View From The Town End: Aston Villa

Villa are tonight’s visitors to the Mad Stad, and ahead of that titanic clash, we got the thoughts of James from our SB Nation chums 7500 to Holte.

How is the season going so far for Villa?

Pretty, pretty bad. I won't airbrush it. It's two games in, but a few more losses will derail our season. We couldn't get the job done against Hull, but Cardiff battered us. I've not seen such a one-sided game in recent history.

The pre-season was good and promising, even the Hull game was great, we should have won! However when we went to Cardiff we performed in such an abject manner that it's hard to find any kind of optimism. Steve Bruce looked done with the club, and that's not a good sign.

You've got a point, like us. Like us, you won't be happy with that, right?

No - not at all. We should be heading into this game with three. We played Hull off of the pitch and didn't get the job done - a moment of madness from Villa led to us conceding and here we are. I accept the Cardiff result, but it can't ever happen again. Colour me disgruntled.

What's going right for Villa right now?

Youth play is great. We've got some seriously promising talent coming through. You'll know all about Jack Grealish at this point, but what about Callum O'Hare? The pint-sized number 10 is probably one of our better performers right now and you won't catch him moaning about being targeted. In fact, when Neil Warnock tried to kick him to death, he thrived. He's got some serious confidence and is a joy to see.

The main talent is Andre Green though. He might be out for the Reading game, but he's such a great player. He always makes things happen and he's seriously unlucky - because he should have five or more goals to his name. I've never seen a player miss from close-range or hit the bar as him. He'll come good though.

And on the back of that, what's going wrong?

Ooh boy. We cannot seem to score, we lack a left-sided presence without Green (our left midfield options seem to drift into the centre, making everything lopsided), we panic when other teams attack and moments of madness happen all the time. We're such a dynamic team in all the worst ways.

Who should Reading fans lookout for on Tuesday?

Scott Hogan is great when he's involved in play, Callum O'Hare is electric, Josh Onomah bosses the midfield. If everything goes right, you should have a lot to worry about - but it doesn't often go right.

And who should Reading look to exploit?

Alan Hutton - because he's come off a good year with a sloppy start and he'll get caught out up front on the right. Neil Taylor, because he's the only player on the left, so you can double up on him with ease and finally - John Terry or James Chester, who are really good, but always have their hands full.

Is there anyone that has caught your eye for good or bad reasons on this Reading team?

It's funny to see Tiago Ilori playing football, after his strange spell at Villa. That Liam Kelly looks pretty decent in the middle as well - and I'd expect to worry about him on Tuesday!

Any predictions you can leave us with?

It's either going to be 1-1 or something made like a 4-3 to either team isn't it? I'll go for the 1-1, there's a lot of pressure on both of us to get our season underway and that usually results in a great game or a stalemate.