brummie

Zzzzz. It's all a bit fucking tedious isn't it?

He was wound up from the off. I sit in the Trinity Road stand right in front of the teams for the line up, and he was gobbing off at Young in the handshaking bit. Everyone in the ground could see he was on a short fuse today.

I heard someone talking about this on the radio on the way home from the match, and found it hard to disagree. They were saying that, whilst Barton had a point with a lot of the things he said - in fact, it was hard to disagree with him - there was never going to be any positive outcome for him from saying them when he did. For all the talk - which is true - that these comments get far more adverse attention because he's Joey Barton, he himself more than anyone should be acutely aware of that, and therefore of the wisdom of making comments like this.

Savage dresses like a German. In 1986.

Atwell had an absolute nightmare. Didn't favour one side over another, but was just entirely unpartisan in his ineptitude.

I thought he looked really poor, to be honest. As i said on the match thread, he put a large percentage of balls straight into touch.

I thought he was ok today, to be honest, but he was clearly wound up right from the off. He also seemed to spend a lot of time talking and gesturing to your bench. Bloke behind me commented that it looked like Barton thought he was the on-pitch manager, and to be honest, I thought he had a poiunt.

Evening. What a shite match. I thought they were two really mediocre teams today, it looked like two bald men fighting over a comb. We were nervous as fuck the whole match, you looked like you weren't really bothered. Kyle Walker at the back for us was an accident waiting to happen. On your side, I was really disappointed in Gutierrez, who insisted on putting the ball out of play pretty much constantly. Drank with a few of your lot in town before the game, they were a decent bunch, much friendly boozing and chat was had.

He's playing for PSV now, so he's doing alright. We let him go as his injury looked like he was never going to recover. He was very popular with the fans. We could have done with him this season.

Honestly, beyond proximity to the ground, I despair to think anyone would find a reason to choose to drink at that place. There are plenty of very, very good pubs in the city centre, and it is 10 mins in a cab to the ground. There's even a very good one in Newtown, which isn't far from the ground (and which is known to the cognoscenti on here). It is a 4 o clock kick off, plenty of time to enjoy yourselves. Getting charged two quid to go and stand in the "beer garden" (mud patch) at the back of some horrible away fan ghetto doesn't really appeal to me, but hey ho. Actually, it's probably because I'm getting old, so ignore me.

I still can't help liking you, though, you little fucking scampster.

Wonderful words, Ashley. I'll tell you what upsets me, though, and it is you having about four good games since you scored that last minute goal at Everton two years ago. That and you taking free kicks and putting them over the roof of the Holte End every time.

I was with a Villa supporting mate when I heard this Roeder news, and was *JUST* on the verge of making a "scouting Dirk Kuyt" quip, when my brain reminded me that that's an "in joke" from a small corner of the internet totally removed from anything real life.

I've never rated Downing that highly, but he's been great for Villa this season when I've seen them. Obviously a good player to be fair to him. Seemed to have a bit of a lull in his career, but I agree, been decent whenever I've seen him this year. It's just symptomatic of this season - if Villa had 6 or 7 more points and were 7th instead of 16th, Downing would have been talked about a lot more I reckon. He's been our best player this season by a mile.

Walker is great going forward, but very iffy defensively. He's like Glen Johnson, in fact

Just a note - if you're coming to the match, London Midland trains are on strike, so there will be no trains between New St and Witton / Aston.

This is a surreal evening getting even more surreal.

What a really, really bizarre evening of football this has been.

Woah! ANOTHER feet reference.

Ray referred to that earlier, and how Spurs had "knocked them out"

Looking like a return to 5.30 away kick offs at FC Bicyclepump of Latvia next season. On Channel Five

They do not deserve to be four nil down here? They've touched the ball about 10 times in 90 minutes.

To be honest, you can't really have any complaints about the red card. Either of the bookings. Also, the ref missed one of the most blatant penalties ever, when Dawson handled. Then a second later, Ray said what a great performance the ref was putting in. It's the story of the night - Ray, not Crouchy.

All season in the CL.

Ashleyyoungesque from Ronaldo there.