Match Preview: FA Cup 5th Round: Aston Villa v Leicester City

Who are we playing?
 Leicester City on Sunday 15th February at 12.30pm

Where are we playing?
Villa Park

Can I go?
Tickets are dirt cheap and plentiful


Easy to get to?
Should be an absolute doddle, though the trains can be shite on Sundays

Can I watch it on telly?
Live on BBC One no less, hence the ludicrously inconvenient kick off time,

Nigel can be very "hands on"

Big game?
Massive.

Both teams are struggling big time in the league and some might say could do without the distraction of a cup run as they fight tooth and nail for Premiership survival.

That said, we're just two games from Wembley and who wouldn't want to get to a quarter final?

The game is being played in the shadow of Paul Lambert's departure while Nigel Pearson has also been the focus of much discussion, Sky even reporting last weekend that he'd been axed.

It's going to be difficult for rudderless Villa to steer a way through this one. Leicester battered us up at their place. Tom Fox will be hoping that his temporary management team can marshall Villa's players to victory. (See what we did there?)

Noddy wouldn't pay the ransom

Do the Foxes have any famous fans? 
Well there's jug-earred goalhanger Gary Lineker, Engelbert Humperdinck and quite possibly Roy Cropper off of Corrie. You know, all the cool dudes...

We've got fiddle playing scruffbox Nigel Kennedy.

So we win.

Who's playing for us?
No idea, but caretaker managers can think short term so we should in theory see a strong line up. We'd fully expect to see the restoration of Ron Vlaar and Big Chris Benteke while Carlos Sanchez may even have a shout.

Who's playing for them?
They may well rotate.

He Said She Said
"The players have remained very single-minded and their ability to deal with either criticism of themselves or destabilising news has been exceptionally good all season. It's been an unusual few days but there we are, I suppose that's the type of scrutiny that you can be under at this level and you've got to deal with it."  Nigel Pearson

"Is that the Job Centre?" Paul Lambert (possibly)




Any useless stats?
Of course, here you go:

• Leicester have beaten us 40 times while we have 32 wins. There have been 23 draws.

• Our first FA Cup meeting with Leicester Fosse was in 1905. We won 5-1 with Joe Bache bagging two goals

• Our last FA Cup encounter was 2001, Arnar Gunnlaugsson getting a late winner for the Foxes after Julian Joachim's goal had got us back into the tie.

• Leicester's last Villa Park was in the Carling Cup in 2007. Matt Fryatt got the solitary goal.

Prediction
Going for a 3-1 Villa win...