Three points and Palace at the weekend

I'm eighteen years into blogging about Aston Villa so it's not a surprise that what I'm going to write today has been written before in one form or another. And while a lot has changed, fundamentally, things are pretty much as they were when I started.

Yes, we are on owner four and five and we have our eleventh manager, but give me a boring 1-0 every single week and I'll take it. Beating Everton wasn't boring, in the context of what I mean by boring, but it wasn't convincing. But it was three points and if that takes us one step closer to a boring 1-0 win every week, I'll take it.

And it was an important match to win. Someone said it better than me, in the comments or on Twitter when they wrote it was just important to get the first win quickly. Bournemouth is forgotten and three points are registered. It was what we needed.

There was some not such good news from the weekend and that is the injury to Diego Carlos. And it was just a few minutes ago confirmed that he has ruptured his Achilles’ tendon. I'm not sure what that means, but from what I gather, he is as good as out for the season. Although, that is just from the comments.

And that is going to mean the manager puts his faith in another player he brought in or he looks to bring someone else in. We'll learn this as it happens, but I suspect they would have started looking on Saturday evening.

It puts a dent in what he wanted to achieve this season, but if we have learnt anything about the owners and the manager, they get the right business done at the right time. This is unexpected, so they'll have to move quickly, but a big part of me believe they are somewhat prepared for it. Either way, I think we have enough in the squad to ride this out.

So now, we move forward to Crystal Palace at the weekend with some renewed optimism. And on that, I have to get into the office but before I go, I've got to ask, surely Buendia has done enough now to start at the weekend?

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