BodyButter
Vital Football Legend
Afternoon Villans. You've done us twice this season. Will you get the hattrick? The bookies seem to think so with you at 5/4 and us at 5/2.
You seem to be going into this as favourites and justifiably so based on the 2 games earlier this season. At Pride Park we were still a new, young side getting to grips with Lampard's new style and the influx of new players too. You were brilliant 2nd half. At yours we were missing half a dozen players and paid for it, again you were the better side. Over the past weeks we have beaten Bristol, WBA and Leeds to get to where we are. Leeds were also favourites to win. At Elland Road we played a different system to the one they were sued to us playing and they had difficulty coping with it.
A lot of the comments on here about playing this player or that player are, IMO, based on what you have seen of us earlier in the season. We haven't been playing that system of late and the half a dozen players we were missing are all back. Mount, Lawrence, Wilson, Waghorn, Bogle, Johnson are all back fit. Roos has deposed Carson between the posts. That 4-0 game is meaningless. It won't be anything like the same team in white shirts.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying we are going to walk it, far from it, but we are not as much of a walkover Villa fans seem to think we will be.
This game is definitely on. Remember what we did at Elland Road. Play with the first XI again and with the same pride and passion and this will be every bit as good a game as the semi final 2nd leg was. It's all up in the air IMO.
What is the key? Grealish. If he turns up you have the upper hand. However, I remember decades ago, whenever we played against Best or Ball, Brian Clough used to sacrifice one of our creative players, John McGovern with the instructions not to worry about the ball, if you get give it a teammate asap, Your job today is to stand a yard and a half off Best/Ball in a direct line between him and the ball. The pair of them hardly had a kick when we played them. Stop Grealish and I think we stop Villa. The same is true of Mount and us. I just hope neither of them is kicked out of the game.
It's all to play for. May the best team on the day win.
Safe journey both ways for all travelling.
PS - I will be at Wembley. Look out for the BENELUX RAMS flag. I won't be far away.
Hey Amster, welcome to Vital Villa. It's great to hear from a Derby fan. I think we were all impressed that you beat Leeds. They are a good side. I don't think anyone on here is expecting an easy game, you got to the final on merit.
Last season, we played Fulham in the final and they were much better than us. We all knew it going into the game so we were going to need more than a little bit of luck to beat them.
This time, we believe we have the stronger side so we are confident that all things being equal, we stand a great chance of going up.
Still, like I said, we aren't expecting an easy game.