Aston Villa 1-0 Crystal Palace - 6 Things We Learned

On Tuesday 12th January, Aston Villa welcomed Crystal Palace to Villa Park in a game that both sides desperately needed to win. Aston Villa hadn't won a league game since the opening game of the season - a run of 157 days - and looked like a team that were already preparing for life in the Championship. To make matters worse, captain Micah Richards clashed with fans after their 1-1 draw with Wycombe in the FA Cup. It looked like the Villa team had lost the fans and with that, any hope of getting anything out of this game. Palace were also on a run that they wanted to put to an end after not scoring and not winning in their last three league games. An impressive 2-1 win at Southampton in their previous game in the FA Cup meant that their fans would be going into this game hoping that the club had put their recent poor form behind them. Team News: Micah Richards and Brad Guzan dropped to the bench for Aston Villa while Libor Kozak started his first game in the league since Boxing Day 2013. Palace were still without long term absentees Dwight Gayle and Yannick Bolasie while Bakary Sako was to make his first start since Palace's away win at Liverpool in November. Connor Wikham was fit for a place on the bench after missing out on the previous three games.