks that Mowbray’s men will never have a better chance than tonight to record a win over the World Champions, but with class like Berbatov, Tevez and Ronaldo, a victory should go United’s way.
No new players to keep an eye on at the Stadium of Light, as fans of both Fulham and Sunderland have only seen stars leave so far this window, Bullard and Chimbonda respectively leaving their clubs in the last week. There should be fairly strong starting line-ups on show however, as Sunderland welcome back the rested and replenished Jones, Cisse, Whitehead and Diouf, and Fulham have no injury concerns. There have been (except Chimbonda) many positive words said in the last few days about the new era at Sunderland, and Ricky Sbragia will be hoping that a win tonight will kick-start the second half of the campaign, bringing a recent slump to an end.
Roy Hodgson will have his fingers crossed that his side turns up tonight, with Fulham being notoriously bad on the road this season, but it is goals that both sides will find difficult to come by tonight. Neither club has found goals particularly easy to come by this season, Sunderland’s 23 just edging Fulham’s meager 19. Footie Frog thinks that the 0-0 at Craven Cottage in the first half of the season sums these two teams up, and the score tonight at the Stadium of Light could well be a reverse of that.
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