Aston Villa v Burnley - as it happened

Afternoon all. This could be interesting. Villa kick off three points from the Champions League places, though they've won only once in their last seven league games. They've also got The Distraction of an FA Cup tie in midweek and the Carling Cup final next weekend. (Surely 'The Distraction' is one of modern football's great myths. No one can tell me that if, say, John Carew blazes one over the bar and then misses a penalty or if Brad Friedel lets a simple cross fumble through his fingers and into the net, it was down to 'The Distraction' of forthcoming games.) Burnley have won once since October, a couple of games ago against West Ham, and have lost five of their last six. Their league position graph has the sort of trajectory currently being experienced by downhill skiers in Vancouver. In other news, I've just finished the novel Q by Luther Blissett (dragged on a bit) and I've just eaten a whole pack of Wine Gums. At 1pm on a Sunday, that can't be a good thing. Pre-match cliche alert! "We've got 13 cup finals to play," says Brian Laws. Pre-match email dept. "Massive week for Villa with the replay on Wednesday and then the Cup final on Sunday," writes Silver Fox. "Us fans would be happy if we finished 7th or 8th as long as we win something. But with the so-called race for 4th becoming more like a leisurely stroll I can see it going to the wire between the other 3 clubs. If anything I think Everton will put more pressure on 4th than Villa. Just hope Villa treat it like a cup game rather than a league game, always seem to score more (and concede more) in the cup." The teams are in (well, they were in about half an hour ago, but I've just got round to the old cut and paste) : Aston Villa: Friedel, Cuellar, Dunne, Collins, Warnock, Ashley Young, Milner, Petrov, Downing, Agbonlahor, Heskey. Subs: Guzan, Luke Young, Sidwell, Carew, Delfouneso, Delph, Beye. Burnley: Jensen, Mears, Carlisle, Cort, Fox, Eagles, Cork, Bikey, McDonald, Nugent, Fletcher. Subs: Weaver, Duff, Paterson, Elliott, Blake, Nimani N'galou, Thompson. Referee: Stuart Attwell (Warwickshire) "Sorry Mr Ashdown, I was looking forward to this Minute by minute, but I've just had to gouge out my own eyes in response to the Jilly Goulding comedy claret tasting skit on Sky," writes Jon Millard. Is skit a typo? Right, here we go ... Peep! Villa get things under way. "Got to disagree with you about the impact of distraction on players," writes Gary Naylor. "There's probably more, but here's two reasons. Concentration in preparation and execution matters in football - a 1% drop in concentration will impact on performance. Sub-consciously (or even consciously), the players know that any defeat or personal errors today will be utterly erased by success next week - that makes defeat and errors more likely, not much, but enough to notice." Hmmm. 2 min: Villa Park, one of my personal favourite league grounds, is bathed in bright sunshine as the home side attempt to gain an early foothold. But a couple of stray passes hand Burnley a goal kick. 3 min: Nugent and Eagles combine neatly on the edge of the box, but the striker on loan from Portsmouth plants his pass straight at James Collins. 5 min: "I think you'll find that 'Q' by Luther Blisset reflects the man himself," writes Niall Mullen. "It starts out ferociously but fails to live up to that promise by the time it gets to Italy." Do you think that was the authors' plan all along? Agbonlahor's cross plops into the hands of Jensen. 7 min: Agbonlahor scampers down the left, cuts back onto his right and stands a cross up towards the far post where Ashley Young has strayed offside. "Luther Blissett's written a novel?" writes Mac Millings. "Like AC Milan, I assume the publishers thought they were getting John Barnes , and will be severing ties with Luther after just the one book." 9 min: Nice stuff from the Villa - Downing zips it into Agbonlahor with his back to goal. He lays it back to Petrov, but the Bulgarian slaps it wide. GOAL! Aston Villa 0-1 Burnley (Fletcher 10) Ruddy Nora! Who saw that coming? Cork plays in Nugent, who coolly rolls the ball across goal and Steven Fletcher taps home at the far post. Villa were utterly exposed there. Cuellar, in particular, looked to be napping. 13 min: Villa are, unsurprisingly, somewhat shellshocked. "Who are your tips to go up to the Premier League this season?" writes Simon Frank. "And more importantly, who are your tips to STAY up?" Newcastle, West Brom and Forest. Forest and Newcastle to stay up. All the promoted teams have shown they can compete this season, and Burnley are proving that now. Nugent's shot deflects wide for a corner ... 14 min: ... cleared away by Collins, who takes a whack on the head for his troubles. The claret flows. 