brummie

If you want a striker who will be there in the box and apply the finishing touch, Bent is one of the best around, still. The reason we are selling him is that we don't play that way. A side who plays with wingers and balls whipped into the box would be perfect for him. Like us under MON

He isn't

€63m. Really? Nuts.

Gervinho is absolutely shit. Or as my Arsenal ST holding friend says, "absolutely pony" That article: "To be honest, if we receive an offer in the region of £10 million for Gervinho then I think the club should consider it." Ha ha, "consider it" indeed.

Given has three years left on his deal, thus the bit about refusing a new contract makes no sense, and makes the whole thing smack of being invented by a 15 year old.

Villa seem to be looking to spend money again this summer. Could be good for them if they build on what they have currently got. I still believe this season will have been good for them with blooding young players Yep, since they survived it was a good idea. Not so much if they had gone down, but it worked out just. Don't think they had much choice really with the state of them when Lambert took over. If I was them I'd be going after Lescott. Why? They are following the BVB formula. Buy good, young, cheap players and let them develop. Though cheap, I don't believe most of the players Villa have signed are particularly good. Westwood, Benteke and Lowton have been excellent. Sylla came in late on and looked solid. Bennett, Vlaar and El Ahmadi have looked ok in patches. The thing with buying young talent is that it will be inconsistent to start with. Lowton was playing for Sheffield Utd and Westwood for Crewe. That's why they are cheap, if they were the finished product they'd cost way more. Also worth bearing in mind, Weimann and Delph are young players we already had who have been hugely improved under Lambert. It is going to take a while and may fail but it is 1000 times more encouraging than the season before, and people seem to have bought into it. We bought Westwood after compiling a 30 game dossier on him (according to the Crewe manager, who hadn't even realised we were watching him). He cost 1m plus a pre season friendly. That's exactly the sort of new approach we need, especially as we are still paying off MON's huge money, no scouting approach. I do think we could use a bit if experience this summer, though. Lescott as mentioned above would be perfect.

How did Holman do? Did he, by any chance, run around like a dog who has slipped his lead in the park and can't find its owner, so just tear arses around cluelessly?

If Wellbeck and Cleverley both have an important role in the future development of English football, then we might as well just give up. And they are far from the only average players there. England's old problem for decades was decent players but a shit team. Now we have mediocre players and a shit team. No doubt, next time there's a kerfuffle in some qualification screw up, or we lose in the QF of a tournament against the first half decent team we face, there will be the same wailing and gnashing of teeth. Perhaps Sir Trevor Brooking will talk yet again about how we need to change things (whilst ignoring the fact that he himself has been working in the higher echelons of English football for about a quarter of a century by now, and so is himself a part of the problem, given that he has done nothing at all to turn things around). We might do something like point at that training centre in Burton as evidence of how we're moving forward, but all the time we'll be totally missing the fact that we need to change things right down to the basics, right down to grass roots level. Except that'd mean a year zero approach to English football, and redistributing a lot of wealth (ie from the FA, the clubs) to go elsewhere, which is precisely why people will sit on their hands and do nothing. Meanwhile, in another 30 years time, nothing will have changed, we'll still be shit, and the same idiocy will prevail. We seem to have spent, what, four decades on a constant loop of golden hope players, out of date football, shit results and delusion at every major tournament. It's like being stuck in a shit shop for hours on end, listening to the same background music. Every now and then, it'll reach the end of the playlist and start again at the beginning, but you're still there, stuck in a never-ending loop of bollocks. There are so many things wrong with the English game at pretty much every level. Perhaps what we really need is for the whole money obsessed, short termist house of cards to collapse.

I have no idea how bright or not Simpson is, but strictly speaking, to be no match for Tulisa's intellect, wouldn't you have to be some sort of farmyard animal? Or a moss or an algae or something.

That is nonsense. The days of us spending that sort of money on one player are over for a while yet.

