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5 mins: The referee's next decision, to overrule his linesman and deny Liverpool a corner, is a silly one.
3 mins: Suárez questions a refereeing decision for the first time. Not the last, I'd wager. Anyway, he was offside.
2 mins: Charlie Adam brings Delfouneso down from behind. A silly tackle, and probably deserving of a yellow card. He doesn't get one, mind. Petrov's shot from the resulting free-kick is saved with only mild discomfort.
1 min: Peeeeeeeep! They're off. See, I told you.
The players are out, they've shaken hands and tossed coins, so action is really very imminent indeed.
"Good evening. I will hazard a guess that the two sides who have been fouled fewer than Villa are Stoke and Manchester City. Stoke are too big to foul whereas City are too fast," writes Math Wiliam. "Posting all those wonderful 'Pool-Villa goals may be a bad idea you know, have a look at this debacle. The FA thinks that it's both reasonable and within their interests to force YouTube to take down the best goals seen in the Premier League. And they are of course correct, I am definitely going out to buy those goals on DVD right now. Well, right after this." Glad you brought that up, Math. Why the Premier League thinks it's a good idea to stop everyone from seeing the finest moments of Premier League past, when they're making no effort to bring anyone those moments themselves, is beyond me. They are idiots, and don't deserve our attention. And you've got one of your two guesses right: Man City are the second least fouled side in the Premier League. The No1s are miles ahead. Or behind.
Apologies for the lack of team-sheet analysis. Villa are without Bent and Agbonlahor, which has got to hurt; Liverpool have given Jonjo Shelvey a first start since the premature end of his loan spell at Blackpool, where he excelled. "Jordon [Henderson] and Jonjo in midfield seems a bit risky to me. But in Kenny we trust," writes Douglas Fenech.
Some statistics: Villa have had the fewest shots (124) and the fewest shots on target (45) in the Premier League. Their players have also been fouled 146 times, which is fewer than every other side in the division bar two. So my challenge to you: guess the two.
I've got the teams!
Aston Villa: Guzan, Hutton, Dunne, Collins, Warnock, Albrighton, Delph, Petrov, N'Zogbia, Heskey, Delfouneso. Subs: Marshall, Clark, Cuellar, Bannan, Weimann, Johnson, Burke.
Liverpool: Reina, Johnson, Skrtel, Agger, Jose Enriqué,
Bellamy, Adam, Shelvey, Henderson, Downing, Suarez. Subs: Doni, Carroll, Maxi, Coates, Kuyt, Carragher, Kelly.
Referee: Peter Walton (Northamptonshire).
Preamble: Aston Villa must carry particularly good memories for Liverpool fans. I'm not even a Liverpool fan, but I can remember half a dozen stonking moments between these two clubs. Robbie Fowler had some particularly good days against them: this has to be one of his great ever goals, but then the man himself rated this his all-time No4, and this was a decent hat-trick against a previously unbeaten Villa (in November!), Gérard Houllier's first win in sole charge. That hat-trick, though, wasn't as good as this one, mind, when Villa had the misfortune of coming up against Ian Rush on a good day, in 1984. Here's a stonking John Barnes header, from the days when Liverpool looked great against pretty much everyone, and a slightly fortunate 3-2 win against Villa, then European champions, in 1982 (revenge, perhaps, for this defeat the previous year).
Then of course there's Ronnie Rosenthal (Liverpool lost 4-2 that day, with Dean Saunders, who they'd only just sold to Villa and was making his home debut, scoring two).
It's perhaps no surprise, given the one-sided flood of memories, to learn that since the advent of the Premier League Liverpool have taken more points from Villa than any other club. But it's not all one-way traffic, and Villa won this fixture on the last day of last season (and promptly sold the scorer of the winning goal, Stewart Downing, to Liverpool).
So what absolute stonkers has my selective memory filtered out?
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Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2011/dec/18/premier-league-aston-villa-liverpool-minute-by-minute
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