Alex Mcleish will be desperate to claim back his 'Most Negative Manager in the Premiership' title this weekend as he welcomes David Moyes' team to Villa Park. Moyes, who is coming off the back of a self-proclaimed 'good performance' in which his team successfully had zero shots on target at White Heart Lane, has been riding his wave of boredom up and down English football grounds since the beginning of the season, managing to get his two main threats, Louis Saha and Tim Cahill, to play over 2000 minutes combined and score 1 goal.
If the pundits are to be believed, Moyes will line up with his patented 'Fake 4-4-2'. Starting with more than one striker, Moyes lures Everton fans into a false sense of belief that his team may attack utilising two strikers who naturally play in that position. This, of course, is not to be confused with Moyes' 4-4-1-1 in which he applies Tim Cahill in the 'Tim Cahill role'. Everton supporters have become increasingly disenchanted with the Tim Cahill role as they are unsure as to what it is or what it does. If Moyes does go for his fake 4-4-2 we are likely to see numerous players playing out of position which is guaranteed to add to the boredom and be the catalyst for the manager keeping his dullness title.
Alex Mcleish is surely going to look to play Emile Heskey as a winger to tackle the audacious 6 defenders Moyes usually has in his starting eleven. One ace that Mcleish does have up his sleeve that could trump Moyes Boys is the amount of terrible young prospects he has available on his bench. Chris Herd, Barry Bannan, Fabian Delph and Ciaren Clark will be itching to get off the bench and effect the game in the most minuscule way possible. Expect Mcleish to start with one upfront and to look to Richard Dunne and James Collins to place as many headers over the opposing team's bar from set pieces.
A tough encounter between two incredibly depressing football sides in which boredom is most like going to be the winner.