Match Preview: Manchester City v Aston Villa

Who are we playing?
Manchester City

Where are we playing?
Manchester, in the stadium they had the Commonwealth Games. They've actually got a Colin Bell Stand, making a section of City's support Bellenders...

Can I go?
Last time we checked, there were tickets left at £47 a pop...

Easy to get to?
Usually but we've pinched the following advice from Man City's website for your information:

Visiting Supporters Access to the Etihad Campus & Etihad Stadium
In order to ensure that service diversion works can be carried out safely, hoardings have been erected at the South end (away end) of the Etihad Stadium.

This impacts the amount of space immediately outside the visiting supporters entrances and may impact queuing and access through these entrances. To assist fans arriving at the stadium, both additional signage and staff will be in place. 

To ensure that all supporters enter the stadium via the correct entrances, we have implemented an additional soft ticket check upon arrival.  We therefore advise all visiting supporters to arrive early to avoid any delays when entering the stadium. 

Gary Neville

Can I watch it live on the telly?
Sky Sports 1 but you might want to turn the sound down. You know how excited Martin Tyler gets at Man City games and Gary Neville might be one of the better pundits but that doesn't stop him sounding like one of The Flumps

Big game?
Meh...

Every place higher we can finish in the Premier League is worth large wodges of dosh but frankly most Villa fans will just be happy that we aren't getting relegated. Quite a few have said that won't even watch the "horror show".

Manchester City will have it on their minds that we nicked three points off them in the Villa Park encounter and there's that small matter of a Premier League title to clinch.

Villa will be buoyed by the first win in ages and keen to get the away form back on track. Villa's travelling army certainly deserve a decent performance after the debacles of Palace and Swansea.  Even if we can't win the game, it would be nice to have some goals to celebrate.

With the spectre of relegation gone, the lads should be able to play without fear and contribute to what we hope will be an entertaining game. Let's go for it. Wouldn't you rather lose 6-3 than 3-0?

Typical City fan

Do Manchester City have any famous fans?
Well, there's unibrowed musicians Noel and Liam Gallagher. There's also Frank Gallacher out of Shameless.

We've got fiddle playing scruff Nigel Kennedy

So we win.

Jordan Bowery

Who's playing for us?
In our Hull preview we said "surely our gormless apology of a manager can't keep starting the formless Andi Weimann" and the Austrian responded by heading two goals in. So we're taking the credit for giving him the kick up the backside he needed. Many of you seem to be far more impressed with Jordan Bowery's effort than we were, but we would concede that he did enough to merit a start in this one.

Martin Dermatitis

Lambert may well persist with playing loads of players at the back which is fair play given Citeh's attacking options.


Who's playing for them?
Doesn't matter that much, they are all pretty good aren't they. We'd like to see bench warming James Milner get a start for old times sake. Many happy memories of old Jimbo. We used to think that Martin Dermatitis was a weak link but even he's been better just lately. There won't be any Sergio Aguero. Every little helps.


Any useless stats?
Of course, here you go:

• We have 57 wins over City while they've managed to beat us on 66 occasions. There have been 40 draws.

• One of Paul Lambert's finest hours was knocking City out of the League Cup in September 2012. We won 4-2, Gabby got two, N'Zogbia got one and Gareth Barry helpfully knocked one in for us.

• Our last Premier League success at their place came in April 2007. Goals from John Carew and Shaun Maloney secured a 2-0 win.

• Our biggest win over our opponent was a 7-1 success in December 1900. George Johnson was on fire that day with four goals. During his time at Aston Villa Johnson scored 47 goals in 110 appearances

He said, She said...
"I don't know what Brendan said. I only know we have two games and we have to win against Aston Villa tomorrow, and at the end of the week we will see which team has the most points." Manuel Pellegrini


Prediction

6-3 to them.