Follow every kick as Aston Villa take on Wolverhampton Wanderers at Villa Park in the Premier League
on 20-Mar-2010, kick off time 12:45
Aston Villa v Wolverhampton Wanderers Live
Aston Villa will be hoping to step up their push for a top-four place by beating local rivals Wolves at Villa Park on Saturday lunchtime. However, they won't find it easy, despite keeping the pressure on Liverpool, Tottenham and Manchester City on Tuesday by beating Wigan Athletic at the DW Stadium. Villa ground out a 2-1 victory at Wigan following a long-range strike from James Milner and a helping hand from home midfielder James McCarthy with a comical own goal. Martin O'Neill's side are now level on points with sixth-placed Manchester City but do have one (and in some cases two) games in hand on some of their other Champions League qualifying rivals. Meanwhile, Wolves have everything to fight for in their battle to avoid making an immediate return to the Championship and did their hopes a power of good last weekend with a crucial 2-1 victory at relegation rivals Burnley. That result left Mick McCarthy's side three points clear of the drop-zone as the season enters its final quarter even though they remain the lowest scorers in the Premier League with just 23 goals. Former Celtic and Leicester City manager O'Neill laid one unwanted record to rest as Tuesday's win finally ended a bizarre sequence of results that had seen him fail to win a Premier League game in the month of March since he was appointed Villa boss in August 2006. Since surprisingly losing at home to Wigan Athletic on the opening day of the season, Villa's only other defeat at Villa Park this term came just after Christmas when a stoppage-time Fernando Torres goal consigned O'Neill's team to a 1-0 loss. Since the turn of the year they have only played four home Premier League games, beating Burnley 5-2 but being held to goalless stalemates by West Ham United and Arsenal as well as having to settle for a point from a 1-1 draw with a ten-man Manchester United side. Wolves could hand a start to Chris Iwelumo after the Scotland international returned to Molineux this week following a successful loan spell with Bristol City while McCarthy has now decided to allow Stefan Maierhofer to move to the Robins for a month. Nigel Reo-Coker (ankle) is likely to be Villa's only absentee while McCarthy is without David Edwards and Michael Kightly (both ankle).
Source: DSG
