Peter Withe

This match is going to go one of two ways; either it's going to be a tight, scrappy and probably boring game where we scrape a 1-0 win or the floodgates are going to open and poor useless Jack Woodward is going to be aplombing all afternoon.

This could all be banter but according to the player we are in talks to sign him, along with Spurs and Arsenal.

Now, let's get one thing straight; this isn't rumour or speculation. This is straight from the mouth of the player.

It would hardly be insightful of me to say Martin O’Neill doesn’t make many substitutions. It’s pretty obvious to anyone who has seen Aston Villa since he arrived.

It’s the reasoning behind his lack of substitutions that mystifies. Does he not trust anyone outside his starting XI? Tuesday night’s game against Hull saw just the one substitution, Gardner coming on for Sidwell in the 86th minute.

It never started the right way for Shorey when he came to Villa Park and because he got his two chances to impress in an England shirt and didn't, I suspect he's got a bit of an attitude.

Now, this isn't confirmed by the club, but they seem more interested in denying rumours at the minute, although I suspect it's more a case of having something to publish on the web, but Sky Sports seem certain it's happened.

If reports are to be believed we've offered West Ham £11mn. for 29 year old defender Matthew Upson.

Now, while this points to Martin Laursen having a much more serious injury then we're led to believe and Martin O'Neill fears he won't be coming back, okay maybe it doesn't but it could, £11mn. for a little above average defender is madness.

On Sunday Tony Cascarino made a statement that must have sent shock waves through any Villa fan over the age of thirty; 'The Villa just need a 20 goal a season man to make them real contenders'. Well, the words were something like that.

This was the man who nearly twenty years ago when Villa were top of the league was signed for a club record fee to score the goals to win us the league. We all know how that ended.

It wasn't the most convincing of performances and while you have to factor in that it was the FA Cup and it was their game of the season, I put it down to a simple error; change of formation.

A spirited display from Gillingham wasn't enough and while they may feel a little hard done by we never really seemed to move into top gear today and if we had have done, you'd fancy we would have done better.

Still, two goals from James Milner saw us do just enough to get our hat into the fourth round draw, which is going to get drawn in a minute so I'll probably let you know by the end of this post who we've got and in the title.

Morning all. Not long until the game so I'm making this a quick one as I've got a lot on before kick off and while it's mostly rumours, they're quite interesting ones.