Aston Villa versus Tottenham Hotspur Location:Villa Park (Birmingham) Date: Sunday, December 26th Time: 17:30 BST/12:30 p.m. Eastern/9:00 a.m. Pacific Records (W-D-L, +/-, Place): Aston Villa, 5-5-7, -9, 15th Tottenham Hotspur, 7-6-4, +3, 5th

Aston Villa: Friedel; Lichaj, Cuellar, Collins, Warnock; Albrighton, Delph, Hogg, Downing; Agbonlahor, Heskey

Subs: Guzan, Pires, Delfouneso, Petrov, Reo-Coker, Clark, Bannan.

Tottenham Hotspur: Gomes; Hutton, Dawson, Kaboul, Assou-Ekotto; Lennon, Palacios, Modric, Bale; Van der Vaart; Defoe.

Subs: Cudicini, Jenas, Bassong, Kranjcar, Corluka, Pavlyuchenko, Crouch

Fabian Delph returned to full training from a severe knee injury just this week and today he gets the start for Villa against Spurs, leaving Barry Bannan and Nigel Reo-Coker on the bench. This is odd to say the least, and while it's beyond exciting to see the youngster return it's also a bit puzzling to see him get the nod today. Even more bizarre as far as I am concerned is the fact that Delph will be paired with Hogg; either Houllier is going with a very defensive look this afternoon or Fabian Delph will be employed as an attacking midfield.

This is honestly so completely unexpected that I am going to stop trying to figure it out. Fabian Delph is pretty awesome, so let's just enjoy that.

UTV