Straddling this game like the Sword of Damocles, is Juve's midweek trip to Galatasaray in the Champions League, where they have to avoid defeat to progress to the knock out stage, having already struggled against the Turkish champions in Turin, they will be well aware of what awaits them in Istanbul. Holding a healthy three point advanatge over Roma at the top of Serie A, I know full well that Juve would snatch your arm off for a 1-0 win this evening and if they do take the lead, I expect them to go into their shell and conserve as much energy as possible for Tuesday.

 Despite going two down early, Villa did us a favour in their last away start, a 2-2 draw with local rivals WBA, ahead of which I wrote ....

I speak often about the newsletter being worth so much more than basic results and if you look at the preview below, which was sent to subscribers on Monday, it might give you some idea of what I am going on about. Take 90 seconds and read it.

This was a fairly meaningless fixture and just one of probably 30-32 similar previews that clubgowi subscribers will receive this week.

Juventus have really hit their stride in Serie A, scored a few goals , conceding few and that Roma five point advantage of a month ago has disappeared and the Old Lady is back on top. Carlos Tevez and Fernando Llorente are starting to gel up front and things are suddenly looking rosy, but they are at the foot of this Champions League group and simply have to win tonight and I feel it will be more about the result, than performance and that unless the first goal comes very early,we will see Juve adopt a professional and pragmatic approach.

Massive game for the hosts who are bottom of Ligue 1, four points from safety and with three of their next four starts after this evening, on the road, including a trip to leaders PSG.

They showed signs of improvement before the mini break, with a win over Montpellier in the Cup, home point with St Etienne (should have won) and narrow defeat at Marseille , which we previewed.....

Some of you clubgowi free to view content hunters got a bit of a bonus yesterday , as I posted the Friday early newsletter on one of our little used blog pages at midday for "test" purposes and it is on this link if you want to take a look.

Marseille won 3-1, Troyes 3-0 and the "over" in Istres-Nimes was landed 4-2 (three goals inside 36 minutes), which made for another very good day.