Extinguished birthday candles and No Jacket Required on the decks

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TRICKY VILLA

Sunday’s FA Cup semi-final between Liverpool and Aston Villa was always going to be an intriguing battle between teams managed by a pair of youthful up-and-coming managers regularly tipped for great things by themselves. In the red corner: Brendan Rodgers, whose team has taken four points from the 21 available to them against sides above them in the table so far this season. The same Brendan Rodgers whose undeniable qualities as a coach are rarely questioned, but whose abilities as a manager are under scrutiny on the back of some poor transfer activity, rumours he has “lost” the dressing room, a group stage Big Cup exit and his team’s worrying reputation for choking on the big occasion. In the claret and blue corner: Tim Sherwood, a gilet-wearing comparative whelp of the management game, who invented Harry Kane, did reasonably well at Spurs, was until yesterday doing reasonably well at Aston Villa and whose propensity for talking like an actual human being provides a welcome press conference antidote to the often baffling management babble peddled by his opposite number. Who would prevail?

‘IT’S A SORT OF IMMORTALITY’