16 min: Villa get their collective foot on the ball and spray around a bit of pass-pass-pass. 18 min: Collins returned to the fray, a bloody scab slowly coagulating on his scalp. 20 min: Downing finds Young on the left with a raking ball and his cross deflects away for a Villa corner ... 21 min: ... a comedy of errors. Nugent air-swipes at the ball at the edge of the box. It drops to Milner, who wangs it ridiculously over the bar. 23 min: Downing skips to the byline and attempts to pull the ball back with his right. Downing's right says 'You must be joking' and Burnley have a goal kick. 24 min: Milner sends an inswinger in from the right, Heskey gets across Carlisle, but his header zips wide. Decent effort, though. 26 min: Replays of the Burnley goal show a strange, possibly chicken-based, celebration from Fletcher. Not sure what that was about. Anyway, Villa have a dangerous free-kick ... 27 min: ... rolled right to Milner, slapped wide to Young - nicely done - but Bikey gets his noggin on the end of the cross and Burnley clear. 28 min: Eagles hobbles off after a crunching tackle from Young, but he's soon back on. 30 min: James Collins strides forwards and absolutely leathers a shot at goal. It's straight at the Beast and he's grateful for that. A couple of yards either side and he'd have been struggling. 31 min: Bikey manhandles Milner to the deck. From the free-kick Young curls a shot at goal and Jensen punches away for a corner ... GOAL! Aston Villa 1-1 Burnley (Young 32) A poxy, poxy goal from a Burnley perspective. Villa take a short one - someone at the back of the Holte End will have undoubtably moaned 'We never score from short ones' at this point - Young is unchallenged at the corner of the box and pretty-much scuffs a low cross-shot that misses everyone, but bounces through Danny Fox's legs and past the despairing Jensen. 34 min: Eagles swings in a corner of his own at the other end, but Burnley clear. And here's Gary Naylor: "Most cliches are cliches because they are oft-repeated truths, but the "only playing one up front = defensive play" is just wrong. Everton were widely praised for their attacking play yesterday... with just Saha up front. You don't need to be Jonathan Wilson to see that one up can be an extremely offensive option if the midfield runners are well up the pitch in numbers. The punditocracy largely have not played for ten years at least, in which time attacking play has responded to both rule changes and defensive tactics, but you would never guess that from listening to them." Punditocracy? Like it. 36 min: Another dangerous Villa free-kick ... it's a good 30 yards out ... curled in by Young and by a whisker it evades the forehead of Downing at the far post. Oh - he's offside anyway. 38 min: That Villa equaliser has done little to change the pattern - Villa have had most of the play, but set pieces still seem their best hope. 40 min: Nugent chases down a backpass. Why? YOU DO IT BECAUSE IT'S YOUR JOB! One for Black Books fans there. Carlisle goes in high and wild on Young and is perhaps a touch lucky to escape with a yellow - his foot was off the ground and he wasn't in a great deal of control of himself. The free-kick comes to nothing. 42 min: Agbonlahor escapes down the left, Young darts to the near post, but the cross is played deep and Burnley can breathe easy once more. 43 min: "I saw a reference to Jilly Goulding," writes Ian Copestake. "Does she still exist, and if so why?" That email caused me to Google 'Jilly Goulding' to see what exactly she is up to these days. The third result was this minute-by-minute. Which probably says it all really. 45 min: A Burnley attack peters out as they go all Arsenal on the edge of the area. Three minutes added time to be played. 45+2 min: Very, very quiet at Villa Park now. Eagles punts an optimistic long-range effort at goal. The game drifts towards half-time like a little blue rowing boat bobbing along on a picture-book stream. Except Emile Heskey's sitting in it. Peep! Peep! Peeep! The little blue rowing boat arrives at its jetty and we're all disembarking for a quick bite to eat and maybe some orange squash. Half-time email dept. "One cliche that really gets my cabra is the idea of progress," writes Ian Copestake. "If progress existed and wasn't just some false index of hope then why are the 80s always being revived." It's more of a myth than a cliche then, I suppose. A myth I hate: wasps don't sting you if you don't annoy them. Because they bloody well do. My chin knows they bloody well do. "I'm with Jon Millard on the 'comedy' clarets piece, but I do think your google search might have been slightly skewed by googling 'Jilly Goulding'," writes Tom Hopkins. "If you try 'Jilly Goolden' the results come out slightly differently." Ah ... A typo runs rampant ... So does that mean we can get "A large pair of purple socks with cats on them" to the top of Google? We shall see. Peep! Half two begins in earnest. " This was very funny and worth a look between long balls humped," writes Ian Copestake. 