brummie

Only Arsenal and Man United scored more goals than us last season.

The club itself is boring and always has been in terms of the general perception by others of it, I guess a lot of that stems from the part of the world they come from which is also regarded as a pretty boring part of England by *many. However I don't think Villa fans really care to be honest and what I'd give to follow a normal boring old football club for a change rather than the circus we are at times. *I work in Birmingham regularly and outside of the brummie accent, I find it an OK place to be honest, not as lively as Newcastle or other places but not as boring and as totally irrelevant as the media like to portray it as. Canny people those West Midlanders if you ask me. Our own Brummie included. Boring and always has been? In recent years, yes, but my definition of a boring club would be one that never finishes in the higher places in the league, and never wins anything. We've had a few years of nondescript nothingness under the last years of Ellis, but "always has been"? I don't think so Oh, and the generalised, ill-informed nonsense about the city itself made you sound a bit like a well known former poster, now no longer with us. Expected a bit better of you, tbh HTT.

Okay I thought about it but can't figure it out. Who? Roque Santa Cruz

Won't crack the top four this season. The squad is a lot stronger this season. We've got proper full backs for a start, in Shorey and Young, and when Bouma comes back, we'll be even stronger at LB. Cuellar, Laursen, Davis and Knight at CB (I suspect Cuellar and Laursen will become the first choice pairing, Cuellar was excellent on Thursday and again today apparently). Midfield - Barry, Petrov, Young, Milner, Reo-Coker, Sidwell (who featured for the first time today, and scored). Forwards - Carew, Agbonlahor and Harewood, with Delfouneso coming through. Looking at that, you can see where the strength is, but you can also see where the weakness is. We won't break the top four this season, and the reason is we're not strong enough up front. If we could land someone like RSC in January (unlikely), it would make a difference. To be honest, most of our lot wouldn't want to scrape fourth and then struggle to back it up next year. We'd rather get best of the rest, and strengthen our position, to build something more sustainable.

Within 7 days we'll have the first "is it too late for Spurs to break the top four this season?" article.

4-0 for us at Wigan. Brilliant result, and our best performance of the season, apparently. Sidwell came on minutes from the end and scored a blinder. I think that's his first league appearance for us.

Ha, yes. I was just thinking "LOL @ Defoe" (whilst watching SSN). He finally musters the cojones to leave Spurs, goes to Portsmouth, then his manager fucks off in the opposite direction. Football is funny some times.

No. You were fucking shit in the late 1980s.

Honestly, if you look to Spurs to show you the way to do things, you may as well just give up. Harry Redknapp. Crikey.

Redknapp is such a fucking cunt. I turn on SSN and at that exact second, there he is going on about "its a massive club" etc etc. He's a walking, talking football cliche. Spurs. Jesus, what a fucking joke.

Incidentally, I don;t understand why he's shoe horned Barry in there. He's been wank this season, Spurs away excepted.

I think one of our failings is that England have one decent game and we think they're world beaters. Capello will get it right, but we can't expect them to be brilliant every game. The result is the important thing, and we'll win this match.

What about tradition? What about history? I couldn't give a toss if they knocked down all four stands of Villa Park (the oldest wasn't even built when i started going, and I'm only 40), but they'd stop playing on that patch of grass over my dead fucking body. Jesus. if clubs like Newcastle, Villa, Everton, Spurs start shitting over their history in the name of saving a few quid or having something which looks like some identikit EuroBowl stadium, or a bigger version of the Reebok, we might as well fucking give up. The heart of English football is dying already. Traditional historic clubs playing in bigger versions of the Riverside? No fucking thanks. This post was brought to you in conjunction with the drink gin and tonic. Supporting late night internet ramblings worldwide.

Incidentally, anyone with half a fucking brain knows Villa are going to win it. *peruses Istanbul travel guide*

Aye, but they won't be in it that long though. They've been shit in the league and in the UEFA cup, don't see any reason why anyone would consider them to be favourites. Spurs irritate me as much as the next man, but I feel duty bound to point this out. Bookmakers odds do not just reflect who they think will win the competition. They also reflect the desire of the bookmaker to minimise their financial risk. That's why, every world cup England are 3rd favourites or something at 8/1 or some stupid odds. It isn't because the bookies think they really are 3rd most likely to win. It is because there are millions of drooling cretins in this country who believe the Fat Frank, Stevie G and JT hype machines, then go spazzing down to Laddies with their 10 quid to have a flutter on us winning it. The bookies then bring the odds in to manage their risk.

Difficult group for us. Although it could have been much worse. Hope we get Ajax away.

Spurs UEFA Cup group Spurs Spartak Moscow Udinese Dinamo Zagreb Nijmegen Tricky.

Liverpool are the luckiest club on earth. I mean thjat in a "you make your own luck" sense, too, but fucking hell.

Chelsea are playing superbly, incidentally. They're going to piss the league this year.

What is it with you and "The Villa"? My best mate supports them and drums it into my head. That's what they're called. "The Villa", mainly in this region, but by a lot of people in football. I'm referring to the definite article.

Well. We were ok, nothing much really happened. Litex were a more than half decent side, they pass the ball around very well, and that Brazilian "Tom" is a decent player. I hope we get the same group as Spurs in the next stages.

When people talk about incredibly rich people - like Ambani - potentially buying football clubs, there seems to be a tendency that they're automatically going to splurge a lot of cash on the club, do an Abramhovic, if you like. These people aren't interested in it purely as they've no other way to spend their cash.They're interested in clubs because they are high profile businesses with the extra cachet of being rather flash businesses to own. People just assume that whichever billiionaire has 7 or 8 billion, so that means he can easily afford, say, a billion on (whichever) club so that means that he will spend that kind of money. It is like football suddenly became some kind of Top Trumps.

Watching reserve team football is excellent. You get to see what is coming through and it gives you a good overview of the way things are going and who looks like they can make it to the first team. You also get in for nowt (ST holders), and you get in and out with no traffic hell.

Ah. Cheers. Price freeze or none, that's a big ask to expect people to sign up for three seasons.

This three years up front thing I've heard mention on here. What is it about? You effectively buy a three year ST? At a big discount?