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Key events
Email! “Playing Asensio seems a bit harsh to me,” says Kieran McKintosh. “And considering PSG aren’t that far away, a bit questionable. My second-largest hope for today is a Rashford goal. It really has been a long time coming. My largest hope, though, has gotta be hoping someone, anyone, will sell me that Lego set I’ve wanted for years at a decent price. No, eBay, 604 pieces does NOT merit £140. Anyway, up the Villa and all that. I do have a soft spot for them after last season.”
This shark just trod on one of those 604 pieces.
Villa, meanwhile, will use Rashford and Ramsey to attack the outsides of the wide centre-backs, with Rogers making third-man runs into the box, with Asensio dropping off. This could well leave the Preston centre-backs with no one to mark, runners asked to target space in behind and get them turned. But I’d not be surprised to see Ollie Watkins introduced at some point, to offer a focal point.
Where is the game? Well, Preston’s intentions are plain: defend deep and limit space in the middle of the pitch, with the two centre-forwards looking to bother centre-backs more used to marking one man between then. They’ll also want to get at the space behind the Villa full-backs, who’ll be asked to supply much of their side’s attacking width.
It wasn’t the greatest of international breaks for Rashford. Cut a break by Thomas Tuchel, who quite rightly appreciates his quality – and, you’d have to imagine, his effectiveness of the bench – he was unable to make the most of a recall he didn’t really earn. But that was in a new team not yet settled into what the coach wants, whereas at Villa, he’ll know exactly what’s expected of him, and I’d not be at all surprised were he definitive this afternoon.
I’m assuming that Villa will be playing Rashford from the left, with Asensio through the middle. Really, the former ought by now to have matured into an effective centre-forward, but his hold-up play is no better now than when he broke through as a giggling teenager. Perhaps Emery has the smarts to coach him into the player he should be, but in the meantime, he’s far more effective coming off the flank.
As for Villa, Unai Emery leaves out Maatsen, McGinn and Watkins, with Digne, Ramsey and Asensio coming in.
Paul Heckingbottom makes five changes to the site that beat Portsmouth 2-1 two weeks ago. Out go Woodman, Kesler-Harden, Porteos, Lindsay and Ledson; in come Cornell, Hughes, Storey, Brady and Whiteman.
I’m going to write these down, then we’ll consider how things might unfold.
Teams!
Preston North End (5-3-2): Cornell; Brady, Storey, Gibson, Hughes, Meghoma; Thordarson, Whniteman, Frokjaer; Keane, Jakobsen. Subs: Stowell, Lindsay, Bauer, Pasiek, Tarry, Carroll, Mawene, Evans, Osmajic.
Aston Villa (4-2-3-1): Martínez; Cash, Konsa, Mings, Digne; Tielemans, Kamara; Rashford, Rogers, Ramsey; Asensio. Subs: Olsen, Bogarde, Maatsen, Garcia, Torres, Onana, Malen, Watkins, McGinn.
Preamble
Football represents our connection to past and future, an eternal continuum that simultaneously teaches family history and the history of the world. And the stories we’re told, full-on sensory experiences with familiar grammar but idiosyncratic features, allow us to remember things that we don’t remember, part of something local and global, uniform and unique, personal and collective. Football makes us, and our planet, both bigger and smaller.
There are few names in our game more stirringly evocative than that of Preston North End, league champions in the first two seasons of English football, twice FA Cup winners and the club of Tom Finney, Alex Dawson and Bill Shankly. But it’s been a tricky 60 or so years since the last of those moved on, Championship mediocrity their current ennui – each of the last nine seasons have seen them finish between seventh and 14th, which happens to be where they sit at the time of writing.
Nor have the cups offered much joy, which makes this, their first quarter-final since 1966, a game of barely quantifiable resonance. Of course, Villa are nasty opponents, seven-time winners but not since 1957 and without a trophy since 1996; chances are that at some point this afternoon, they move into the last four. Preston, though – players and fans alike – will see the story of their lives as building to this moment and a once-in-a-generation shot at immortality.
Kick-off: 1.30pm BST, baby
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