Villa blogger Dave Bytheway tips Albion to stay up after the derby and doubts whether Kaka will be heading to Villa Park this month.

Maybe I was a bit negative in the last week’ with my match prediction of a draw against Albion. I was proved so after coming away with a win.

The game all depended on the recovering trio of Martin Laursen, Gareth Barry and Carlos Cuellar for me. To see the first two start, with Carlos on the bench, gave us all much more confidence going into the game.

We started pretty sluggish to be honest, giving away posession way too easily. The system we play without John Carew works better away from home, where teams have to attack us, we can sit deep and soak it up whilst using our pace on the counter attack.

This also gives the opposition much more posession, as with Gabby Agbonlahor as the lone striker the ball just keeps coming back.

In the first half Albion played nice pretty football but, as Baggies blogger Jarrod Hill reckoned in his blog, it was more sideways from Jonathan Greening than penetrative, meaning we could just sit and play like we we would away.

Albion had the most possession, Jay Simpson looked lively up front, but he can’t do it on his own. Luke Moore offered little help, looking again, a bit disinterested.

For all their possession I still felt we were in charge of the game, so when the goal came from Curtis Davies it was no surprise. After being booed by the Baggies faithful, he deserves a lot of credit for his muted celebration. It shows he still has respect for the club.

Our counter attack tactic came good again shortly after with Gabby beating goalkeeper Scott Carson, who I cant slate too much as he kept Albion in the game after that mistake, with a save at his near post.

I think the main turning points in the second half were the introduction of the lively Roman Bednar for Albion, who I felt caused problems for us and was changing the game, and the departure of Baggies midfielder James Morrison, who took any threat of an equaliser with him when he went off injured.

A good derby, but most of all another good three points. I do feel however we need to buy another left-back, as playing Nigel Reo-Coker at right-back just doesn’t work for me. He seemed a lot more comfortable in the middle late on.

I’ll put my name on the line here, but I don’t think Albion will go down this season. They have too much quality and a very good manager that is doing it the right way.

Still, the transfer window is open and still no signings. We need some more strength in depth, but not squad players this time. We need two, maybe three, top quality signings to take us to the next level, but most of all maintain the fourth spot we currently hold.

Last time we were up there challenging, we failed to buy anyone and ended up finishing mid table. Surely this won’t happen again??

I’ll leave you with a thought for this week. £100million, one player, on £500,000 a week!

is this the day football ended as we know it? The working class game for everyone to enjoy? Mind you at least the PAYE due on his salary might ease the credit crunch!

Have a great weekend! Up the Villa!