O'Neill calls for end to Villa's Manchester City hoodoo

Dec 21 2007 By Bill Howell, Birmingham Mail

MARTIN O'Neill has called on Villa to finally smash their Manchester City hoodoo.

Villa have won just one of the last 12 games in all competitions, losing nine, against City.

They have won only won four out of 24 games since the start of the Premier League, losing 14.

City simply love Villa Park. They have won five and drawn five of their last 11 visits and experienced only one defeat - in August 2002.

Since then they have won three and drawn two of their last five visits in all competitions.

O'Neill has made a habit of dismissing footballing statistics in the past.

He has not bitten about Villa's poor records against Arsenal, Liverpool and Manchester United or their good records, for example, at home to Portsmouth, until this season, or away at Middlesbrough.

But he said today: "We have to do something about it. Going into the game, our aim is to try to win the match this season,

because we can't do anything about what has happened in the past.

"If in the course of the game we can resolve past differences, then so be it."

Villa's performance on a cold, dark November night at home to City last season remains the lowest point of O'Neill's 16-month tenure.

Villa lost 3-1 when Gavin McCann's fine long-range strike proved nothing more than a consolation as Darius Vassell, Joey Barton and a magnificent solo effort from Sylvain Distin comfortably earned the points.

O'Neill said: "I know we played them last season here and lost when City played particularly well - probably the best they played all season and Stuart Pearce said that.

"But we returned the compliment by beating them at their place. We went up there on the back of some really good performances and confidence was quite high."

That is a reference to one of Villa's high points of last season when they went to the City of Manchester Stadium and won 2-0 in April with John Carew and Shaun Maloney on target.

"When we beat them last time, they were at a particularly low ebb. That's not the case this time.

"They have a tremendous home record, and, even if they haven't won away since the opening day of the season at West Ham, they have produced some encouraging performances."