brummie

He said he doesn't get sports you utter loon. Sorry, that bit of insanity passed me by. Why have Sky without the Sports? I've got Sky without the sports. The basic package, means I can get Sky Atlantic and all that decent stuff. As for the sports, I tend to steal them from the internet. Or, in the Lambert era this season, not steal them from the internet. *gangster pose*

I don't really know of any dislike between us and Wolves. Mind you, I doubt that would impact where a player goes in any case.

I got a letter from Sky this week which started with the line: "Good news! The price of your subscription is not going up!" Made me really angry. They treat it like fucking train fares, the yearly hike of which is now effectively a meekly accepted tax people have to accept to get on with their lives.

Forgot. You made Cleverley look really good, too.

You reminded me of us this season under Lambert. Constant tactics fiddling, enough passing the ball around, zero purpose. Team didn't look like they knew what they were doing. What on earth was Rodgers thinking bringing Rickie Lambert on on 91 minutes? You're losing, Brendan. You're wasting time, which is what we're supposed to be doing. We played well, but I can honestly say I've seen us play better than that this season, and come away with less, and sometimes nothing. Rodgers strikes me as an informed tactician, but one who doesn't really get how to make it work on the pitch, especially when the opposition aren't making it easy for you. It's also worth noting that only QPR currently have more injured players than we do. We played on Sunday with a not very good right winger at right back and a really poor midfielder at left back. We also had our best defender this season - Clark who has improved out of all recognition this year - out, and also were without Agbonlahor, who, despite not being exactly prolific, usually does well for us in matches like this. On top of that, we lost Baker in the first half, and had a 19 year old who had only started one game in his life playing. I'm the most pessimistic Villa fan you'll find, but I genuinely didn't think we'd lose that game for a moment on Sunday. Liverpool really need to be a bit worried.

Normally, I don't do the whole "supporters of club x are all y" thing. We're all fans, ultimately, and have more in common than divides us. However, really, Liverpool's support at the match on Sunday was horrific. I did a full circuit of the stadium before the match, and really, it was a vision of football hell. So many red foam hands, jester hats, fucking half and half scarves, whole nervous looking families clad in replica shirts, grown adults looking like they'd been in a hurricane inside the club shop. During the match I was bang on the halfway line in the middle, neutral level, and the lack of noise from them was almost total. Bar YNWA at the start (which got booed out, anyway) and an outburst of that horrible "Fields of Anfield Road" song after they scored, that was pretty much the lot. I appreciate it's partly because they get to big matches far more often than we do, so maybe they're blase' about it, but really, it was absolutely shocking stuff. I thought maybe I was being overly critical, so looked on RAWK and there's a thread there of them saying exactly the same thing. Their away support (which is similar when they come to VP) seems to be disproportionately made up of passive day trippers who have bought into the "brand", the result of which is that they manage to combine impressive numbers with truly poor noise. I have little against Liverpool. I hated them winning everything in the 70s and 80s, yes, but I have way, way more distaste for Man United. What I don't get is how, when, say, Man United come and play us, their support seems to be made up mostly of Mancs, who make very good noise, yet when we play Liverpool, there's hardly a scouse accent amongst them? Do Liverpool have some strange ticket allocation system going on which makes this possible? Before, during and after the match, we got chatting to some scouse Liverpool fans, who were, to a man, a good bunch, and after the match, really magnanimous in defeat, but coming home, I was thinking how I actually feel sorry for them. That RAWK thread is really worth a read. I know Liverpool traditionally have a bit of antagonism between their regional support and the rest, and thought that Reclaim the Kop thing was cringemaking, but after Sunday, I am starting to understand the problem a bit more.

We always say that footballers are out of touch with reality. Isn't the flip side of someone like Asprilla being such a talented mentalist on the pitch that he's going to be a bit, well, "different" off it? ** ** understatement of decade

Shit, sorry, genuinely didn't realsed you'd played today.

Fuck. Me, What a fucking day I've had. I am so glad I fluked a freebie for that. What a fucking brilliant day out that was. Just brilliant.

I can't believe any of you really think you're going to get relegated. You're already on a total which could well be enough for the season.

Liquidator? Aye. White supremiscists love a bit of reggae. Wolves (I think) and Albion do, too. The song, not the white supremacy, probably for the opposite reasons in their case. Great song, too. Am jealous. "Fuck off West Brom, we're Wolves" they sing, don't they? And I believe the Albion fans sing "Fuck off the Wolves" to it. There was something about their club trying to get people to stop doing it a few years back, so I don't know if they've stopped playing it.

