Birmingham's other Struggling Club v Merseyside's Might

Yet Villa haven't struggled too much in their last two games: hugely important wins from relegation 6-pointers against Reading and QPR. Another, more curious stat about them is that the last time they lost by more than a single goal was against Bradford in the League Cup in January. We, on the other hand, have made it a bit of a habit lately to trash weaker oppositions by multiple goals. So which trend will prevail, a tight game or a comprehensive win for our beautiful club - or neither?

No major, fresh injury news as far as I know. Hopefully our internationals won't be fatigued and we come away with three points.

And oh, yeah, well, probably everyone knows this, but the game's on Sunday, so we can treat ourselves to Saturday's PL matches while waiting for this one

Play three in the centre and win the game. It's as simple as that.

Very lonely match thread this week

Hoping for

Wouldn't mind that team. Would still rather Skrtel in it, though.

Same, Skrtel in and I'd be happy with that team, although I would also consider leaving Sturridge on the bench and bring him on in the second half.

Could play 3 CMs and Downing (or Assaidi or Sterling or even Suso) - Suarez - Coutinho.

No Skrtel please. We're playing better with Carra, so let us stick to him. If it ain't broke, don't fix it.

Sturridge's best ever form of his career came from on the right hand side in AVB's side. He can play there. Suso and Sterling won't start another game this season, and if they do it'll be the 37th or 38th game of the season or something like that. Assaidi can't play on the right and I'd rather we play Wisdom as a RW than Downing. Stew really pisses me off.

@Enigma: The defence is broken with or without Carragher in it. lol

Yep, but Agger-Carragher is better than Agger-Skrtel. Carra can play in a high line since having been played as a right-back and in defensive midfield in early parts of his career.

Skrtel CAN play a high-line. He's played a high-line at Zenit.

He's being judged from that one game against Oldham when he tried to do it all. lol

His last game against Soton didn't help him, but was the likes of Allen, Gerrard, Agger any better? I mean, Rodgers got it wrong playing a 424.

Also, both JC and DA struggle to deal with balls in the air. MS doesn't. MS and DA have a mental understanding. JC and DA don't. MS hasn't been the same player as last season, granted. But he's not as bad as many people make it sound. I mean, people are trying to replace him with Ashley Williams from all people!

The whole defence needs work on. We havn't replaced Steve Clarke as of yet.

Just one game? lol. Man City home, Oldham, Aston Villa home, Norwich away are some examples off the top of my head where we've conceded due to his stupid mistakes or his inability to play in a high line.

Also, there's a huge difference between playing in a high line in Russian League and playing in a high line in EPL.

Oldham I've already stated. He was put up with teenagers ffs. And in a 424. Not one player had a good game that game. Not one. Rodgers fault also. Didn't show Oldham enough respect.

We're vsing Aston Villa away today! He's already getting blamed before the games kicked off!

What exactly has he done wrong at Norwich away? Did Reina not mistake a game that game? In the 5-2 where the sun was in their eyes?

Stoke City he made a mistake. As did Agger. Then the rest of the team didn't play.

Manc City at home was a bad mistake - yes. But are you really telling me the likes of Agger, Carragher, Gerrard etc can all go blameless but Martin gets slated for it? I mean, Gerrard's made the most mistakes that have led to goals. Should we drop him?

There's an agenda against him. There really is. I'm not too sure if it's for giving JC a farewell season or if we want to get rid of him in the summer. Both would be stupid though as he's our best CB.

Aston Villa home, my bad.

Frankly, there's no agenda. Recently, I have been slating Agger as much as Skrtel. But he won't be dropped, because he's overrated by us fans as well as by BR and many others. It's just that Carra has had a better season than both of them and someone has to be dropped so it all comes down to Skrtel. Agger is much more of an efficient ball player than Skrtel though, and that is making him stay in the starting lineup.

1-0 Half time Honestly .

My god we are such a soft f*cking team. A bunch pansies out there. Where is the grit ff?

Downing is invisible. Pissed me off so much today. Suarez should've scored. That was the weakest shot I've eve seen. Carra is being made a bitch out of by Benteke. Lucas, Gerrard, and even Hendo have been all poor. We're not even dominating this scrubby Villa midfield with all three of them playing. And Reina could've saved that goal.

Coutinho our best player imo.

Three points taken. Let's build on this. WE could've and should've scored 5/6 goals. I don't really want to talk about the performance. Coutinho was MOTM for me.

Thank F*&k for gerrard.

Captain fantastic literally won us the game. He also moves clear of Owen in our all time leading scorer's list with 159 goals now. He's 7th now right behind King Kenny who has 13 more than him with 172.

Coutinho is amazing in attack, Sh*t in defense. Glad Sterling was brought on, At least he did his defensive job properly.

Henderson <3

unfortunately could not watch the match, all reading to you guys will have to wait for MOTD to watch good highlights. So happy for hendo, the lad deserves to start for us. Gerrard , that simple vision to spot coutinho and play the right ball for hendo's goal. Cou is becoming the next cute babe of LFC, players start kissing,cuddling, hugging him whenever he makes an assist pass (it was torres before)

Like HMR, I couldn't watch this game, happy to read we got the win!

The picture I got from BBC's match report was that both teams had chances.

I'm, too, happy that Henderson got a goal, he's developing into a good player for us.

Art Morte wrote:Like HMR, I couldn't watch this game, happy to read we got the win!

The picture I got from BBC's match report was that both teams had chances.

I'm, too, happy that Henderson got a goal, he's developing into a good player for us.

Same here, overslept this morning. Seems like it was a good game - glad we got a comeback, and Hendo's goal looked classy.

Beautiful game it must be said. It may only be a lowly Aston Villa who are quite frankly, an atrocious team yet the performance deserves credit, especially Steven Gerrard, who is in the form we have waited over 2 years for him to return to. Watching him as the general of our players and ply his midfield dynamo heroics, is truly a sight to behold. Other players to mention were Henderson, Coutinho, Enrique and Lucas, and Luis all who were near flawless.

Villa were tougher then I expected and exploited our fullback frailties today well when using N'Zogbia and another wide player (Bannan) in what seemed like a 4-3-1-2 (?) to cause us a deal of trouble, to which Gerrard dealt with well in pushing us back into the game.

Win would have been more satisfying if we didn't get decimated vs SOTON yet I'm glad to see another entertaining performance by the boys.

YNWA.

How was Cou's performance today? Wondering whether I should download the match