Aston Villa v Newcastle – live!

• Hit F5 or use the autorefresh tool for the latest updates • Email your thoughts to alan.gardner.casual@guardian.co.uk • All the latest league standings in our stats centre Omen? Newcastle were relegated at Villa Park on the final day of the season two years ago. Of course, that has no bearing on today but everyone keeps mentioning it so I’, just performing my churnalistic duties … Preamble: If you’re anything like me, you’ll see every new day as a fresh opportunity to get something wrong. Certainly Ged Houllier seems to have taken this approach to life at Aston Villa, blundering through a series of PR disasters that would make David Mellor cringe. But if he can engineer a reversal of Villa’s thumping at St James’ Park way back at the start of the season – at least in terms of result, if not scoreline – then Villa should be able to kick on to safety. With the likes of Darren Bent, Ashley Young and Stewart Downing in the side, Villa are a series of England-trumpet-blowing back pages waiting to happen. One win in six tells its own story but despite the squad’s infighting, at least they haven’t yet descended to this level of degeneracy (which coincidentally occurred during a fixture between these two teams six years ago last week). Newcastle are a placid lake of calm in comparison ( though the crocs are surely just below the surface ) to their hosts today, having quietly gone about their business of ensuring Premier League survival. Under Alan Pardew they have a record of P15 W5 D5 L5 in the league – just the kind of consistency that the Magpies have long craved needed. Today’s men and boys Aston Villa: Friedel, Walker, Dunne, Collins, Luke Young, Downing, Petrov, Makoun, Ashley Young, Agbonlahor, Bent. Subs: Marshall, Pires, Albrighton, Heskey, Reo-Coker, Clark, Cuellar. Newcastle: Harper, Simpson, Steven Taylor, Williamson, Jose Enrique, Barton, Guthrie, Coloccini, Gutierrez, Ranger, Lovenkrands. Subs: Krul, Ryan Taylor, Ferguson, Donaldson, Tavernier, Richardson, Kuqi. Today’s scapegoat Stuart Attwell (Warwickshire) Premier League Aston Villa Newcastle United Alan Gardner guardian.co.uk

Posted by on April 10, 2011. Filed under News, Politics, World News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.