Liquidator? Aye. White supremiscists love a bit of reggae. Wolves (I think) and Albion do, too. The song, not the white supremacy, probably for the opposite reasons in their case. Great song, too. Am jealous.

Wembley in the late evening sunshine looks lovely. I bet it fucking tanks it down all day tomorrow. Come on, Reading, you sort-of-history-less-characterless-town-full-of-rootless-London-overspill-people-who-probably-prefer-rugby hoopy bastards!

Ha ha, and in a massive, massive volte face, a mate has just offered me a freebie in a box in the Club Wembley Gold area and I've accepted it. Fucking LOVE Club Wembley, me, like.

He's done ok. We are bearable to watch. Quite entertaining, in fact, which is borne out by the massive uplift in goals scored since he came. As a person, though, he strikes me as a bit of a thick idiot. A well meaning thick idiot, mind, but all that gillet throwing stuff is a bit embarrassing. He reminds me of O'Neill is his touchline antics. Let's just hope that's where the similarities end. I think we'll find out what those are this summer, as although he's clearly a decent coach (although apparently Tony Parkes is massively involved in the coaching), we have no idea what he's like doing the other bits of management (ie the transfers part). I still think we may have left it too late to sack Lambert. He should have gone ages ago. Hard to believe how depressing his reign got towards the end. It was worse than watching McLeish's side. So what about in general, then? Irreparable damage from previous tenures or can you feel the passion coming back? Well, scoring goals again has made a huge difference to spirits. If you look at Sherwood's win ratio here, it isn't actually that good, but trying to score and showing a bit of flair is a massive improvement on the eye-bleedingly bad shit from the earlier part of this season.

He's done ok. We are bearable to watch. Quite entertaining, in fact, which is borne out by the massive uplift in goals scored since he came. As a person, though, he strikes me as a bit of a thick idiot. A well meaning thick idiot, mind, but all that gillet throwing stuff is a bit embarrassing. He reminds me of O'Neill is his touchline antics. Let's just hope that's where the similarities end. I think we'll find out what those are this summer, as although he's clearly a decent coach (although apparently Tony Parkes is massively involved in the coaching), we have no idea what he's like doing the other bits of management (ie the transfers part). I still think we may have left it too late to sack Lambert. He should have gone ages ago. Hard to believe how depressing his reign got towards the end. It was worse than watching McLeish's side.

PS "Club Wembley", kiss my arse.

I've not got a ticket for our semi final on Sunday. I probably wouldn't have been able to get one had I even tried, to be honest, but the fact that I am not really hugely bothered strikes me as something of a watershed in my relationship with football. Mere piffery, I know, but I had to share. Next season I am going to try not even paying attention to results, then sometime, soon, I will be free. Screw you, football, with your money-raking Wembley semi finals (especially ones on a Sunday FFS). What a cartload of horse shit.

Does anyone else, upon hearing a member of the national media refer to Stamford Bridge as "The Bridge" or, even worse, White Hart Lane as "The Lane" feel a bit of sick coming up to the back of their mouth, or is it just me?

Could do with you inflicting some seriously grevious injuries on them, please.

I wish that were true, but they've won a couple of titles which they wouldn't have been anywhere near without said dosh.

I was thinking that earlier. Ashley really has got away with it this season. I honestly can't believe you're not in the relegation mix. You're easily bad enough, not just to be "in it", but to be at proper risk.

If we manage to score against you FOUR times in one half, you really are a poor side. They're in big trouble.

http://www.nufc.co.uk/page/Fans/FansForum/0,,10278~4540283,00.html Utter cunts man. That is exactly the approach our weasel took "we comply with all legislation", which is to be expected, I guess, but not what he was asked.

Incidentally, it's not just you. Slight tangent, this, but it says a lot about football. A couple of months ago, the Villa Supporters Trust organised a roundtable thing, at which members could come and talk to Tom Fox, our (recently appointed) CEO. Fox is the bloke who was chief commercial officer at Arsenal previously, American bloke who got them their mega shirt deal and what not. I was looking through the minutes of the meeting, and at the end, someone asked him if Villa could commit to paying *all* their staff the living wage, rather than the minimum wage. There was much umming and aahing, which ultimately came down to "we aren't planning to do that, and don't think we would". I believe the PL have since said all clubs are going to have to do it, but the fact was that we had a football club happy to throw 50k a week at utterly mediocre footballers pleading costs when it came to paying non-football employees that extra quid or so an hour. That just says it all about football, and the people who run it.