Blog: FA Cup stick or twist?

It took until practically the last kick at the game to score three points against West Bromwich Albion, and it is the same fixture up again on Saturday.

If Aston Villa can dominate the Baggies in the same way as they did on Tuesday, it should be another win. Whether that happens, however, is not as clear cut.

As any football fan will tell you, derby games are never easy to predict, regardless of the size of either club. Despite Villa historically being the bigger club in terms of success, they are also more threatened with relegation than their rivals over the Sandwell border.

For many fans, there will be a question mark over whether the FA Cup is to be a step too far, another challenge that could take Villa's focus from the league and on to something far less important. Under normal circumstances, I'd be one of the people suggesting that the league is more important - given its riches it provides - but this is a team that needs to build confidence, and confidence comes with winning games.

Whether Villa are able to secure five more wins in the league is debatable, but getting into a winning streak at this point of the season would be almost perfect timing. Perfect timing would have meant Villa could have kept up the form of the first few games of the season, but the club are where they are, and looking back at this stage of the campaign is likely a waste of time - retrospective analysis can occur when the season is over, ideally with Villa still in the top flight.

Come Saturday, I sincerely hope that Tim Sherwood's cocky style - a start contrast to Paul Lambert's more restrained approach - isn't something that backfires. It is all very well, for example, to call other teams small or insignificant, but there is a large possibility that such comments may not be presented in the same manner if things go wrong.

After all, most people love the plucky underdog, but it would be quite easy to castigate Villa if Sherwood makes them too cocky. The likes of Jose Mourinho, for example, are able to get away with a swagger given their outstanding records. Sherwood, despite his citing of a great win percentage at Tottenham Hotspur, has yet to earn his ability to swagger in with more than just simple egocentricity.

Hopefully Villa can continue to build on a solid performance on Tuesday, but the saying "pride comes before a fall" may well haunt the boys in claret and blue if Sherwood's dismissal of Albion as a small club comes back to bite him come Saturday night.

You can follow Matt Turvey's regular opinions at his own site, Aston Villa Life at http://www.astonvillalife.com, via the site's Twitter account @astonvillalife, or via his own Twitter account @mturvey_star.