Match Preview: Man Utd vs Aston Villa

The game against Aston Villa on Saturday will be played at 17:15 GMT. This will be Manchester United’s 150^th league meeting with the Villans. Another milestone could be Sir Alex Ferguson’s 700^th win at Manchester United. This will be a match that the Red Devils cannot afford to lose as the title race is hotting up, and the chasing pack ready to take advantage of any Man Utd slip-ups. With Arsenal playing earlier of Saturday, at 15:00 GMT against Bolton, and Chelsea not playing until Sunday, Man Utd can continue to increase their advantage at the top of the table momentarily to:

 

If Arsenal Win: Advantage of 6 points on Saturday

If Arsenal Draw: Advantage of 8 points on Saturday

If Arsenal Lose: Advantage of 8 points on Saturday

 

Aston Villa have lost their last two games (Portsmouth and Sunderland) and sit in the 7^th place with 49 points out of 31 games. On the other hand, Man Utd sit at the top with 73 points out of 31 games.

Man Utd’s top scorer is Cristiano Ronaldo, who has scored 25 league goals in 25 starts. He needs 13 more goals to break Denis Law’s record of 46 goals in one season. Should Wayne Rooney score a goal, it would be his 50^th league goal for Man Utd.

This will be the Red Devils’ final league game before the first-leg of the quarter-final stage of Champions League to be played on Tuesday against Roma at the Stadio Olimpico.

Man Utd have not lost to Aston Villa at Old Trafford since the 5^th November 1983. This means a total of 22 unbeaten home league games for the Red Devils, which on Saturday may be increased to 23. This season, in the reverse fixture at Villa Park (20^th December 2007), Man Utd won the encounter by the score of 4-1, goals for the Red Devils coming from Rooney (2), Ferdinand and Giggs.

The match will be refereed by Mark Halsey. This season, Halsey has shown 75 yellow cards and 5 red cards, in the 35 matches that he refereed. This shows that Halsey is not the lenient type, and after recent disrespectful acts towards referees, would not think it twice to send a player off the field. This is not good news for the Villans, as they had two players (Reo-Coker and Scott Carson) sent off in the December reverse fixture, and would not be happy to play some part of this match with less than 11 men.

Mark Halsey showing Stephen Ireland the red card.