Villa vs Wigan is pretty much a win-win game for us. I think clearly a draw is the preferable result for us, but even if one of them does win, then clearly that would mean one of the two has lost - and moreover, lost a game which was winnable for them (which truthfully, our game vs Stoke isn't for us).
I can't actually decide though which result is better of the two, if someone does win. Wigan pretty much have a New Years Day defeat lined up already, as they take on Man Utd at the DW. So a Villa win tomorrow would pretty much make certain that we'll kick off our trip to Villa Park on Sat 12th still outside of the bottom three. Another fortnight of being outside of the bottom three is certainly no bad thing!
However, because of that trip to Villa park of ours, do we really want Villa winning a game or two between now and then? They've just lost 8-0 and 4-0, so Lambert and the players are another bad result or two away from being under serious, serious pressure. The last thing you want to do is follow up two absolute maulings with a home defeat against a direct rival.
They're away to Swansea on New Year's Day. Now that wont be easy for them, but it's far from a nailed on defeat. They've already won at Anfield and The Stadium of Light. Four points for them from these two games is hardly unrealistic, and so if we were to lose both of our games - again, hardly unrealistic - they we'd go to Villa park six points behind them. There would be a fair amount of pressure on us not to lose that game in that situation. But then, as I say, we would go probably go into it above Wigan - and 17th place is all we need.
Swings and roundabouts.
