brummie

Villa fans had pretty much resigned ourselves to losing Barry to Liverpool this summer. However, to see him jump ship to Man City at the earliest opportunity just makes me angry. He's clearly gone for the money - 25m over 5 years for someone who will be 33/34 at the end of it - and if that's the case, then fine, but it is the bullshit he came out with last season that annoys me, the "dream move for CL football" etc etc and the utter shit he published yesterday. Footballers must think we're absolutely stupid. Incidentally, all this "12 years service" stuff. That's 12 years for many of which he couldn't get a start in our team. 3 years ago the only people interested in buying him were Portsmouth. In that time, MON has turned him into one of the first names on the sheet for England. Two years into that 3 year period, he was blabbing about going to Liverpool. Incidentally, for a reminder, check this: http://blogs.notw.co.uk/sport/2008/06/gareth-barry-bl.html For an example of this paragon of loyalty. I'd have preferred him to stay, he's a good player, but anyone who thinks he is crucial to us in anyway didn't watch much of us the last season, Laursen (till injured), Luke Young, Ashley Young, Petrov, Carew - all made bigger contributions than Barry did. We've lost better players than Gareth Barry and gone on to do well before, so I'm not too worried about that, but this "loyal servant" stuff and the "footbal challenge" nonsense makes me want to vomit. Oh, and in his letter to Villa fans yesterday, he actually used the line "this is a world cup year, I need to be playing in my strongest position regularly" as a reason to go there. What utter, utter shite, bar being moved to LB when injury forces a change mid match (which I can remember happening once this season), he always plays in his best position, and it was the fact that MON started playing him there in the first place which got him in the England side. Footballers. Not just Barry but pretty much all of them. They think we're fucking stupid, and do you know what? To keep on swallowing this nonsense, they've probably got a point

Someone will take Owen on a pay-as-you-play basis, i'd imagine, he's still got enough of a reputation to get that at the very least.

I'm aiming my spaff for Angelina Jolie's boat race the next time I knock one out. Do you reckon it'll land there?

That's more like it. That's what football is about, hatred.

Start talking. A couple of years ago, Bruce appeared with a tasty black eye. When asked what had happened, he said he had stopped someone from nicking his motor from outside his flat in Solihull What actually happened, although clearly I couldn't believe such a thing was true, was he'd taken umbrage to local orange, hobbit-like footballer and serial shagger Lee Hendrie getting to know his daughter quite so well, expressed said opinion to the little scrote, and found himself in a brawl with him, ending in the black eye.

Thank the baby Jesus for that.

Has everyone heard the story about him, Lee Hendrie, his daughter, a made up story about someone trying to nick his car, and a black eye?

Regardless of whether he's shit / past it / not bothered about anything other than England / the right move away from getting his career back on track, he's surely a talismanic figure of bad in the recent demise of Newcastle - the figurehead of "bad shit" that people, inside and out, point to when talking about Newcastle. For that reason and that reason only, you should be glad to get shot. Personally, I think anyone paying him 60k a week wants their head looking at, but anyone taking him on a "pay as you play" deal is probably taking a gamble worth taking (so long as they're within easy reach of his stable or his mine shaft full of gold, or whatever it is that he goes home to Cheshire to wank himself off over every night)

I heard it was a lot more than "making fun" and more like holding his head down the bog and flushing it. Yup, heard it was more along those lines too, which is just way over the top, especially as he was only young then. Kind of admire the guy for sticking to his guns and not putting up with it tbh. So do I. And i say that as a man of a particularly low follicle count.

I heard it was a lot more than "making fun" and more like holding his head down the bog and flushing it.

Personally, I would rather compete for trophies, but there is no getting away from the fact that the top four these days is the holy grail of football, so it distorts matters, and normally logical people do illogical things. I don't like it, and I genuinely wish it wasn't like that, but it is. My argument is that you shouldn't blame people like O'Neill (who effectively is judged on how close he gets us to the top four), but people like the FA, UEFA, Sky and all the clueless fucking buffoons who, step by step, are turning the game into a spectacle with the sporting value of Gladiators and the integrity of the bird on her knees at a bukkake party.

*deleted* Tell you what, I don;t even what to give you the benefit of seeing myself sink to your particularly low level.

I'm not questioning your right to comment on it, just why you are getting so indignant about it, that's all. It's not like it has had any impact on you, is it? He played a weakened team in the competition, we got eliminated. End of. And there isn't even the "devaluing the competition" nonsense to fall back on, as UEFA have done that by inflicting the truly absurd, television-pleasing structure which took a decent competition and turned it into something people treat like the Carling Cup in the space of a few years.

