brummie

Oh, and another thought, what's the betting Scudamore floated this absurd proposal - he MUST have known FIFA would never allow it - knowing it would not happen, but with the intention of it making it easy to slip in some watered down idea in in its place whilst we're all wiping our brow in relief? A kind of "this is much more palatable than it could have been" situation.

Surely the most important point about this is not that there is a game played abroad instead of in the UK, it is that by having a 39th game and introducing seeding for the top clubs, and having this game contribute to the final points total, the PL would be effectively invalidating the very concept behind the league - that everyone plays each other twice, and at the end, the club with the most points is the champion. If, say, Arsenal finish one point behind Man United, but Man United's 39th game was against Derby, and Arsenal's was against Tottenham, then Arsenal fans can justly point out that although they didn't win the league, they had a harder set of fixtures. All the rest of the stuff about playing it away from the fans for the benefit of replica shirt wearing Taiwanese people pales into significance with the fact that it would be pissing all over the league system which has served us (and world football, for that matter, as ours was the first) for well over a century. And all in the name of money.

Although, football clubs could still do very well financially AND buy decent players without the need to bumrape the fans as much as they do. Some of the prices charged by London clubs are outrageous.

Mine is the most expensive in the house at Villa Park, at a very reasonable £475. That's because we don't have any premium type seats, and we don't have those because Ellis did not have the first idea how to make proper money out of modern football (other than for himself).

Those figures are probably more accurate than ones taken from Soccerbase alone - loads of transfers on SB are listed as 'undisclosed'. Where MON did well was offloading the fringe players (frequently ones everyone thought we needed, but we didn't actually need) at good money. Steven Davis for 4m to Fulham, Gavin McCann for 2m to Bolton, Aaron Hughes for 1.5 (I think) to Fulham, Ridgewell to Birmingham City for 2m. I don't think we should have sold Cahill, but 5m is a decent fee for him, too. That is why our net spend looks low.

10th I'll take that as amongst the tightwads. *wink*

Because the idea put forward by the media is that no club has a right to think of itself as being a bit different, more special, based on a different way of thinking than anyone else. Which is utter f****** s****. You obviously lap up whatever Martin Samuel wants to feed you. Do you boycott all of news international of just the sun? Apparently not as you seem to be just regurgitating his ill thought out and simplistic point of view. Clubs are different, fans are different, places have different affinities to their clubs. Bilbao, Napoli, Barcelona are just a few examples of why clubs are not created nor should be treated equally. It may seem a contradiction but you can only really see this when you are capable of objectively looking at the situation, rather than from a partisan point of view. Show me a Wigan fan who thinks they are just as special as Barcelona and i'll show you a retard. Good examples. More a way of life than a club. Cultural impact of such clubs and their hinterland is what makes them special. Those clubs are all intertwined with political strife though - Bilbao and the Spain / Basque issue, Napoli the Northern / Southern Italian economic and political divide, and Barcelona the Catalunya / Spanish issue. There are no English clubs which have this element to them - only Celtic and Rangers really have it in Britain. I'd tend to agree that these clubs are "more than football clubs" but that is because they are about more than football, not just because they've got lots of fans. Arsenal have lots of fans, and they're increasingly about little more than selling 'Premium Seats' and 8 quid portions of fish and chips to bankers and lawyers these days. i reckon newcastle/sunderland/leverpool have as much in that scheme as napoli for the same reasons you ascribe to napoli.. the celtic/rangers thing i don't understand as they are scottish man utd's No, they don't. The North East might have been an economically deprived area for a long time (in the past), but it is as nothing compared to the political, cultural and economic complexities of the north / south divide in Italy, which goes back a very long time, and runs very deep indeed. A quick visit to Milan followed by one to Naples would show you that, honestly. The Celtic / Rangers thing is about religious rivalry, and a little different, but there is no equivalent in English football. Of course, the irony in all this is the fact that English football is increasingly becoming more about the number of shirts you sell in Taiwan than it is about anything else.

