brummie

Hardly gonna finish 6th with current top 6 clubs though are they? It would takefairly sizeable investment for them to get to 7th or 8th. You wouldn't take it if it left the club financially crippled and having to appoint the likes of Alex McLeish to trim the wage bill, though. Also, getting into the top six now is entirely different to doing so in 2007. It takes a shit load more money, for starters, as in that time Man City have bought themselves a guaranteed berth in there. Tottenham seem to have made on of them theirs, too. Basically, you're now looking at Man U, Liverpool, Chelsea, Arsenal, Spurs, Man City in six places at the top, and breaking that cartel is going to take an awful lot more money than MON spent with us. He's not going to get that much at Sunderland, not a prayer.

It's exactly what brummie is saying on here. In fact, wouldn't be surprised if it was brummie. It wasn't me You'd be surprised, though, at how much agreement there is amongst Villa fans on O'Neill.

Incidentally, the Guardian said this Unfortunately, MON is the worst of the lot for not paying attention to modern coaching methods, and tactically he is utterly hopeless.

He definitely is a chequebook manager. NB that that is not necessarily a bad thing, but the fact is, his transfer policy is unbelievably UK focused - we had NO scouting network under him, zero - and UK based players cost money. Take the money away and he struggles. I am pretty convinced that when he left us, he really thought he was protecting his reputation - his first concern was Brand O'Neill, and having agreed on work to sort the wage bill with Lerner, he randomly changed his mind five days before the start of the season and decided he didn't want to. That was entirely about protecting his own brand. He didn't want a season of transition on his CV, and I reckon when he walked out, he thought he'd be in line for a bigger job next - England (gone, thanks to Redknapp), Man United (not a fucking prayer, Martin) etc. The problem is that a year and a bit on, he looks a less impressive manager than he did back then. I also really think that a lot of people have looked at the cause of his strop and flouncing off and the way he dropped us in the shit and realised it doesn't paint him in a good light.

PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE http://www.thefootballsocial.co.uk/images/players/aston%20villa/Emile%20Heskey.jpg

To be honest, it has probably taken our scouts months to get over the shock of leaving the UK

Yannick Djalo is apparently on his way (ie now) to us. He's not played for either the club he was leaving (Nice, I thnk) or Sporting as there was some fuck up involving registering the deal. I don't know anything aobut him, but he has a fancy foreign name, so he must be ACE

I despised Hutton when he was with us and stated it numerous times on here (even when he had his apparent good games). His positional sense is utterly disgusting, he ball watches ALL the time, he loses his man every time, he's just a piece of crap really. I fully agree. Especially the ball watching shit. Plus, he's a brainless thug.

Not only that, but we had Bardsley on loan under MON, and he sent him back

He's also clinically incapable of signing a good striker. Harewood FFS. Carew was decent for a while, but he only came because Houllier (at Lyon) offered him as bait for Baros. Oh, that's another thing. With us, signed about 40 players. How many were playing outside the UK? Two. A rookie keeper and Carew Doesn't do scouting, only shops in the most expensive market of all.

Two years ago, our wage bill was considerably higher than Tottenham's. We were paying Steve Sidwell 50k a week. They were paying Modric half that at the same time. Too many of our players sat around picking up 40k a week and offering nothing. Which manager, for example, would sanction giving a nearly-32 year old Emile Heskey 65k a week for three years? Or Beye, at 32, a three year 40k a week deal? That's what we are cutting back on now, not so much transfer spend, but wage bill, because it got so massively out of reality.

I've expounded a few post above. I don't really care if he goes there or not, but what I am not looking forward to is the return of the press fawning.

MON will need lots of money to take that job, otherwise how would he do his "buy entire defence, buy new entire defence the next season" routine. 2008-9: Friedel (2.5m), Luke Young (5m), Curtis Davies (9.5m), Carlos Cuellar (7m), Nicky Shorey (4m) then the very next season: 2009-10: Stephen Warnock (7m), James Collins (5m), Richard Dunne (5m), Habib Beye (2.5m) Or, looked at another way, 25m on centre halves in two years (to which you could add Zat Knight the year previous if you wanted to make it almost 30m) Curtis Davies (9.5m) last seen playing for Birmingham City after he went there for 3.5m. I'm not saying all was bad with MON, far from it, sixth three years in a row was decent if not stellar for the money he spent, but he's the definition of a short term manager - spends shit loads of money without looking at the broader management of the club, without "managing" in the real sense. Some of those players, like Shorey, for example, he bought then decided he didn't fancy, so dumped them in the reserves. He gets results by motivating the players (but only the ones he likes, the others might as well be dead). The problem is he spends massively in a scattergun approach (enough will turn out ok if you buy that many) without thinking about things like wage bills. And that is why we're fucked wage bill-wise right now. He also has almost zero involvement in training (with us, he'd turn up on Tuesday and Thursday), and leaves his two assistants in charge - Robertson, who apparently just stood at the touchline smoking and shouting at people, and Steve Walford, who used to put the cones out. In fact, the players were so disparaging of his training methods that they referred to Robertson and Walford as "Bibs and Cones". He also doesn't do tactics. There's one way of playing. That's fine, if it works, but when it doesn't work ..... he just carries on doing it. So with us it was counter attacking with pace. That's fine away from home where teams have a go at you, but at home where teams are more reticent, it doesn't fucking work. That's why our away record under him was frequently stellar, but our home record - points taken and goals scored - was dreadful. One more gripe - he never changes things with substitutions prior to 75 mins. It doesn't matter what is happening in the game, he won't change things unless he has to. It became a running joke with us to see Steve Sidwell come on with fifteen minutes left. Like I said, he's effective in many ways, but determinedly old school. The main reason we never moved on from sixth is because to do that, we'd have needed to be more tactically astute and use the transfer market better, which is what the very highest level managers tend to do. He never managed it, and i doubt he's going to change any time soon.

