Saturday, 15th December 2009 – KO: 17:30

In a serious case for the Department of P. Poor Planning, I have arranged to go out for the day tomorrow, completely overlooking the fact that United play Villa in what could well be a cracker if last season’s game is anything to go by.

So, I am writing this the day before the game because, well, I won’t be here tomorrow, obviously.

Anyway, the story of the week has been the defensive problems United are currently experiencing but there is a bit of good news on that front as Vidic is likely to be back for this one so that should mean a back four of Fletcher, Carrick, Vidic and Evra.

It could be worse, it has been worse and we have still come through the tests with flying colours in recent games.

Up front, Villa seem quite similar to Wolfsburg with three big, powerful forwards to choose from in Heskey, Agbonlahor and Carew and these are bound to give United a few problems, just as they did last season (Carew and Agbonlahor got the goals).

The other good news for us is that Fergie is likely to have a full complement of attacking options available to him with Rooney and Berbatov both shaking off the knocks that kept them out in midweek.

Michael Owen is not likely to be too easy for Fergie to overlook here either and then there’s a certain Mr Macheda who used this very fixture last season to announce his arrival in the big-time and football has an uncanny ability to make lightning strike the same place twice.

Generally speaking, Aston Villa’s record at Old Trafford is very poor and you have to go back to 2002 for the last time they even picked up a point here. This season, their away form has been patchy. Their first away game of the season was an impressive 3-1 win against Liverpool and they followed this up with an away win against Birmingham but since then, they have not won any away games and have picked up just three points from a possible fifteen against the likes of Blackburn, Wolves, Everton, West Ham and Burnley.

Their home form is solid but if they are to achieve that top four finish then it is their away form that must improve although I am sure Martin O’Neill would take a point from this fixture if you offered it him right now.

Our home form (Champions League games aside) has been very impressive so far this season with only two points dropped in our opening seven games.

What has been most encouraging about us in recent games is that we are finding the goal scoring touch again and there hasn’t been a 1-0 win in sight for almost two months now (there have been a couple of 1-0 defeats however).

I can see Villa scoring again here but I can also see United scoring more than one and the likeliest result is a 2-1 win for Manchester United but I would not put it past us at the moment to make it 3-1.

If Villa leave here with anything then they will have to match their goal-scoring of last season and score at least two. Not impossible but from the point of view of my bet, that would be a good thing (in which case a last minute Macheda goal for 3-2 would be the stuff dreams are made of).

The bet is 3 points OVER 2.5 goals at 1.8 with Paddy Power.

I can’t really bring myself to review this game, it is too depressing. I didn’t watch it live because I was away and watching a replay is not so appealing. I have watched some of it and watched the highlights but no more than that.

Firstly, I thought the formation was odd for a home game… we normally go for the good old 4-4-2 at home but Fergie opted for the 4-5-1/4-3-3 formation he favours away from home which was showed Villa quite a lot of respect.

Villa took the lead after 21 minutes through Agbonlahor who burst forward onto a Young cross and even Vidic didn’t seem to fancy getting in his way and he powered the ball into the net.

However, we have become used to going behind in games so far this season and with 70+ minutes still to play, there was no need to panic and plenty of time to get back into it but on this occasion, just like the Besiktas game a few weeks ago, it just didn’t happen.

Rooney played well and could have had a goal late on only to see the ball clatter the crossbar from close-range.

Towards the end, Fergie threw on Berby and Owen and Berby did something I have wanted to see him do for ages now. He got the ball, turned and ran at the defence and then unleashed a cracking low drive which Brad Friedel saved extremely well.

Far too many times, Berby has simply played the ball backwards in those situations and slowed the whole thing down which has allowed the opposing defence time to get back into position.

Anyway, this has to go down as “one of those days”. That Villa scored was not a major surprise but that we couldn’t muster a single goal at home despite being in a rich vein of scoring form was a major surprise.

Still, with Chelsea dropping points to the extent that a win here would have put us in join top position this is a massive missed opportunity.

Credit to Villa though, they have started the season well and have picked up from where they left off last season. They should cause everyone they play a few problems for the remained of this season.