That's what I mean, Speccy, combined 06-07 and 07-08, MON's period in charge, we're amongst the lowest spenders.

Because the idea put forward by the media is that no club has a right to think of itself as being a bit different, more special, based on a different way of thinking than anyone else. Which is utter fucking shite. You obviously lap up whatever Martin Samuel wants to feed you. Do you boycott all of news international of just the sun? Apparently not as you seem to be just regurgitating his ill thought out and simplistic point of view. Clubs are different, fans are different, places have different affinities to their clubs. Bilbao, Napoli, Barcelona are just a few examples of why clubs are not created nor should be treated equally. It may seem a contradiction but you can only really see this when you are capable of objectively looking at the situation, rather than from a partisan point of view. Show me a Wigan fan who thinks they are just as special as Barcelona and i'll show you a retard. Good examples. More a way of life than a club. Cultural impact of such clubs and their hinterland is what makes them special. Those clubs are all intertwined with political strife though - Bilbao and the Spain / Basque issue, Napoli the Northern / Southern Italian economic and political divide, and Barcelona the Catalunya / Spanish issue. There are no English clubs which have this element to them - only Celtic and Rangers really have it in Britain. I'd tend to agree that these clubs are "more than football clubs" but that is because they are about more than football, not just because they've got lots of fans. Arsenal have lots of fans, and they're increasingly about little more than selling 'Premium Seats' and 8 quid portions of fish and chips to bankers and lawyers these days.

That's not actually true. Thus far, O'Neill has spent very little money. If you looked at the net spend of clubs last season, I bet Villa are in the bottom 7 or 8.

The EPL is not the best league in the world, anyway. It is the best marketed and most profitable league, though.

I know, that's why i said "or developing, at least" get them in, work on them. He's still miles from any sort of finished product, and very young, but we can make him better. He may be very raw but, as you say, he is still very young. I've seem him play maybe half a dozen times, mainly with the England kids and always looked to be one of the brighter sparks in the team. I know we were trying to get him as well but we got our own back when Spurs signed Dean Parrett, who was very much on your radar. It's all well and good having a successful Academy but there also has to be the desire to promote from the youth/development squads rather than go out and spend another couple of million on another Johnny Foreigner. Spurs traditionally have (though what they have brought through has been generally poor), Villa have and obviously the scum up the road, but generally speaking, I think there is a tendency to look abroad , presumably in the search for instant results. Anyway, I should be having a look at your kids next week as they visit us tomorrow week. It should be a good game, it was good in Brum earlier in the season when we lost 2-1. I never got to go in the end (never went to Derby either) but Spurs got revenge winning 2-1 in a cracking game by all accounts. Villa were by far the better in the first half, but by the end Spurs were good value for the win, making it 9 successive wins and 13 out of 15 going back to the beginning of October. A lot of credit is going to Alex Inglethorpe who is Head Coach for the Academy, though Comolli ought to get some recognition for giving him the quality of players to work with. Perhaps more pleasing is that we've got 2 players who'll be joining the first year of the Academy who had been destined to join the scum up the road but didn't think they would have a great future there as they're English! Spurs have got Port Vale on Wednesday in the Youth Cup, Chelsea await the winners in the semi-final. I'm hoping for a Spurs/Villa final, they would be well matched. Got to get past Port Vale first though!! Port Vale 1 Spurs 0 ............................ FFS though I did half guess that! Inglethorpe out. Youth Cup doesnt mean owt....only YC game Ive been to best player on the pitch was Boro reject Andrew Davies...and thats only cos he was the biggest/strongest and won everything in the air. Dont think football at that level is a results business at all when games can be swung on a physical factor that just isnt there when the same kids play against grown men. Success at youth level is measured in graduates, not sales or tin pots.... That said....COYB. Got Plymouth in the Quarter final. Tallest, strongest, fastest will always have an advantage due to age but skill and technical ability you hope will prevail irrespective of age. About half of the Spurs group would be eligible to play again next year, but for most their progress by that time will be in Spurs' development squad (reserves to most clubs but that's what Spurs call them) or elsewhere having been shipped out. Ours won 2-0 at Carlisle tonight. Delfouneso, Bannan and Forrester starring again. Delfouneso will play in the PL before too long, man of the match apparently. Port Vale or Chelsea in the semi finals. Incidentally, our youth team's league record = Played: 22 Won: 17 Drawn: 1 Lost: 4. Pretty impressive.

