brummie

Friedel didn't seem as good for you as I was expecting based on his Blackburn days. Is that fair? btw, I was told a rumour (outside of the interwebs) that Gary Cahill will sign for us when we sell Lescott I thought Friedel was decent, but then again, I watched Carson the season before. If you took a random sample of 100 Villa fans, I reckon 95 - at least - would tell you that MON dropped a major, major bollock selling Cahill. He's brilliant.

Here's a prediction. Brad Friedel will barely feature for us this year, Guzan looks very very good indeed.

One of the old school managers, but at the same time, he was in many ways amongst the very first "modern managers", going to coach in Europe, in different leagues, doing so well and gaining nothing but respect everywhere he went. Pretty much nobody had a bad word to say about him, and you don;t get that very often in a field as full of self-serving reptiles as football. RIP

I think the problem with it is it's almost identicle to last years Claret body, blue sleeves. That's all that matters really. It's a nice kit, but without examining a picture of the outgoing shirt I couldn't name a single thing that's even slightly different. Round neck v V neck is the major one. I don't care, I don't buy them, but personally I'd like our shirt to change pretty much nothing from year to year. Look at the guff Adidas add to some of their kits, for example, show-horning triple stripes into them and what not. Liverpool have had some truly horrific kits.

Lescott may not be "worth" 20m pounds when judged against other defenders, but that doesn't matter a single jot. Moyes might decide it'll take 50 million pounds to make him part with Lescott - losing one of his best players and having to go out and find a replacement, that might reflect how much he doesn't want to do that. Footballers aren't valued like something you pick up off the shelf at Tesco, there is more than "how good is this player?" involved. Oh, and Man City getting quoted massive fees for players? They've only got themselves to blame for that, after 7 months of swaggering around like a bunch of horrible nouveau riche, arriviste lottery winners, who seem to know the price of everything but the value of absolutely nothing.

Big blow for Villa. He was quite a lot better than Barry for them last season whenever I watched their games. He had a far better season than Barry, true. I'd have been more concerned about selling him than GB. MON needs to get his fucking finger out big style. The squad is down to the bear bones, I just do not know what he is playing at. On the bright side, the next batch of academy kids, Albrighton, Bannan and Weimann have looked very good on the tour, especially the first of that three, who was really excellent last night, scoring one and setting one up.

On a tangent but re the OP, how fucking rubbish is MSN video? "Your video will play after this commercial message" *goes to Youtube*

I like Bobby Robson, always have done, his achievements in European football stand out against pretty much all other English managers (in terms of achieving things with European clubs, rather than in European football with an English club, that makes him pretty much unique) But I've often been curious about seeing him described here as a Geordie legend and the strength of his link with NUFC. I always assume that's meant in the sense of a legend from your parts, rather than an NUFC legend, given that his connection with the club was 4 or 5 years as manager. Is this right? Not being from your area, I always associate him overwhelmingly with Ipswich as a manager (and then Albion and Fulham as a player).

Villa sell Zat Knight to Bolton, leaving us with just two centre halves in the squad. Distin rumoured to be the third, could Bassong be the fourth?

I think the problem with it is it's almost identicle to last years Claret body, blue sleeves. That's all that matters really.

Incredible that we're actually shrinking the squad. Unless we've two CBs about to sign. Distin maybe one, the other? Where's Bassong today?

http://www.avfc.premiumtv.co.uk/javaImages/9d/4c/0,,10265~6769821,00.jpg http://www.astonvilladirect.com/product_images/maxzoom/prd_maxzoom_villa-55648.jpg Traditional simple. Very like last year's.

I saw him play against us last season, and he did absolutely fuck all.

Wasn't he in Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, and Press Gang?

They must have been won over by looking at the effect joining Spurs has had on other promising full backs.

Course they won't, they are all money grabbing bastards; none of them would do the right thing. They should though since they are not even worth 10% of their wages. That's mental though. If you or I went into work with a hangover and got nothing done we wouldn't offer to give up some of your money. Just because they're not worth what they're paid doesn't give them any obligation to return the money. If you went for a hangover for a year (which is what they've done) you'd be sacked And any properly run business would have clauses in your contract which enabled them to get rid of you if you rolled in with a year-long hangover.

Nothing about this down here. Thank fuck

He's got a broken foot, he's not snapped his achilles or something.

Peterborough 0 - Villa 3. Storming 50 yard run involving a few 1-2s, then a cool finish from the ever lethal, errm, Curtis Davies. Nice goal, mind.

Football is not as simple as "buy loads of good players, finish high up the league", it takes time. I think City are going about it the wrong way. RSC, Tevez, Adebayor, Robinho plus the strikers they already have. They're not even in Europe, how are they going to keep those players happy? And, players who quite clearly are only there for the money. In many ways they're a Middlesbrough on a larger scale - buying players who're there purely for the cash. If they carry on like that over time, it is bound to pay off with something, but what they're doing at the moment will not bring instant results, and is incredibly vulgar to watch. I always thought I'd be genuinely happy for any team to break the top four with any permananence, but now I know that isn't the case.

Anyone can look quality in Scotland. Its the new Holland. Or is Holland the new Scotland?

I've got vague memories of being lectured by a Villa fan when I said something about Villa playing in claret and blue, said something like "We do NOT play in claret and blue, that's West Ham. We play in (insert some very similar sounding colours)" But that could have been another team, it could have been the other way round (West Ham don't play in claret and blue, that's us) or I could have dreamt it. Actually, it could have been a team I referred to as just playing in sky blue I was corrected on. I don't think there is a Villa fan alive who would not refer to our primary colour as claret. The use of the term 'sky blue' is something almost every Villa fan would pull you up on, though. It brings to the mind thoughts of that team down the A45 who play in said colour and loathe us (which is reciprocated by utter disinterest).

Man City are a joke. RSC, Tevez, Robinho and Adebayor vying to play up front, and they're not even in Europe. What the fuck are those players going to do with their time? They're like a Middlesbrough on a grander scale, attracting players to sign for them purely and entirely because of the money. They're the poster boy for the absolute fucking mess that English football is becoming. It is easy to say "I wish that were us", but really, if they won the league next year, it'd be great for their fans, but it would be tainted by the fact that they - unlike anyone else, because whatever anyone says, even Chelsea started slowly - had bought it as if they were picking up a 200 pack of tabs in an airport Duty Free store. When i see Mark Hughes doing press conferences and talking about their transfer policy, even he looks embarassed. As if he's been appointed accountant to a lottery winning sex offender.

Knight is off to Bolton. Distin is signing today apparently, to replace Laursen, and I suspect someone like Onuoha won't want to be nominal fourth choice CB, he'll go somewhere he'll get more games. Onouha is arguably better than any of Distin/Davies/Cuellar imo. He was easily one of City's best players when he got a run of games at centre half in the second half of the season. Impressive, no nonsense-style centre half. The type I could see doing well alongside Curtis Davies actually. No doubt he will get lost amongst the big money buys at City though before going elsewhere and doing great. It isn't so much that we need a better player than Davies or Cuellar, we just need a more experienced one to brin gout the best in them, which is why I'd rather spend 2m on Distin than get another youngster in