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BBC News
31-03-2025
- Sport
- BBC News
Choose if you'd prefer Champions League qualification or FA Cup win
Former West Ham and Aston Villa midfielder Nigel Reo-Coker believes "nine out of 10" Nottingham Forest fans would rather qualify for the Champions League than the FA do you agree?And, for the purposes of this poll, achieving both is simply not an option...
Yahoo
08-03-2025
- Sport
- Yahoo
Sutton's predictions: Brentford v Aston Villa
This should be a really good game - it is 11th versus 10th but both teams are looking up the table and thinking about getting into the European places. It feels like it will be close but I am actually pretty sure Brentford will win it - Aston Villa have been stretched all season and we know they tend to be a bit flat the weekend following a Champions League match. That's the test for Unai Emery's side here. Can they break that habit of dropping points after playing in Europe? I'm not convinced. Villa are in a strong position against Club Brugge after their first-leg win in Belgium but, if they are at all tired from that game, then Brentford's energy means they are not a team you would want to face. I'm going for Villa striker Ollie Watkins to score against his former club, but I am backing the Bees to take the points. The rest of Villa's season is going to be a balancing act too - I'd back them to beat Brugge next week and make the quarter-finals, and also to overcome Preston in the last eight of the FA Cup. But at the same time they really need a run of results in the Premier League to help them in the race for the top five. Right now they are still in touch with the teams above them but they have got to be careful not to slide out of contention there. Sutton's prediction: 2-1 Read the full predictions and have your say here
Yahoo
08-03-2025
- Sport
- Yahoo
Sutton's predictions: Brentford v Aston Villa
This should be a really good game - it is 11th versus 10th but both teams are looking up the table and thinking about getting into the European places. It feels like it will be close but I am actually pretty sure Brentford will win it - Aston Villa have been stretched all season and we know they tend to be a bit flat the weekend following a Champions League match. That's the test for Unai Emery's side here. Can they break that habit of dropping points after playing in Europe? I'm not convinced. Villa are in a strong position against Club Brugge after their first-leg win in Belgium but, if they are at all tired from that game, then Brentford's energy means they are not a team you would want to face. I'm going for Villa striker Ollie Watkins to score against his former club, but I am backing the Bees to take the points. The rest of Villa's season is going to be a balancing act too - I'd back them to beat Brugge next week and make the quarter-finals, and also to overcome Preston in the last eight of the FA Cup. But at the same time they really need a run of results in the Premier League to help them in the race for the top five. Right now they are still in touch with the teams above them but they have got to be careful not to slide out of contention there. Sutton's prediction: 2-1 Read the full predictions and have your say here
BBC News
08-03-2025
- Sport
- BBC News
Sutton's predictions: Brentford v Aston Villa
This should be a really good game - it is 11th versus 10th but both teams are looking up the table and thinking about getting into the European feels like it will be close but I am actually pretty sure Brentford will win it - Aston Villa have been stretched all season and we know they tend to be a bit flat the weekend following a Champions League the test for Unai Emery's side here. Can they break that habit of dropping points after playing in Europe? I'm not are in a strong position against Club Brugge after their first-leg win in Belgium but, if they are at all tired from that game, then Brentford's energy means they are not a team you would want to face.I'm going for Villa striker Ollie Watkins to score against his former club, but I am backing the Bees to take the rest of Villa's season is going to be a balancing act too - I'd back them to beat Brugge next week and make the quarter-finals, and also to overcome Preston in the last eight of the FA at the same time they really need a run of results in the Premier League to help them in the race for the top five. Right now they are still in touch with the teams above them but they have got to be careful not to slide out of contention prediction: 2-1Read the full predictions and have your say here
BBC News
07-02-2025
- Sport
- BBC News
From refugee to coach - Muslic plots Liverpool upset
On Sunday, Miron Muslic will try and plot what many in football think is impossible - a win for his bottom-of-the-Championship Plymouth Argyle side against Premier League leaders and six-time European champions Liverpool in the FA compared to the story of Muslic's start in life, beating Liverpool in the FA Cup seems relatively easy. In 1992, as a nine-year-old, Muslic - who took over as Argyle head coach from England star Wayne Rooney last month - was forced to flee his home town of Bihac in got out just in time. In June 1992, just a month or two after the Muslic family left Bihac, it fell under a three-year siege by Serb-led forces during a bitter civil war. "We had to leave Bosnia, and Bihac, our home town, literally overnight, grabbing things you can grab with your hands," he explains powerfully to BBC Sport."That's where our journey, or our new life, started." Muslic, his sister and parents fled 400 miles (650km) to Innsbruck in Austria with no idea what they would find and unable to speak the language with the local German accent, particularly hard to understand."We struggled our whole life, and this part of struggling is part of my journey, and that's why I'm always very optimistic and very positive," says Muslic, who guided Cercle Bruges to the Uefa Europa Conference League this season."I've been in more challenging situations in my life than being a head coach and facing a possible draw or a defeat at the weekend."And that's also the message I want to deliver consistently towards the players, that life is a struggle with beautiful surprises, and there is always something worth fighting for."Nothing was easy for me, or for my family or for my sister. We became refugees, and it's not a pretty thing, but I never had the feeling that I missed something in my life."My parents tried very hard to provide us with the things that we needed - my father worked for over 30 years as a waiter, my mother was a cleaning lady, and they tried very hard to give us a good life."All the things that have happened over the last 30 years helped me become who I am today and also achieve some things that maybe have been impossible."But nothing is impossible if you truly believe, if you commit, if you convince, and if you go really, really fully." It is that belief and commitment that Argyle will need if they are to upset a Liverpool side who have finished top of the Champions League group stage and have a healthy six-point lead at the summit of the Premier League under Arne Muslic inherited an Argyle side spiralling towards League One and bottom of the add to his tough start, he saw his best defender, Lewis Gibson, and star forward, Morgan Whittaker, leave the club during the transfer just like Muslic's new life in Austria, the shoots of recovery could well be sprouting under him at Saturday, the Pilgrims paid a club-record fee for Ukraine defender Maksym Talovierov and came from a goal down to beat play-off contenders West Bromwich Albion 2-1 - a victory that ended a club-record 15-game winless run in the league. And it is football - and a love of its ups and downs - that has driven Muslic from a child who could not speak the language to a coach so fluent in English that his rousing first speech to Argyle's players, external has been watched by the best part of four million people on social media. As a teenage forward, he joined Wacker Innsbruck before a career that took in the top five tiers in Austria and a short spell in Croatia. He credits the sport with helping him adapt to his new homeland, allowing him to "have the privilege to call not only Bosnia, but also Austria, my home.""That's why football is so important, because it's universal," he says."Because when you're on a football pitch or somewhere on the street, it's not about your name, your last name, it's not even about your refugee status or not; it's only about the game."Where religion, nationality, is my mother a cleaning lady or a lawyer has no impact, has no influence."That's why we love this beautiful game, and that's why I always call it 'the game we love', and that's the magic of football." Muslic's passion is apparent to anyone who meets him. He is a man who has a steely look in his eyes but a warm and welcoming nature and is able to engage a room - just ask anyone who watched the video of his first speech to Argyle's players. It all comes down to his background. "It's the definition of who I am today as a coach, but most important, who I am today as a human being," he says of his early life. Whether his side wins or loses on Sunday against Liverpool, Muslic shows that you can make it no matter what hurdles are in your way. "If I look to the locker room of Argyle, they are just lads from all over the world, and it works," he says. "So imagine the world as a locker room; it would be a good place to be."
