brummie

When he went, I was annoyed, more by the way he did it than the fact he'd done it, but I genuinely think we got the best years out of him, and even saying that, for the last three years he went missing for vast chunks of the season. I lurked on a Man City forum a few months ago, and read what they were saying about him, and it was exactly that - that he'd gone missing for weeks on end. Don't get me wrong, he's a decent player, but the really good players don't just disappear for great chunks of the season.

I know I wasn't the only one by any means but fucking hell, if he is in the England team for any other reason than there being no-one else, then I give up. Average midfielder (as I've said for a while now) who was horribly exposed for being just that today by Ozil, who frankly didn't have to work hard to completely bamboozle the hapless Barry. Well, if we're getting stuck into Barry, I'll wave my hand in the air and remind you that I've been telling you all this on here for about four years now, but none of you would listen to me. Him breaking into a half arsed jog behind Ozil today was England's entire campaign summed up in a few seconds.

Not a shirt as much as a sponsorship thing, but our new sponsors announced today. FXPro, who apparently are something about currency speculation.

Unfortunately, that wouldn't surprise me, either. Would be a small step up on Carew/Heskey but you lot need a lot better if you're going to continue to push for 4th and higher. surely? Doyle better than Carew? Oh lord. Carew is a perma-crock these days. No he isn't. 42 appearances for us last season, 17 goals.

Decent player, very popular indeed when he was with us. Still comes up to watch us play, had a box for one of our matches last season and 40 odd of his family and mates over. Also has the best English accent ever - a bizarre mixture of Brummie and German.

It's all very well moaning about not having money to spend, but I find it hard to be sympathetic when, in supposedly tight financial circumstances, he goes and spunks 20m on an injured, moody European show pony and almost as much again on a full back who can't actually defend. And the club is 400m in debt, not the owners, as they've loaded it onto the club. If the club then defaults on the interest payments, it isn't G&H personally who go tits up over it, it is the club. Even Doug Ellis managed to see through that utter shyster Gillette. God knows why Moores didn't.

If they want him, they'll get him. Unfortunately. I know. Which is why football is so massively fucked. You try to build something, then some vile, lottery winning, arriviste blaggards come and fuck everything up by preying on human greed. Imagine how we felt when we had a great manager had us playing the best football we've played in years. All of a sudden some jumped up club with a foreign billionaire owner paid over the odds for one of our best young players, he was sold behind his back and this was a cornerstone to the manager leaving and the club imploding. Fucking annoying when lottery winning clubs fuck you over by being so rich... 12m was hardly the sort of sum you need to be a gazillionaire to afford, mind Exactly the same thing but scaled up...you wouldn't have been able to spunk £12m on Milner without your sugar tit... On a different note, I played footy with a mate from work today who used to play for Crewe until he called Dario Gradi a cunt aged about 17. He's a keeper and was telling me about how he'd played against Villa U16's and at one point in his career conceded a goal to...James Milner. Ridiculous. He's so good looking too, he does my fucking head in. We spunked almost that much on players in the Ellis years, and those times weren't sugar tit so much as witches tit.

Harewood is, though.

No

Unfortunately, that wouldn't surprise me, either. Would be a small step up on Carew/Heskey but you lot need a lot better if you're going to continue to push for 4th and higher. It'd strengthen our frontline but nowhere near enough to step on.

Unfortunately, that wouldn't surprise me, either.

If they want him, they'll get him. Unfortunately. I know. Which is why football is so massively fucked. You try to build something, then some vile, lottery winning, arriviste blaggards come and fuck everything up by preying on human greed. Imagine how we felt when we had a great manager had us playing the best football we've played in years. All of a sudden some jumped up club with a foreign billionaire owner paid over the odds for one of our best young players, he was sold behind his back and this was a cornerstone to the manager leaving and the club imploding. Fucking annoying when lottery winning clubs fuck you over by being so rich... 12m was hardly the sort of sum you need to be a gazillionaire to afford, mind Still, look what we've taught him to do.

I can't believe what a big deal the media are making of Walcott being left out. It's not the biggest of surprises, surely?

SWP isn't that bad. He was the only player against Japan who looked like he wanted to move about and cause them problems. Heskey is the true puzzle. He is totally useless and will get booked plenty as he is too clumsy and physical for international referees. His hold up play isn't as good as his fans claim and he can't shoot for shit. He's terrible man. Head down run forward is about all he can do, ignoring the fact there are 3 others (Lennon, Milner, Cole) who can play that position more than adequately. Not to mention Ashley Young, who's currently sunning himself on holiday

Heskey's been on fire this season. Sorry, in my dreams, I meant to say, and "fire" as in "flames" and "combustion". Happy for Warnock. Bit iffy towards the end of the season, mind,so quite lucky to squeak in ahead of Baines, who bollocksed it up alla grande against Mexico.

Sadly those ^^^ are mock ups and not our new kits, but I wish they were. I would kill for that away kit.

http://img205.imageshack.us/img205/1323/villaretroniked.jpg

Thanks for making my point. They paid it, he was worth it (to the selling club).

He's worth what someone will pay for him. I personally don't think any footballer is worth more than a set of tracksuits and a few match balls, but that's not the way these things work.

The fact that it clearly isn't, as evidenced by Man City's opening bid, tells you everything you need to know about how wrong you are.

If they want him, they'll get him. Unfortunately. I know. Which is why football is so massively fucked. You try to build something, then some vile, lottery winning, arriviste blaggards come and fuck everything up by preying on human greed.

Good to see Man City being as classy as ever already this transfer window. 20m? That's a joke. We paid 12 for him two years ago, and he's improved by far more than 8m pounds worth.

Here's a nice story, like something from an old skool football comic. Every year we play in the Hong Kong 7s tournament (and we seem to win it most years, too). This year, we got out there and had an injury crisis. Word went out amongst spectators (I kid you not) for someone who could play a bit and fancied a couple of games. In the end a 23 year old Brit (QPR fan, mind) who happens to work in HK but had never played football beyond "village team" level got the call, and ended up playing for Aston Villa against teams like Ajax, Rangers, West Ham and Sunderland We won it, and there he is third from left, unexpectedly waving a trophy around with professional footballers, two of whom have played in the PL this season, and one of whom has scored in it (and in the UEFA Cup). Nice story. I'm assuming the small child at the front was the mascot, before any witty scampster weighs in with that one ;-) GG may recognise the youth with his hands on the mascot's shoulders. Harry Forrester, I thought he had disappeared. http://www.avfc.co.uk/javaImages/2e/51/0,,10265~8802606,00.jpg

Poor Gareth. *world's tiniest, salty tear*

Cattermole and Cana are two of the dirtiest cunts I've ever seen play.