Any reason this one is particularly foreboding? We've had some pretty bad ones in recent years. I think the transfer market is increasingly polarised. The likes of Man City spunking 25m here and there, a handful of other clubs trying to keep pace with them, then the rest of the league, coming to terms with the idea of wage and transfer restraint and looking for value above all else. Not that that is a bad thing. I do think it'll be the sort of factor which seperates the good managers from the less good.

Obviously, apart from James Milner. I would walk up to Manchester, throw him across my shoulders, and carry him all the way back to Villa Park if at all possible.

Thing is, though, what did Sinclair expect? They might be confident of their own abilities, but the majority of these players of his level - as opposed to most of the players they sign - who go to Man City do so knowing they're not going to get anywhere near the pitch for any amount of time, it is almost entirely about the $$$. I think that says a lot about a player, and to me it sets off a great big warning alarm.

Cut the man some slack. He broke his leg at Wembley. Have some fucking respect. He never fucking learns. The bloke is an absolute cock socket of the highest order.

There are some aspects to footballers' abilities are nothing to do with acquired knowledge, though. To suggest you can just teach players things and, if they work hard enough, they'll be good players is entirely wide of the mark, in my opinion. Is Messi a product of hard work and good training and the environment he was brought up in?

http://abload.de/img/moureturrrrrnedj4n.gif

if that's the case, then, given that all US players give 100 percent all the time, shouldn't they al be amazing players (instead of just Brad Guzan, obvs)?

Is this a joke, Deuce? American footballers have always been lauded for their athletic ability. We may not have the most gifted footballers, but our players always give 100%. And scientifically, there is no such thing as natural talent. Yes there is. Or, there are at least physical and mental attributes you can be born with which make football a game you find easier to play than many others. Sense of balance, peripheral vision, mental strength, physical strength, height even.

Yeh hes not the best. In fact hes shit. hell certainly be leaving villa this window. McLeish's last present to us.

On the subject of Australian football, can I just say, Holman isn't very good, and runs and pants like a 65 year old, so you can add a few years to his effective age. That is all.

Can someone explain the big deal about that hotel? Thats about the tenth time I've heard it being mentioned by various mackems, I know theres next to f**k-all down there but they seem inordinately proud of it! Guess it's a bit of a novelty for them. They're just glorified Travelodge's imo. Wow, fancy that. A hotel. It'll be department stores and restaurants next.

It probably says a bit about current football (and about me, too, I guess) to say that I really could not give one hundredth of a flying fuck who wins the league next year.

Maybe a little, but I wouldn't complain if I were you He is off the books from July 1st, so hasta la vista, you fat bastard.

Is it, or is it not, a bit strange that Richard Dunne can be out for the entire season for Villa, yet declare himself fit to play for the ROI this week?

What's wrong with it? It is clearer and more modern than your old badge. Your old badge had horrible-ass gradients all over the show. No laurel wreaths, a tower that looks like a 5 year old tried to draw a beehive, Leeds-esque colours, no motto and just generally looking extremely cheap, tacky and amateurish. Which is exactly what it is, amateurish. I actually agree that the badge needs updating (the current version is a bit of a mess in itself) but they didn't even bring in a proper graphic design agency to modernise it, instead doing it on the cheap by letting the 'in-house design team' (aka failures who design ticket stubs for a living) loose on it. I've calmed down a bit now and won't be sending my ticket back unless we hire Iain Dowie but I do still wish a horrible death upon everyone involved in this clusterfuck In 2 days there's been universal uproar from the fanbase, a petition with almost 20k signatures against it, an anti-twitter account with a load of followers, most popular news story worldwide on the BBC and negative coverage in every paper, which tells me this won't last past next season. In their infinite wisdom, the club have already ordered millions worth of merchandise, kits, signage, fittings, stationary etc so they can't change it for the new season. Fucking mongs. It is nowhere near as bad as the abomination that was foisted on us two years ago as our new badge, which rumour has it, was designed by Lerner himself. Using MS Paint, one assumes.