Both sides have come a long way since last seasons struggles. Villa were almost as bad as us last season after slumping to a 16th place finish under unambitious Doug Ellis and David O'Leary. Fast forward to the current time and with virtually the same squad Martin O'Neill has turned the club around completely under new owner Randy Lerner. Villa fans are now looking at the top 6 rather than the bottom 6, making tommorow's clash a key encounter of the season.
Villa will be looking to bounce back to winning ways after two disappointing home results against Middlesbrough and Man City. Thomas Sorenson is out which is a bonus because he has been in fine shot stopping form this season and would have been likely to do what Niemi did for Fulham a few weeks back.
Stuart Taylor will deputise for Sorenson and he's already been in action against Pompey's reserves where he dropped a clanger through a Niko Kranjcar curling shot. Milan Baros also played in that game and scored both goals for Villa to win. He'll be hoping to repeat that feat tommorow although I doubt Linvoy Primus and Sol Campbell are likely to be as generous as the reserves defence were. Juan Pablo Angel is likely to partner the Czech international up front.
Two players Harry Redknapp wanted in January will be playing for the opposition tommorow too. Gareth Barry and Stilian Petrov will want to make their mark at Fratton Park whilst Chris Sutton; who was so influential in the 5-0 defeat at Birmingham last year, could make the squad.
Pompey will be happy after a superb defensive performance at Anfield midweek but there will be no negative tactics from the home side tommorow. Kanu was rested for the majority of Wednesday's game and will be likely to start alongside Benjani tommorow as it looks likely that LuaLua and Cole will still be injured.
There's conflicting reports over the state of Pompey's injured midfielders. Sky Sports reports that Pedro Mendes is likely to miss out after picking up a knee injury at Anfield but Sean Davis will return to the starting line-up. BBC Sport reports the exact opposite, stating that Mendes is fit to play but Davis will be absent. If either or both miss out then it'll open an opportunity for Richard Hughes or Manuel Fernandes to play. Another option would be to move Gary O'Neil to the centre and put Thommo on the right who has done well since coming into the side.
I have a feeling it'll be a cracking game tommorow. Villa like to play the ball along the floor and pass it around a lot. I'm sure they won't sit back and defend although they might use the pace of Agbonlahor and Baros to counter-attack us. After the Liverpool game I hope that the clean sheet we kept will lead to the more contained defending that kept us five consecutive clean sheets at the start of the season.
We really need to win this game if we want to keep up a possible push for Europe and hopefully our dogged style mixed with the flair players we have can combine to take advantage of Villa's mini-slump in form. If we're not on our game we can expect another draw or worse, a defeat. Should the worse happen tommorow Villa will leap us in the table and there's a number of other sides in the league poised to replace us in third.
Tommorow is the first of two games that will reveal just how far we can go this season. Villa and Everton are both likely to be challenging for Europe so we need to take three points from the pair of them if we want to be too.
Let's go and show how far we have come since Harry took over almost a year ago!
Premiership Past: Pompey vs Aston Villa
03/04: Pompey 2 Aston Villa 1
A game that will live long in the hearts of the Pompey fans.
Portsmouth emerged from the tunnel of Fratton Park as a Premiership outfit for the first time. Captained by Teddy Sheringham, Pompey got off to a great start as the skipper scored our first ever Premiership goal. After the break new signing Patrik Berger doubled the advantage and it looked like we would coast to victory.
However in the last ten minutes Gareth Barry tripped over himself in the penalty area and the ref gave a penalty. Barry converted but celebration would soon turn to anger after he was sent off for abusive language. Pompey held on for a famous win.
04/05: Pompey 1 Aston Villa 2
The slump under Velimir Zajec continued as Villa took the lead after Arjan De Zeeuw scored an own goal by turning in Luke Moore's cross. He recieved a spanking by Kostas Chalkias for his mistake. Pompey levelled with a Steve Stone penalty but there was nothing stopping Hitzlsperger's stunner in the second half to earn Villa the win at Fratton Park.
05/06: Pompey 1 Aston Villa 1
Alain Perrin was left scratching his head as Pompey failed to beat 10-man Villa at home. Nobby Solano was sent off for violent conduct after a foul by Richard Hughes. Ironically from the resulting free kick the visitors took the lead. Kevin "Scummer" Phillips wheeled away in celebration however Hughes was credited with the own goal instead.
Pompey equalised via a LuaLua pearler but as hard as we tried, we just could not find a winner and the draw meant it was only our first point of the season when it could have been three.
Pundit Watch
Lawro: Home Win (2-0)
Sky Sports: Draw (1-1)
SoccerNet: Draw