January 05, 2008	Saturday	Zilhaj 25, 1428

BIRMINGHAM, Jan 4: It would be no surprise if Martin O’Neill was sick of the sight of Manchester United but the Aston Villa manager has every reason to believe his side can finally end a frustrating run of failure against Sir Alex Ferguson’s team.

The two clubs come into this third round clash having faced each other at this stage of the competition three times in the previous six seasons with United triumphing on each occasion.

But with Villa playing as well as they have done for years - and United having stuttered unconvincingly through a difficult festive programme - a repeat victory for Ferguson’s side at Villa Park is not a foregone conclusion.

The United manager’s decision to criticise the Old Trafford crowd for the lack of atmosphere during the narrow new year’s day league victory over Birmingham may have distracted from his players’ underwhelming recent form.

But with Argentine play-maker Carlos Tevez - scorer of the only goal against Birmingham - missing with a bruised ankle, Ferguson will be forced to look elsewhere for inspiration if his side are to retain hope of improving on last season’s run when they were defeated by Chelsea in the Wembley final.

Wayne Rooney’s return after a two-game absence should at least compensate for the loss of Tevez, but with fast-improving Villa having moved to sixth in the Premier League on the back of a five-game unbeaten run, United’s passage into the fourth round is far from assured.

O’Neill declared after the draw that “I’d have taken a home tie against anybody” and the recent performances against Spurs and Chelsea have done nothing to temper that view.

Gabriel Agbonhalor, the Villa winger who is expected to receive his first England call-up under new coach Fabio Capello, insists they must target a replay at a minimum.

United condemned Villa to a humiliating 4-1 defeat earlier this season in a match that also saw Scott Carson, the England goalkeeper, and Nigel Reo-Coker both dismissed.

Agbonlahor said: “We got on top of them last time, but against those teams, I don’t think it’s good to score the first goal.

“I think we got them angry and they came back at us! We’ve got to go out and do what we did against Tottenham and Chelsea and get at least a replay out of it.

“We’ve shown we can hurt them and, on our day, we can hurt anyone. We’ve got to try to stop them from scoring because we’re capable of scoring in every game.”

”They thumped us in the League. But this is the FA Cup, so you never know what to expect. We’ll try our best and see what happens. We know they’re so strong, especially at home, so we’ve just got to try our hardest and see what we can get out of the game.”—AFP