Haven't explained it very well. Yes, brilliant signing, make no mistake. However everyone was amazed at how much he cost. I'm sure you could have got him for cheaper, regardless of whether or not he's proved to be worth it. That extra (say) £2m you could have saved could have left you with a bigger squad. Actually, I barely understand what I'm talking about. I'm sure it made more sense when I first thought of it half an hour ago. Actually, I kinda know what you meant, it was a very risky move at the time, which has worked out, but had it not, would have been another example of overspending. I know that you mean. However, there are plenty other examples of actual, proper money wastage I can supply you with ;-) (Salifou, Routledge, Maloney, Harebrain, Cuellar, Davies, very possibly Sidwell)

re the Barry letter: Some comments on today's letter: 3 years ago, only Portsmouth wanted him, he's now an England regular. That's going stale for you, is it? Yes, because we were going to play you in goal, weren't we. No, I bet there wasn't, he just slid the calculator over the table, you worked out 100k x 52 x 5 years and there wasn't much of a decision to make. http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v21/boltthrow/gif/4Chan20080125004400.gif

They'd go if they got offered the stupid money Citeh will offer, and they'd pay the stupid money you'd want for them, as well, i reckon. The City story has got an awful long way to roll yet. This will be a weird summer.

Don't follow the reasoning with Young. The manager thought he was worth 9.65m. He proved to be worth it in spades.

His problem is he dithers in the transfer market, and his obssession with English players means we pay over the odds. Knight for 4m i have no problem with, for a fourth choice CB at the time, he was as good as we were going to get. Sidwell for 5m and Shorey for the same, also about right. NRC for 8.5 was too much, and 12 for Milner was too much as well. The difference is, Milner has looked quality, so I'm not too arsed about us paying over the odds if the player performs. Young for 9.65 at the time was called mental, but that looks an absolute bargain in retrospect. Davies was the most overpriced of the lot. Like I said, we need to drop this obsession with English players, they just cost far too much money. Incidentaly, transfer market is easily MON's achilles heel, I don't want to give the impression from the above that I am stating otherwise, because I'm not

Barry had no defensive quality at all. The main problem was that he and Petrov were exactly the same type of player. We can cope with just the one of them so long as we get someone decent in to replace him. Shorey and Young at full back, an experience CB alongside Davies or Cuellar, and things are ok there. No point getting Mellberg back, he was on a downward curve for a while before he left (love the bloke though I do). We need an experience CB (ie not Bassong, as good as he may be), a creative spark in midfield and a decent goal scorer, plus then squad-growing depth where we can get it.

I have no idea, mate. What I do know is that we've known he was going to go this summer, so we should be along the line to getting someone else in. Rumours about Steven Defour from Standard Liege, but I don't know if there is much truth in them. Our central midfield looked gash all year, to be honest, something wasn't working, so the replacement needs not to be a carbon copy of the type of player Barry was.

Unless Man City decide they want Lescott and Arteta.

I went to that game. Zilina's fans were brilliant. Best fans I've seen in the last few years was when we (Spurs) went to Besiktas. Everything a support should be. I went to Ajax V Zilina and the Zilina fans were non existent! I was gutted our match against Ajax was a home tie. Aye that would have been a great trip, the game against Zilina was a bit dead, very sow and boring game of football but it was good to visit a new stadium and get to see a game of football that was totally unpanned, even if it was half empty there was a reasonable atmosphere created by the Ajax fans. It was a right pain in the arse trying to get tickets mind, we were told by the staff where we were staying that you couldn't by tickets at the stadium and had to get them at certain shops but we only decided at about 6pm that we wanted to go to the game and all these shops were shut, took a gamble and went to the stadium and there was a massive ticket office!! Friend of a friend is a steward at VP and said that the Ajax fans did a fair bit of damage - smashed bogs up, ripped seats out, managed to actually twist a load of the steel bars that hold the rows of seats together. Quite impressive in a "pining for the 70s and 80s" way. They were excellent though, best we had at our place all season. Had a great song which they sang over and over which seemed to just be "aayy aaay aaay aaay Ajax Amshterdam* ay ay ay ay Ajax Amshterdam" * * "h" added for effect.

I went to that game. Zilina's fans were brilliant. Best fans I've seen in the last few years was when we (Spurs) went to Besiktas. Everything a support should be. I went to Ajax V Zilina and the Zilina fans were non existent! I was gutted our match against Ajax was a home tie.

Like he would at Villa, like he would at Villa, and like he would at Villa. It is all about the first one of those points. This'll go on all summer now, wait and see. One of the worst things is that i find myself forced into actually agreeing with Michel Platini. It's like waking up one morning and finding yourself with a hard-on thinking about the UKIP manifesto.

We offered him 80k a week, apparently. Now, they must have offered him a much better deal than that, purely by dint of the fact that he hasn't even waited to see if Liverpool come back with his "dream move", he's off and the season finished, what, two weeks ago. I reckon he'll be on 120k a week. If he is, then the game is going to hell in a handcart, it really is beyond redemption. "I didn't need long to make up my mind" he said earlier. What he probably meant was "I didn't need to engage in any verbal interaction whatsoever, they just sent me a spreadsheet".