Aston Villa v Manchester United (Villa Park, Saturday 5th January 2008 1715 GMT, Live on BBC One (hopefully Alan Shearer will be absent)
Yey, the FA Cup is back. I don’t care what Dave Kitson says, I love the FA Cup. Maybe it is for nostalgic reasons, as when I was growing up, it was the only thing United won. Everyone has their first team, the team that you knew really well, all the players, where they played. Whilst I supported United from an early age, the first team I really knew was the Ron Atkinson sides of 1983-5 where we won the cup twice and consistently finished 4th in the league. Norman, Bryan, Remi, Mike, Arthur, Gary and the others seemed to like the cup (except in ‘84 when the bombed out to Harry Rednapp’s Bournemouth but even that added to the FA Cup’s charm).
Recent history suggests a Big Four team will win FA Cup 2008 and that United will beat Aston Villa in the 3rd Round. Fergie seems to play a reasonably strong side against Villa, although Van Nistelrooy was on the bench before he got off it to score his goals in the comeback game. I expect Tevez will be rested; whether or not the ankle is ok. Saha will start and maybe Rooney will be back to get a game before the next league match. I wonder if Giggs will play after being rested against Birmingham.
Villa are on a role currently are one of the sides pushing hard for a European spot in the league, and may possibly take the 4th Big Four place recently vacated by Liverpool. My question is “Will Raja start Torres in those UEFA Cup games next season, or will they be really going for the title?”
Maybe it will be Villa resting key players, but I think that if they can beat us, they could go all the way to the final this year.
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We know the FA Cup gets some saying it’s not a big thing anymore. But it still retains its magic for me, and obviously yourself. The road to Wembley starts at a quarter past 5 in front of the telly.
It’s nice to have those fond memories. Even if United didn’t win the cup it was always satisfying to be involved, enjoying the big build up for the last game of the season. Mind you United did seem to win most of them, I am sure other supporters would disagree.