49 min: My system crashes, removing a (really funny, honest) pun about a Chris Eagles cross and Hotel California. 53 min: And it crashes again. Don't worry - you've not missed much. "Re. Jenny Goulding, claret, cats and socks," writes Niall Sheerin. "I was round my pal's for dinner last night and she has too rather large cats who jumped on the dinner table during the cheese course knocking over a fine bottle of plonk and thus becoming a pair of purple cats ... they didn't have socks on, though." 54 min: Cork, son of Alan, drives at goal from distance - not a bad effort. Villa need to find another gear here - they're flagging. GOAL! Aston Villa 2-1 Burnley (Downing 56) Young catches the Burnley backline napping and skips away down the left. His low cross finds Downing in space. He checks back inside onto his right foot and beats both Jensen and Cort on the line. GOAL! Aston Villa 3-1 Burnley (Downing 58) The hamster powering New GU Towers systems are clearly having their lunch break - every attempted update brings things crashing down aorund me, so apologies if things are a little slow. Particularly inconvenient when Villa have, you know, started scoring . Downing makes it three with a deflected shot from the edge of the box. GOAL! Aston Villa 4-1 Burnley (Heskey 61) Oh for pete's sake Burnley. Give me a chance. Agbonlahor, or possibly Young, gets away - again down the Burnley right - Heskey is free in the box and it's 4-1. Meanwhile, the Guardian hamsters are showing no inclination of getting back to work. 63 min: Young flashes another goal attempt just over the bar. "Niall Sheerin is a barbarian," writes Mac Millings. "Red wine and cats, indeed. They go much better with a dry white." GOAL! Aston Villa 5-1 Burnley (Agbonlahor 68) Milner surges into the box, Heskey cleverly finds him, and Agbonlahor turns in his cross with a little help from Carlisle. Guardian hamsters yawn, look at their watches, and reach for another jam sandwich. 70 min: Burnley are now a shambolic shell of their first half persona. They'll be lucky to keep the score as it is. Meanwhile on Google ... 73 min: Fletcher goes into the book for barging Warnock, whose had a fairly rough ride today. "One Owen Coyle... There's only Owen Coyle" is being sung, either cruelly by the Villa fans or disconcertingly by the Burnley fans," notes Gary Naylor. 75 min: Eagles aims to swirl one at goal from wide on the right, but Friedel collects with aplomb. Guardian hamsters top up their cups from the pot, and each pull out a tiny, but suprisingly thick, novel. 78 min: Subs galore, most of which I've managed to miss. Carew and Delfouneso are on, Nugent went off for Nimani, Wade Elliott (Grrrrr ...) is on for McDonald. 80 min: Eagles' shot deflects away for a corner ... smuggled away for another ... headed away by Carew. Guardian hamsters consider sneaking away to the pub for a quick couple - it is Sunday after all. 83 min: Villa, unsurprisingly, have decided to settle for this. "Sitting in a pub in Paris, and the barman had an important strategy decision to make 20 minutes ago when a scouser walked in - watch Villa vs Burnley, or switch over to the attack fest that is Benitez vs Mancini," writes Paul Keane. "The remote-control controller decided to stay with Villa Park. My iPhone app tells me that 28 minutes into the battle of the fourth-place wannabees there have been a total of two shots (none on target). Guess the barman is vindicated." 85 min: Cuellar slides in a low cross not dissimilar to one of the several Villa scored from in that second-half flurry. Such is Carlisle's desperation not to concede another that he slides in despite the ball rolling straight into Jensen's hands. The result: a painful pair of studs in the groin for the Burnley keeper. 88 min: Carew should probably make it six, but scuffs wide. "Might I suggest replacing the Guardian hamsters with badgers?" writes Colin Greer. "They are far more industrious and less likely to be unionised." In response, Guardian hamsters have started filling old oil drums with bits of wood and cracked out the fingerless gloves. 90 min: Burnley will have to endure four more minutes of this agony. GOAL! Aston Villa 5-2 Burnley (Paterson 90+2) Cork and Eagles combine, Cork plays the ball across a goal - a super ball as it turns out as Paterson is on hand to add a soupçon of respectability to the scoreline. Peep! Peep! Peeeep! Referee Atwell puts Burnley's suffering to an end. Villa are still in the hunt for fourth. Be sure to head over and follow MBM coverage of Wigan v Tottenham with, er, me, er, now basically. Cheers, as ever, for your emails.