Game on! Aston Villa v Newcastle

Welcome one and all to another article specifically penned for the big game this afternoon.

Villa Park is the destination this afternoon for the 4pm kick-off, which will also be broadcast live on Sky Sports.

Payback is a bitch, and we owe Villa some more after we wimpered out of the Premier League 23 months ago. Yes it was our players over 38 games that got us relegated, but quite what was going through the minds of the Villa fans, who we have no history with I might add add, who mocked us and brought out their pretty little decorations to poke fun at us is beyond me.

Class was in short supply from them lot that day. I hear people saying how we would do the same if such events transpired to create a situation whereby we could relegate someone at St James' Park on the final day of the season. I agree, if it was someone like Liverpool, Manchester United or Sunderland, but for the rest I highly doubt that we'd make much of an effort. A few songs maybe, but certainly not the poster campaign that the Vile displayed that day.

Indeed a case in point happened just last season when our 2-0 win at Plymouth relegated the Green Army. There was no poking of fun from our lot though and we just concentrated on celebrating our promotion. That is the point though - concentrating our ourselves. Villa didn't.

Still, it's been and gone now and perhaps I feel more annoyed by it because I live in an area that has a high proportion of Villa fans in it. Nothing can be changed from two years ago, but a win for us would leave Villa deep in the mire. To me that would be priceless.

As mentioned earlier, the game in on Sky here in the UK, but if you can't watch that then I'm fairly certain that there will be a few internet streams knocking about. If you stumble across one then throw a link to it in the comments section and share it with your fellow Newcastle fans.

If you haven't read my match preview you can do so by clicking here. It features team news, likely line-ups, facts and stats regarding both sides and of previous encounters between the two sides.

That's just about it for this. Hopefully the lads can get another positive result this afternoon, although I have to admit that I'm not feeling too confident about that. Villa have a lot of good players and it's only a matter of time before they click and get the results that will drag them clear of the relegation scrap. Hopefully that can wait until next week though.....

Howay the lads!

Aston Villa: Brad Friedel, Kyle Walker, James Collins, Richard Dunne, Luke Young, Stewart Downing, Stiliyan Petrov, Jean Makoun, Gabriel Agbonlahor, Ashley Young, Darren Bent.

Subs: Andy Marshall, Ciaran Clark, Carlos Cuellar, Nigel Reo-Coker, Robert Pires, Marc Albrighton, Emile Heskey.

Newcastle: Steve Harper, Danny Simpson, Mike Williamson, Steven Taylor, Jose Enrique, Joey Barton, Danny Guthrie, Fabricio Coloccini, Jonas Gutierrez, Nile Ranger, Peter Lovenkrands.

Subs: Tim Krul, Shane Ferguson, James Tavernier, Michael Richardson, Ryan Taylor, Ryan Donaldson, Shefki Kuqi.