After the unwanted distraction of the FA Cup it's back to business on Wednesday with a crucial game against Aston Villa, although the term 'crucial' can be applied to every one of our 16 remaining league fixtures this season. The home match against Villa was the archetypal 'Game of two halves' with us totally dominating the first half, failing to capitalise and then seeing them come out and outplay us in the second half, go ahead through a dubious penalty decision and then, in a frantic final few minutes, Traore got himself needlessly sent off and we snatched an injury time equaliser. A repeat of that would seriously test the old ticker although a repeat of the result is realistically as good as we can hope for in the state of transition we will surely find ourselves in when the window slams shut. The problem we face is Villa are a sound, if uninspiring, side who know how to win ugly in the image of their manager. Swansea showed up their limitations a couple of weeks back but what we'd give to see an R's side passing the ball like they do. Last week Villa showed how to see off relegation fodder with a gritty win at Wolves where a certain Robbie Keane showed that an old hit-man can still take out the opposition if he gets the chance. If Darren Bent is back in their team we could be facing a tough night. I think they will give Arsenal a tough time today and have a sneaking feeling Arsene may be whingeing again by this evening. There's no doubt, whatever our line-up is on Wednesday, that we need a Wigan-style performance to have any chance of even a point, a display on a par with yesterday and we may begin to reacquaint ourselves with trips to some of the less salubrious Championship outposts we'd hoped we'd said goodbye to for good...