We used 7 English players on Saturday (and one Scottish). We're currently 6th. There's absolutely nothing wrong with English players, other than the fact that they cost so much money.

35 quid? It was 48 quid when we played there.

There's absolutely no point these days thinking that fanbase is some amazing ticket to acquiring the best players. ALL clubs have money, and shit loads of it. That is the new financial landscape of football. 30m a year TV money to the bottom club, 50m to the top, these are immense figures. Yes, the better players want to play week in week out for the top four, CL clubs, but they can't all do that. Given this, there is little incentive to move from one cushy second tier club to another. This is what has skewed the market these days. Look at a player like David Bentley. What real reason is there for him to move from Blackburn to, say, Newcastle, Everton or Villa? There isn't. It'd be a sideways move. This is why it is so hard to sign decent players from within the UK these days - especially in the January window. Clubs will have to make play of things like who their manager is, where they are located (massive, massive advantage to comparatively unappealing clubs like West Ham), their training facilities etc etc. Football hasn't stood still for the last few years, everything has changed. Everything.

Saturday's collapse was bizarre. Everyone sat around me was looking at each other and saying "eh?". That's a team bereft of confidence if ever I saw one.

Some of our fans were singing 'youve never won fuck all' at you on Saturday. I pointed out that this was both gramatically AND factually highly suspect. We had Everton fans singing the same thing at us at Goodison last season, which was most odd. Mind, there is probably a generation of fans who don't think anyone other than the big four have won owt.

. Who are the zulus? I remember when they (Coventry) delayed a kick off, I think it was against one of the Bristol clubs and they both played for a draw and the mackems were relegated by everton ( I think). I would normally be over the moon about that but I just thought that it could have been Newcastle, cheating bastards and they got away with it. Zulus = Zulu Warriors, Birmingham City's main firm. Coventry lived a charmed existence for years, getting away with it at the death. I guess all the good luck is being repaid now with bad luck, all in one big lump.

Oh yeah, 19th, doing great. In fairness to the semi-literate mutant, he did have some pretty major distractions this season.

It didn't even feel like being at a football match the times I went, it just felt all wrong, horrible. I went once, late 80s, and spent the entire match getting pelted with god knows what from the Cov fans, and randomly laid into by the police. The entire escorted walk back to the train station was running warfare. When we got back to Brum New Street, the Zulus were waiting for us and all hell broke out in the city centre. It was the longest continuous exposure to football hooliganism I ever experienced. I know we're not supposed to revel in the misfortune of other clubs (hey, we're all supporters), but honestly, I can't really think of a single positive thing about Coventry City.

http://img225.imageshack.us/img225/2492/boroescudojb3.gif Absolutely spot on.

Oh dear Manc Vs Manc forum bitch fest coming up Speccy is absolutely right, though. For such a gigantic club, Manchester United are - in many ways - actually very, very smalltime indeed. They're a vile institution, only out-viled by Chelsea these days, and even that is debatable.

I would have offered to pull down Highfield Road myself, those seats behind the goal were horrible. See above post. I struggle to think of an away end with a worse view (I'm thinking pre all seating). Only Oxford United springs immediately to mind.

As a Villa fan, I'm used to having a strange relationship with Coventry. They absolutely fucking loathe us, but we're entirely indifferent about them. This indifference was, of course, put to one side when we relegated them at our place in 2001. Incidentally: This can't be right? What about Highbury and Goodison - Everton and Arsenal both having never played outside the top flight? Weren't Cov only in the top flight 35 odd years? What a hole that place was. Had many, many scary away trips to that place, stood in a cage which effectively blocked 70 percent of the view of the pitch.

See also Graham Taylor.