Damien
April 17, 2026
Last night was very good and I’m struggling to find anything that made me think this was strange or why did we do this. Disappointed with the missed penalty but the penalties are saved and that happens to everyone.
The approach to the game, the energy, the professionalism, it was almost ninety perfect minutes. But I’m an Aston Villa fan, so I’m not too excited or too optimistic. I think in writing it was almost the perfect ninety minutes, it’s so exciting, but I have a habit of contradicting myself.
And now we have Nottingham Forest in the semi-final. It won’t be easy and over two games anything can happen, but I think we can all have a little confidence that we will approach the games the way we should and that the players will know what is expected of them. The manager certainly knows what awaits him at this stage of the tournament.
But this article is about Sunderland on Sunday. We have six matches this season to secure the Champions League next season. As it stands we’re in a good position and I wrote about something I saw on X in the previous post, but apparently two wins should statistically give us a very good chance. I think nine points and we are in a very good position.
And it starts with Sunderland at Villa Park on Sunday and although they are tenth, they are also playing for a chance at European football this season. They beat us and we will talk about their qualification for the Champions League. It’s not going to be a walk in the park, but if we approach this game the same way we approached last night’s game, we put ourselves in the best possible position to get the first three points out of the nine we need.
Match the BBC Facts
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Aston Villa have lost just one of their last 13 league matches against Sunderland (W6 D6), losing 3-1 at the Stadium of Light in January 2016.
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Sunderland have not won any of their last six away league matches against Aston Villa (D4 L2). It is their first visit since a 2-1 Championship defeat in November 2017, and their first in the Premier League since a 2-2 draw in August 2015.
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Aston Villa finished 2025 on a run of 12 wins from 14 Premier League games (L2), but since the start of the year the Villans have picked up just 16 points from 13 games (W4, D4, L5), placing them 14th in the table in 2026.
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Sunderland have won their last two Premier League games and are looking to record three consecutive wins in the top flight for the first time since a run of four in April/May 2014. This will be their 148th game in the top flight since then.
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Aston Villa have never lost to a newly promoted Premier League side under Unai Emery (14 wins, 5 draws), with their last defeat coming against Fulham in October 2022 in Steven Gerrard’s final game in charge. Sunderland, however, are one of three teams Emery has faced in the competition and have never been beaten (P1, D1), along with Ipswich (D2) and Liverpool (D4, L6).
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Sunderland have won 46 Premier League points this season, already their most in a top-flight season since 2010-11 (47). If they win this game, it would be their most since 57 points in 2000-01.
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Since the start of February, only Newcastle (9) have lost more points from winning position than Aston Villa (7) in the Premier League. They have won only two of their last five matches leading (2 draws, 1 loss), having won 23 of their previous 24 when they previously led (1 draw).
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Sunderland’s 12 Premier League wins this season are as many as the three newly promoted sides managed together last season. It is the most wins by a promoted team in a season since Fulham won 15 in 2022-23.
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John McGinn has been involved in five goals in his last six Premier League home matches for Aston Villa (3 goals, 2 assists). Villa have won 58% of their matches with the Scot in the starting XI this season (14/24), compared to just 25% without him (2/8).
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Only Wolves (12) have seen players of more different nationalities (excluding own goals) score in the Premier League this season than Sunderland (11), although the Black Cats are the only team without an English striker.
PakarPBN
A Private Blog Network (PBN) is a collection of websites that are controlled by a single individual or organization and used primarily to build backlinks to a “money site” in order to influence its ranking in search engines such as Google. The core idea behind a PBN is based on the importance of backlinks in Google’s ranking algorithm. Since Google views backlinks as signals of authority and trust, some website owners attempt to artificially create these signals through a controlled network of sites.
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