Aston Villa, down to the bare bones again for tomorrow's visit of Fulham after skipper Olof Mellberg joined David O'Leary's lengthy injury list, remain confident of putting right their poor home record.
O'Leary targeted six home wins from Villa's final six home games earlier this month. That was based not on what had gone before at Villa Park this season (three home wins out of 13), but on the comparatively easy home run-in. And his patched-up side got the first of those victories against Portsmouth three weeks ago. Since then, Villa have suffered three away defeats in the space of eight miserable days, the most recent of which, at Everton last Saturday, had the fans voicing their disenchantment with the under-fire manager.
But now Villa are back on home soil, to face a travel-sick Fulham side who despite beating league leaders Chelsea last Sunday, have picked up just three away points this season. With three more of the bottom four due at Villa Park and unpredictable Manchester City, O'Leary's men are thinking only positive thoughts.
"We've let ourselves down at home," said Villa midfielder Gavin McCann. "Saturday is very important. Hopefully, this can be the result that gets us going to the end of the season. We need to win our last five games at Villa Park just to say we've got a half decent home record."
McCann insists Villa can achieve their aim.
"After Fulham, we've got the two derbies coming up, which are massive, but we've got a good derby record this season, we owe Man City one, then we've got Sunderland on the last day.
"We know we've not shown any consistency, and have not had back-to-back wins since November. But we're still ten points clear of the bottom three and, if we win our home games, we'll be okay."
Mellberg, who has a ham-string problem, joins a list of missing defenders that includes season-long absentee Martin Laursen and Mark Delaney and Jlloyd Samuel who has flu.
Aaron Hughes, who has had to tread gingerly this week to overcome the effects of last weekend's virus, will therefore switch from right-back to centre-back again and O'Leary will give Ulises de la Cruz his first start since early October. Milan Baros also looks set to miss out for a second Saturday running with his ankle problem. And O'Leary has given up on his hopes of having James Milner fit.
Milner, sent home and ordered to rest for a week because of a mystery illness, was missing for all three of Villa's three away defeats. Athough he reported back to the training ground at Body-moor Heath yesterday, O'Leary will not risk the midfielder and has sent him off for more blood tests.
The queue for Villa's treatment room is worrying. But McCann insists there is cause for optimism.
"We've gone from playing very well against Blackburn, to then going out of the cup to City, to last Saturday, when we know we should have done better than we did.
"There have been a lot of negative comments about the club because we've under achieved and we know we should be in a better position, but we've still got good players.
"The way it went at Everton summed up our week. We had enough chances against Blackburn to win all three games, then against City we just never got going, and it was the same again on Saturday.
"But all we need is a win to give the fans something to cheer about.
"Sometimes you can hear the chants like we had last week, although mostly you shut it out. But we experienced the same thing in reverse up at Middlesbrough and Steve Bruce had it the other night, and you've just to get on with it.
"I admit that you're always happier when you're winning. But I don't walk around with my head down or come in here and sulk.
"Once you get out there training, you're just preparing for the next game and looking for the next win. And how can you not enjoy coming in here to do this job?"
