brummie

Gueida Fofana, captain of French U19s, having a medical with us today, by all accounts. I don't know the first thing about him, but I like his fancy foreign name.

Any club outside the elite clubs who has an asset like Carroll will probably sell if someone offers crazy money. Look at Rooney to Man Utd, Milner to Man City, even our very own Woodgate to Real Madrid. Let's not make this another anti-Ashley thread because no matter who the chairman was, if a club offered something mental for him, they'd more than likely look closely at it. Of course they would, and there's no point expecting any different. If the buying club offers big transfer money (first part) and they offer the player stupid wages (more important), the player will be unsettled and will eventually be off. It is the most annoying, disheartening thing about football these days. It is pretty much impossible to build anything organically - it was always very difficult, nowadays it is actually not possible.

Why he has been shite for ages he is nowt now, spent too long on the sidelines at City & looks shot. Maybe he needs to what Charlie Adam did & leave a big club for a shitty club & become a MEGAFISH in a puddle. I reckon he'll move to Sunderland in January. In fact, I am going to see if i can get a price on that tomorrow.

you say that as if it is a bad thing.

The Big Sam on Twitter: "I've just ordered Sky Multiroom, as well. Fucking backstabbing sharks. "

Bollocks to that. Hit it long, throw it in the mixer, Big Sam style.

Dunne is a disgrace. If he wants somewhere to point the finger in terms of where things have gone badly of late, he should start with the mirror. A very big one to fit his entire flabby frame into.

Carew will probably do alright wherever he goes for a bit, basically, until he realises he's fucked all the really fuckable women in whichever city it is, then he'll lose interest. Ireland is really not all there, but is the one of that list I'd most like to work out. For all our struggles with injuries this season, it is absolutely without a doubt some of the senior players who have let us down, not the kids who have replaced them. Warnock, Dunne (massively), Collins, Carew have been disgraceful. Albrighton (who will play for England within 12 months, I guarantee), Hogg (brilliant yesterday), Bannan, Lichaj, Clark have all done excellently, and make me feel unbelievably positive for the future. Richard Dunne is the size of a house. And not a small one, either, a fucking big one.

Stephen Warnock, Ireland, Carew and Friedel all out the door at Villa, in descending order of urgency, apparently. Warnock has deteriorated shockingly in 18 months. Ireland is a headcase. Carew can't be fucked any more. Friedel is on a downward slope, but would still keep him.

Ashley's daughter has been a the biscuit barrel, I see.

Alan Curbishley, who spent a sufficiently decent chunk of his playing career here to realise it isn't pronounced that way, does that horrible cockney thing of saying Birminum. And if we're on the subject of mispronunciations, I fucking hate southerners who pronounce Newcastle in the way Geordies do. It just is not right. Oh, and Doug Ellis always used to say "Preeeemier League".

Well, that's clearly wrong, they beat us. Oh, no, hang on ...

The massive cunt.

The program has been on 25 minutes, 10 mins of the match and 15 of these smug, self satisfied cunts talking utter shite. I love, love watching an MOTD of some sort on a Sunday night, but of late, it really has gone to absolute shit. Especially with this cunt Murray. I struggle to listen to his stupid nasal droning and shit jokes. He makes Lineker look like Noam Chomsky, he's so lightweight.

Nah. I think our days of worrying about signing Keane to be over. It wouldn't be too bad if we did sign him, anyway. The way things are at the moment, he'd just be injured within a couple of weeks and therefore unable to do any damage.

idle comment, but if we were to sell Ashley Young (three decent games, ten decent crosses in two years) and replace him with N'Zogbia, i wouldn't be too disappointed.

For £8m apparently God, I hope they come for Sidwell. Where is Parker going? Need i ask? *wink*

He is still here. I watched my first Villa match in 1973. I am honestly struggling to think of a single midfielder we've had play for us in any regularity since then who has impressed me less in the intervening 37 years. And I'm including some real dross in that consideration. He's an absolute toilet of a player. In fact, no, that's wrong. To be classed as a toilet, to earn any sort of classification, he'd had to do something to get noticed. He's the most anonymous player I have ever, ever seen. Under MON he'd get used for 10-15 mins as a sub, and avoid the ball. Under Houllier, he is fortunately one of the players struck down in our injury crisis. He's the only one of them I am hoping has a setback. And for that he's picking up, what, 45,000 pounds a week? Wrong.

Not having a go at you in any way Roger, just picking up on something, but the very thought of "persuading" players of such modest talents as Joey Barton to "accept" 50,000 pounds a week shows why I am so revolted by football these days. I don't mind the top players making their stupendous salaries, it is sheer averageness of the likes of Barton (or at our place Sidwell) picking up this kind of money that makes me want to stop bothering with the game any more. I don't know why people begrudge professional athletes for making as much money as they can. Yeah, they make ridiculous amounts, but that's what they're worth to their club/league/sport. Plus their careers, depending on the sport, are only a few years on average. If you had a special skill and were in the top percentile in the world at applying that skill wouldn't you push for every last penny that you could make? Now pretend that you're not especially good at anything else and only have 10 years (generous in some cases) to earn your living. Yeah, of course I would. I don't - and didn't in the above post - blame Joey Barton for one nanosecond for getting as much as he can out of it. I'd be filling my boots as well if i could. I do blame professional football in this country for being sufficiently dimwitted and out of touch with reality to pay such mediocre players such absurd sums of money, whilst we, the paying punters, fork out through the nose on season tickets, sky subscriptions etc etc to fund it all. The game in this country is heading for a very, very rude awakening.

Not having a go at you in any way Roger, just picking up on something, but the very thought of "persuading" players of such modest talents as Joey Barton to "accept" 50,000 pounds a week shows why I am so revolted by football these days. I don't mind the top players making their stupendous salaries, it is sheer averageness of the likes of Barton (or at our place Sidwell) picking up this kind of money that makes me want to stop bothering with the game any more.

To be honest, even if there had been no other issues (money, control), I doubt MON would have gone to you having seen Ashley treat Hughton like that, and Jol's agent actually said that was the case, didn't he? It's a mess, but the unbelievable thing is that it is all so avoidable.

What if you think he's worse than Hughton? Good question. Is he worse than, say, David O'Leary? No. But he's also not worse than Thomas the tank engine either. Ah, but Thomas the Tank Engine did some good work with Lokomotiv Leipzig.

What if you think he's worse than Hughton? Good question. Is he worse than, say, David O'Leary?

About to be a bit controversial here, so bare with me. Firstly, I think Ashley was mental to sack Hughton. It stinks of his face not fitting, and I honestly think he's treating the club like an extension of his favourite casino. It is pathetic, pathetic behaviour. To sack Hughton and replace him with a manager who is, at best, of the same level, and introduce needless uncertainty and instability at a time when you're doing OK is just ridiculous. BUT having said that - and this is the important bit - if you accept that he's replaced him with a manager of that level, is Pardew really that bad? Personally, I'd rather have him than Curbishley, for example. Or Sven, probably. Or David O'Leary - absolutely no doubt whatsoever on that front. Just a thought.

Staggering. Just staggering. I honestly feel terrible for you lot.