Aston Villa: Kevin MacDonald hoping to avoid a Moscow repeat after leaving NINE first team stars behind
Aug 19 2010 by Mathew Kendrick, Birmingham Mail
It is reminiscent of Villa’s UEFA Cup exit at CSKA Moscow last year when former boss Martin O’Neill infuriated fans by taking a weakened squad to Russia.
Villa subsequently lost the away leg 2-0 and it is widely regarded as the moment O’Neill’s popularity first dipped.
MacDonald is risking the goodwill he established with Saturday’s resounding win over West Ham but the caretaker boss has complete faith in his fringe players.
Asked if he was mindful of another Moscow, MacDonald replied: “Very much so, because it’s important that we stay in this competition.
“We need to get through to the group stages because it would be great to play against some very good teams.
“It also helps you with your development of younger players and squad players because we will get more games for them to play in.
“But I’m very mindful that Aston Villa have got a big history of playing in Europe and there’s nothing better for the fans than to get a European evening.”
Dunne is serving a one-match ban carried over from his sending off for Manchester City against Hamburg in the UEFA Cup last year.
“A couple have been rested,” said MacDonald. “Stiliyan has done a lot of travelling. He was in Russia last week and we have three games coming up, Thursday, Sunday, Thursday.
“John Carew has an ongoing injury which we have to manage so it would be more beneficial for him to miss a midweek game.
“Luke Young has just been rested because some of the others are getting the opportunity to play.
“There is no disguising the fact that some of fringe players have been unhappy. It’s now up to them to come up to the plate.
“We saw the standards that have been set by the other players on Saturday and if they can perform like that it gives the manager the opportunity of picking from the best players, including the fringe players and some of the youngsters.”
VILLA SQUAD: Brad Friedel, Brad Guzan, Elliott Parish, Eric Lichaj, Stephen Warnock, Ciaran Clark, Curtis Davies, Nathan Baker, Isaiah Osbourne, Habib Beye, Nigel Reo-Coker, Barry Bannan, Stewart Downing, Marc Albrighton, James Collins Jnr, Nathan Delfouneso, Shane Lowry, Emile Heskey, Jonathan Hogg, Andreas Weimann.
