Carling Cup gives Aston Villa boss a chance to keep fringe players happy

Oct 27 2009 by Mathew Kendrick, Birmingham Post

Martin O’Neill subscribes to the theory that you can’t please all of the people all of the time, especially when it comes to competitive football club dressing rooms.

But the Aston Villa manager accepts that entering the silverware-winning stratosphere of the big boys would certainly give him a better chance of keeping players happy.

O’Neill sends Villa into action at Steve Bruce’s Sunderland this evening in the fourth round of the Carling Cup just three wins away from a Wembley final.

However, although the competition represents the claret and blues’ best chance of glory since they won it in a former guise 13 years ago, O’Neill knows it also provides an opportunity to give frustrated fringe players first team football.

The Irishman, who lifted the trophy twice as a player and as a manager at Nottingham Forest and Leicester City respectively, accepts that it is a “Catch 22 situation” whether to name his strongest XI or a rotated XI.

O’Neill is likely to settle on the latter, with Emile Heskey, Nigel Reo-Coker, Fabian Delph, Luke Young and Brad Guzan among those in contention for a rare taste of competitive football this evening.

For the Villa manager recognises that, until his team are successful enough to add to their trophy cabinet, the players on the periphery of his Premier League starting line-up will only get contentment from occasional action.