Thankfully the inconvenience of the international break is now over and its back to the football we all love best. The Reds travel to Villa Park on Easter Sunday to take on Aston Villa, a side who beat us in December at Anfield quite convincingly (3-1) but who have struggled all season and are trapped in a relegation dog fight. Their form has picked up of late, with crucial victories over fellow strugglers Reading and QPR, but hopefully Liverpool will prove tougher opposition to them on Sunday and the players will redeem themselves from a pitiful showing at St Mary’s two weeks ago.
I am unaware of any of our international players returning to Melwood with any knocks, so I imagine Brendan Rodgers will have no new worries in terms of injuries to contend with, obviously Joe Allen has now been ruled out for the remainder of the season due to his shoulder problem, but Lucas should be fully fit again and the likes of Glen Johnson, Steven Gerrard, Daniel Sturridge, Daniel Agger, Jordan Henderson and Luis Suarez all returned unscathed from international duty it seems. Hopefully Jamie Carragher and Pepe Reina will also be ready to return to action in place of Martin Skrtel and Brad Jones respectively.
This is a game where we have to get back to winning ways, prior to the Southampton defeat we had been in a rich vein of form and had great momentum, scoring goals galore. We scored 5 against Swansea, 4 against Wigan and 3 against Tottenham. In my opinion Aston Villa are a poor side and there’s no reason why the likes of Suarez, Coutinho and Sturridge can’t continue their good form and notch a few more at Villa Park. Of course they are fighting for their lives and have the impressive Christian Benteke in their ranks, but other than a few other decent attacking players, their midfield and defence is littered with a mixture of average players and youth. There’s no excuses for us going there and not getting a result, I’ll be very disappointed if we don’t bring home the three points on Sunday.
This Liverpool side has showed all season just how unpredictable it can be. Which Liverpool will turn up on Easter Sunday is anyone’s guess, but I’d like to think the players will feel they have a point to prove after their last showing and I can see us exposing Villa’s frailties all over the park. Not many defenders can live with Luis Suarez and I can see him running amok against these.
I predict a fairly comfortable 2-0 win for the Redmen, with goals from the Uruguayan and Daniel Sturridge.
