I’ve not done this before but today, for a change, I thought I’d look around at what some of the papers are saying after the three points last night, mostly because it might be quite interesting to revert back to one day, if the search feature ever works on this site that is but also because, if you like it, we’ll do it after every game.
Janine Self, The Sun: “A year ago, Villa would have lost this game after an under-par performance. Instead it is Paul Ince who heads back to Lancashire with nothing to show for his team’s efforts.”
Now, Janine has it right in this respect and I had thought it last night when Spurs were one up at Arsenal and Blackburn were one up against us - typical missed opportunity - but it does feel a little different at the moment and we put it right.
David McVay, The Guardian: “For now, though, and perhaps more realistically the Villa manager might settle for having his side the best of the rest, with a gateway to the top band beckoning. Certainly O’Neill, from his playing days under Brian Clough at Nottingham Forest, knows that the game is not an exact science and is prone to springing surprises. At Villa Park last night the biggest shock was that this vibrant Villa side played so listlessly for so long yet still prevailed at something of a canter.

Gasping stuff, and O’Neill hinted that it might be necessary to rest players during this hectic period of league and Uefa Cup commitments. At least Carew should be familiar with the concept of rotation in clubs, football or otherwise.”
Top five would be a fantastic achievement this season and one that is possible and every Aston Villa fan would be happy with, for lots of reasons. However, I’m fairly confident that for us to achieve fifth it’s going to need a few more players and that is when the importance of doing the right business, at the right time in January, might turn out to be worth every penny. The little dig at Carew, while acceptable, is a little out of date, but Mr McVay will be forgiven.
Kaveh Solhekol, The Times: “Good teams win when they play badly and Aston Villa proved that they are a very good side last night by coming from behind to beat Blackburn Rovers on a bitterly cold and wet night at Villa Park.”
There is nothing more you can say to that. We are the better team and the result proves the three points. We won when we had to win.
Sandy Macaskill, Daily Telegraph: “Aston Villa maintained their unbeaten home record on Wednesday night but, whatever manager Martin O’Neill had said about strength in depth, it was a fatigued performance that did no more than enough to defeat Blackburn.

There were fears that Villa would be feeling the effects of taxing matches against Ajax and Wigan last week, and despite starting sprightly, the side looked to have finally run out of juice.”
Why did I get the impression from those two opening paragraphs that Sandy is a Blues fan? It doesn’t matter, he summed up what everyone else has been saying but it just got me a little annoyed.
Man of the Match
There is some division on who was the man of the match. You’ve got Ashley Young in The Sun and I believe it was awarded to James Milner last night at Villa Park. For me, just to be a little controverial, but also becuase I think he deserves it, I’m giving it to Gareth Barry.
Admittedly when you are playing five in midfield, it is going to be much easier for someone to get more about the pitch and in the first half Barry did and he got himself into the right positions, but he put us in the lead and that is three goals in three games, so worthy of an award, however trivial.
Overall Opinion
Sitting 4th after more than a quarter of the season, two places above Manchester United and three points off second. My opinion is that it’s absolutely fantastic, but I’m also not going to get carried away.
I’ve got a feeling that the next few games are going to be vital and it’s going to be when we see the likes of Sidwell and maybe even Harewood, changes in formation and the possibility of a reality check for not bringing in enough in the summer when the opportunity was there.
On the other hand, our hard working and determined squad could see us through until January and we could bring in the right people then. But from what everyone saw last night and what the papers are saying, the signs are that our first team is running out of steam and it’s time to rest a few and maybe strengthen.
Final Aston Villa Blog Rating
If I had to score this match out of ten. I’d give it a six. It was nothing special but we doggedly grounded out the right result - something we’ve not always done, but need to get used to doing.

It wasn’t good enough today, bottom line and if you disagree with me, then you’re probably going to be happy finishing top half.
A bookmaker has already paid out for people that had a bet on Stoke going down this season and we really should have won today.

The deal is one day going to be worth £2.5mn but for now, we’re not exactly sure. I for one know he’ll do well at Celtic, because he has done before and I wish him luck.
We won’t go into details, as we did yesterday, but he never got a run. He’ll get one in Scotland and the report from the folk over at guardian.co.uk (http://www.avfcblog.com/content/view/2539/70/), appears to have been spot on.

When Martin O’Neill confirmed that Pat Rice had called Steve Walford about Barry (http://www.avfcblog.com/content/view/2462/70/) back in July, I thought nothing of it, mostly because it is probably part of his job to keep tabs on certain players.
Then, a few days later, although I can’t find a quote right now but I distinctly remember reading it, Wenger said he wasn’t interested in Barry.

While I’ve not read any confirmation on the club site, I think it’s fairly safe to say that Martin Laursen is the new club captain, after Martin O’Neill praised the defender this week.
Now, you all might remember that when there was talk of extending his contract in the early part of summer 2007, I actually suggested we didn’t do it and just let him play out his time. How wrong was I?

For the first time in ages I read to the end of a Birmingham Mail (http://www.birminghammail.net) article on their website and I’m glad I did because they’re reporting that we’ve shown interest in these two players.
Now, knowing that you know I don’t watch much Ukrainian and Russian football I’m not going to pretend to know that much about these two so I’ll be asking for some help.

It’s got me thinking who I’d prefer, then I remembered we have a very wealthy owner and I decided, in my little world, that I’d like David Bentley and Aaron Lennon.
However, I don’t really think we’re going to go for Aaron Lennon, mostly because I’ve got a feeling Martin O’Neill is still hoping Wayne Routledge is going to come good and if we get Bentley, we’re not going to need a third player to play on the right.

I’ve got to say I wasn’t surprised by the result (http://www.avfcblog.com/component/option,com_poll/task,results/id,141/), but I was surprised at how close it was. Reo-Coker got the vote but only by 2.9% or to be a little more specific, by only 37 of the 1285 people that voted.
Personally, I went for Reo-Coker. He has captained England at U21 level and also captained West Ham and every time I’ve seen him play, he’s always been vocal.

The other day, Martin O’Neill told us all that it was going to be difficult to get the players he wanted because they were “key players at other football clubs”, which pretty much confirms for us that these two links will remain, hopefully, as wild speculation.
It’s not that they’re not decent, it’s that they’re probably not considered ‘key players’ at their existing clubs or a move to Aston Villa would be seen as a huge step up and I don’t think it would be a problem getting any of these two players.

The official club site have a rumours page and they take great pleasure, every day, in telling us all the speculation, but I often read a name for the very first time and today is one of those days.
I’m not saying they make it up for the sake of making it up; Jack, Geoff and Phil are ‘old school’ and while I have no doubt they’d happily make stuff up for the page impressions, I’m not categorically saying that is what they’re doing.