Villa blogger Dave Bytheway has a golden ticket to Prague after causing a scene in the box office ahead of the crunch clash against Ajax in the UEFA Cup tonight.
Tickets, tickets and tickets. Thats the only word going through my mind as I write this.
I left home yesterday morning at 2am on a journey to Villa Park, beginning a seven hour mission to get tickets for our away UEFA Cup tie against Slavia Prague.
I stood in the dark with a small handful of fellow fans, hopeful there would still be some remaining when it was our turn. It all ended well and with me coming away with the three tickets I wanted. Now the real fun can now begin!
Before Prague however, we welcome Ajax tonight. I mentioned in ‘Villa on Video: The Visit of Ajax’
There are the stand out players such as Huntelaar and Sno, but the rest are pretty much unknowns on the international stage in comparison. If we can play our normal game, high tempo and direct football, I am pretty confident of winning the game comfortably.
If we try and defend deep again, playing the awful system as used on Saturday against Portsmouth, I think it will be a much closer affair.
The system used by manager Martin O’Neill against Pompey was pretty similar to recent weeks, with the main difference being personnel.
He chose to drop both full backs. I feel that Luke Young didn’t deserve to be dropped, as his balance has given us a different dimension since he joined. Nicky Shorey, whilst not enjoying the best of starts to the season, has looked more composed of late and was starting to show why he was drafted in.
Carlos Cuellar, a centre half, came in at right-back, with Gareth Barry, undoubtably our most gifted player, sitting in at left back. This left us with all of our play still going through Barry, but way to deep to cause any problems with it. The final result of 0-0 pretty much proves that we can’t afford to play Barry there if we want to win games.
One unsavoury incident came when a 50p coin was thrown at Harry Redknapp but missed and hit the linesman. There is no place for this at Villa Park, so we all hope the culprit is caught and dealt with.
But what Mr Redknapp has to learn is that his actions don’t help these type of situations and basically add more problems to them. Turning round and confronting the fans is no way to pacify a crowd, so a word in his ear from the FA wouldn’t go a miss.
Good luck all Villa fans trying to get tickets for Prague and enjoy the game on Thursday. The good old days are back, so lets make the most of them.
Up the Villa!
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