I doubt O'Neill will go there. Firstly, he won't go anywhere he isn't guaranteed a large sum of money to spend. They've just spent a wad on a load of shit players in the summer. He won't have that. Secondly, MON has an extraordinarily high opinion of himself. I reckon he's waiting to see when Fergie retires, or if Redknapp gets sent to the big house on the hill so he can get the England job. Thirdly, Randy Lerner is said to be on quite friendly terms with Ellis Short. I imagine he might even give him a call to see what he's like to work with. It won't be the glowingest of references.

I wasn't at the match yesterday, but have just spoken to a chap at work who was. I wasn't too sure about the applause thing myself, but he said it was absolutely spine tingling and all four sides of the ground were joining in with the "one Gary Speed" chant. Said it was the strangest atmosphere he's ever experienced at a football match.

Sebastian Deisler was another one. He didn't top himself but he had a lot of bother with depression. We don't know if that's what this is about yet but we tend to look at footballers as if they're super human. Ultimately they're just people like the rest of us. By coincidence, I am currently reading the biography of Robert Enke, the German national team goalkeeper who threw himself under a train. You're right, they're like the rest of us. In fact, as mentioned above by someone, I've never been ashamed of a manager of my club as much as I was when John Gregory spouted his ill informed opinions of Collymore's depression. Another coincidence, Collymore posted this on Saturday morning, which gives a pretty good (and I say this as one who has had recurring problems with depression and anxiety himself) idea of his condition. No amount of zeroes on the end of your salary is going to make this any better

Depression is a horrific illness, it tears lives apart, it tears families apart, and it makes people do things which seem utterly inexplicable, and the majority of those people live with the illness in silence, putting a brave face on what is a horrible thing to deal with. I see Stan Collymore has been talking again this week about his own depression, too. It makes you wonder how many people - footballers or not - are struggling with the disease. The best tribute to Gary Speed is probably not going to be a minute's silence, or Colin Murray or whoever talking about him on a Sunday night, it is that we start to understand depression better and make sure that there aren't too many more wasted lives like Speed's.

He should be in our first team, not Coventry's

Gary Gardner has scored inside ten minutes in his debut for Coventry on loan. Remember - future England captain.

I'd get shot of Heskey, play Cuellar at RB instead of Hutton, stick Herd in the middle with Petrov, and play N'Zogbia.

The problem is that he sets up the midfield to defend, not to provide for the strikers. Agbonlahor has been absolutely superb this season, but he's having to do so much work because the 9 men behind him are largely about defending rather than giving him the ball. As for Albrighton, he had a massive dip in confidence at the end of last season. 'Zogbia has taken a while to settle but against Norwich was excellent, which makes his dropping in favour of a midfield including Heskey and Hutton all the more annoying. McLeish is going to get himself sacked if he does that too often.

In 35 years of attending matches, he's the worst full back I have ever seen play for us. Gormlessly dives into tackles, gets pulled out of position easily, gives away free kicks, seems to have a proclvity for hand balls. Fucking rubbish. And, really, that is in no way an exaggeration. He's absolutely terrible. I find it hard to believe we paid 4m for him, but the thought he went to Spurs for 9m is just beyond belief.

Honestly, I hate football. It has a net detrimental effect on my life. I could put all the "that made me happy" things in one column, and all the "that made me really sad" stuff in another, and the latter column would be fucking enormous, whilst the former would be barely visible to the human eye.

For the last few years, we've been "top six, try to push to move on" We've now, in the space of a little over a year, become "middle of the table, maybe a bit higher if we're lucky" I can put up with that, if it's entertaining in the meantime. But not if it is dross to watch. Incidentally, even under MON, when we were frequently very good to watch away from home with the counter attacking thing, for the last three years, we were fucking dreadful at home. Then we had last year's rubbish under Houllier, and now this. The result is that for getting on for five whole years, we have been truly terrible to watch at home. And that's not an exaggeration, I hardly miss a home game, and I would struggle to list half a dozen exciting home matches in five years. No wonder the crowds have plummetted.

He has played Heskey in midfield a lot this season. Needless to say, you can imagine the reaction from the fans. It is utterly inexplicable. Monday's line up and approach was beyond belief. We played for a draw from the kick off, and to keep the score down after they took the lead. That sort of thing is the quickest way to get himself hounded out. Also, although I think N'Zogbia (who had his best game against Norwich but then got dropped for Spurs) and Given are fantastic signings, Hutton is the worst full back I have ever seen at Villa Park. lerner is clueless. We lost 8,000 season ticket holders over the summer. Eight thousand. And that was for a reason. After god knows how many years myself, if we carry on like this for the rest of the season, I am seriously thinking of jacking it in myself.