Three points vital

Forget Wembley, forget the Grand National... tomorrow at Villa Park represents the biggest game of Villa's season.

Forget St Andrew's, or Stamford Bridge, the Emirates, Old Trafford and Anfield... this game against Bolton is massive in so many ways.

Perhaps as big a home game since Villa played Sunderland a few years ago needing to win to make mathemtaically sure they would stay up. They clinched that one through Marcus Allback. Where are the heroes going to come from tomorrow?

Confidence is fragile after a woeful four games, culminating in a pasting in Manchester- albeit by perhaps the finest team performance I have seen in the Premiership.

The goalkeeper is nervous, Nigel Reo-Coker is never a full-back, Ashley Young and Gabby Agbonlahor are going through atrocious runs and John Carew and Marlon Harewood likewise.

The conspiracy theorists will be adding Olof Mellberg's impending move to Juventus to say he doesn't care, and saying the same about Wilfred Bouma because- with just three weeks to go- he still hasn't heard about a new contract or whether he will be a free agent in the summer.

How can it have come to this? Wins over Newcastle and Reading and a draw at Arsenal had got everyone buzzing.

A team can often survive with one or two players out of form... but seven or eight? Not a chance.

So then to Bolton. Fighting for their lives and ordinarily three points to Villa. But so too were Boro and Sunderland, and what is is about bad news arriving in threes?

Gary Megson has already won at Villa once this season with a bunch of no-hopers. Surely he couldn't do it again?

I'm actually clueless for a change (no need for smart comment here) as to how Villa will line up.

Throughout the season I've been able to get nine or ten of the starters and frequently all eleven.

But tomorrow? Will Zat Knight return? My guess is that he has to.

Can he stay with Petrov in midfield after one game back at United? Maybe not.

Harewood up front? Well, he has picked Carew and Agbonlahor all season.

Where will Maloney fit in?

Any chance of Patrik Berger, Isiah Osbourne, Wayne Routledge or Moustapha Salifou coming in? Well the manager talks a good game about doing so, but then in the same breath bemoans a lack of a reserve game last week.

So many possibles...

And then there is the small matter of the return of Gary Cahill, Gavin McCann and Jlloyd Samuel.

As if we didn't need something else to spice up the occasion?!

I'm sure Cahill will get a cracking reception. McCann deserves one too. Poor Jlloyd's popularity had been on the slide after a sustained period on the sidelines and I doubt if many were too concerned to see him go.

A win for Villa- however it arrives- and they'll be just a point behind Portsmouth who may have other bigger fish on their minds.

Villa will also start to sniff the prospect of catching a stuttering Everton in fifth. Everton, who have lost to Fulham and Liverpool and drawn with West Ham of late.

Lose or draw tomorrow though, and those critics circling the manager and Randy Lerner over the lack of investment in January, will have fuel added to their fires.

Villa might have Derby County on the horizon but they will be wondering where their next result will be coming from... with the ever-so-small matter of a derby against Blues next.