Villa Preview: Bentdner, Walcott or Ade on his own? 29 February, 2008

With Eduardo’s season over and van Persie still stuck in that constant state of ‘a couple of weeks away’ we need to find a partner for Adebayor. Bendtner has hardly proved himself this season, he’s scored a couple in his few appearances but nothing extra special and Walcott only scored his first ever Premiership goal last weekend.

Both players have good points and bad points. Bendtner is incredible in the air; boot a ball up field and you can bet he’ll be there to take it under control or head it on. However you could argue this is part of Adebayor’s game. Manu has an incredible leap, as does Bendtner and I think it’s a case of anything Nicklas can do, Ade can do better.

Theo is a different species to Bendtner. He’s incredibly quick and skilful who can cause a lot of problems running at defences. The Adebayor/Walcott partnership has a lot of potential (as does a Bendtner/Walcott partnership but Adebayor will play), it’s the typical tall and strong plus quick and short strike force.

There’s a difference between the two youngsters though that will decide who will play tomorrow. It’s mainly an issue of confidence and match experience. Bendtner has proved on many occasions both here and at Birmingham that if you give him the ball somewhere near the box, he might have a chance at scoring. However with Theo I still don’t feel confident that he has a good chance of scoring. He’s known to lose the ball and before that weekend he looked scared to have a shot for himself.

Walcott seems to lack match confidence whereas Bendtner is overflowing with it to the extent that he’s maybe a bit too cocky. Theo has said this week that those couple of goals last weekend have given him that confidence but there will only be one way to find out if they actually have.

With Diaby now fit we can afford to play Theo up front; we can have Abou on the left and Hleb on the right. With Eboue suspended and Rosicky injured we’ve had to play Walcott on the wing but now Arsene’s got a decision to make.

The other option would be to have Adebayor play on him own. I suspect Wenger will be very tempted with this one but I’d prefer it if he went for a 4-4-2. I think Ade needs someone to support him and deflect defenders attention onto another striker. I personally would go for just him up front but I won’t be very surprised if I see it happen tomorrow.

We can also play Hleb behind Adebayor with Walcott and Diaby on the wings. Wow we have so many options for once! I think it’ll be Theo or Bendtner partnering Adebayor though. I have a feeling it might be the Englishman. Not really sure why, I can just see him being a real nuisance for tomorrow’s visitors.

Just to confirm my team…

Almunia
Sagna – Senderos – Gallas (c) – Clichy
Hleb – Fabregas – Flamini – Diaby
Walcott – Adebayor

Tomorrow is a massive game. Last week we lost our heads due to that horrible injury, I have no doubt that we would’ve won comfortably if it weren’t for that. So we need to clear our heads of Eduardo now, get on with our game and give everything we have.

Aston Villa are a great side and are more than capable of coming to Ashburton Grove and drawing, or even winning. So we’re going to need to play to the top of our ability. I think that they’re going to score, so that striker decision is quite an important one.

It’s bound to be a good game, it’s not on TV in England though so you lot who aren’t going are going to have to find an internet stream or find a pub with the dodgy channels. I’ll do the match report early on Sunday then a Milan preview later that day as in the morning I’m off to Milan! Speak to you then.