Midlands Daily reporting:
It is a great and significant matchday today, one for football romantics, as Aston Villa take on Manchester United in a top of the table clash at Villa park tonight. Just a quick look at records, achievements of managers and squad list of two teams tells you all you need to know about this clash. Manchester United have won last 4 of the 5 meetings between the club, with 5th being a draw. The combined score of last season's league meetings was 9-0 in Man United's favour. Manchester United manager Damien is ranked 1st in latest manager rankings, whereas his novice counterpart TMH, a lowly 17th. Damien has won 8 top level trophies and 1 lower level whereas TMH is yet to win a trophy, with last season's heroic cup final run his best achievement. Very Roy Hodgson-esque, whose best achievement in life is to lose UEFA cup/Europa league final twice.
A look at squad now and Manchester United is embarrassment of riches. As they used to say about Chelsea of 2004-06, they could play two different teams in league and those team would finish 1st and 2nd. Manchester United boasts similar status in Red Cafe league and they might even grab top 3 positions in the league with different teams from the squad. Manchester United have 5 players with rating 94 and above and are led by Lionel Messi, who is 2nd all time best player, beyond the indisputable best, Cristiano Ronaldo. Aston Villa's highest rated player on other hand has rating of 93 and he is a GK who is distant 2nd in skills to Manchester United's big Dave.
Despite all this, Aston Villa fans are in great voice. They have started occupying nearby bars to Villa park since morning and are singing, "we won't lose 5-0 this time." Few discussions with fans and they seemed pretty optimistic about their team keeping defeat margin to only 3 goals, given some of their players are in good form. It is a proverbial David vs Goliath clash, except that, David always had a miracle chance in the battle. Aston Villa don't stand one.