brummie

Has Carson? I'm looking on the bright side. That's taken at least 2m off his price in January

Holy cunting fuck. Thank god we've got a bench to sit on a result rather than one to grab something, eh.

I love The Fiver. I suspect it is written by a Villa fan.

Yes. I'm going to try to fuck Elle McPherson tonight. Good on me!

As i said on another thread, we Villa fans are truly blessed in having such entertaining shitforbrained neighbours.

I think it would be a bad move, both for Shearer and for England. One of the mistakes we make too easily in this country is this belief that you can just take a former top player, drop them into a big job, and they instantly become good managers Pearce (the passion he'd bring!) and Southgate (he reads the broadsheets, he's a thinker!) are two recent examples. I know there are examples when it has worked, but personally, I'd rather the England manager was an experienced club manager than a first-job rookie. I also think Shearer would have to be off his rocker to take it - the job almost always ends in failure, and could affect his longer term potential as a club manager.

In many ways hard to disagree, but who do you replace him with? It is all very well the press going on about an English or British manager but any British manager with half a brain will have seen the level of shit that comes - from the press - with the job and not touch it with a bargepole. Then there's the school of thought that his recent run of results has been pretty good, and that he deserves a longer shot at the job. Also worth noting that one of the much suggested potential saviours, Hiddinck, is probably not going to be at the EC, whereas McClown is (relative strengths of squads noted, obviously). Personally I'm not massively arsed, but chopping and changing is not going to produce an instant fix. If McClaren gets us there, then he deserves the chance to manage us at the tournament. He's certainly shown that he really is a lucky manager, so maybe that luck will hold out?

John Burridge so I am told is highly likely to become the new Spurs goalkeeping coach to replacethe departed Hans Segers. The last I heard of him (which wasn't that long ago) he was in Dubai with his family. Do you know if he's back in the UK yet? He is still in Dubai. Budgie is a legend.

He gets results, though.

Madness if true, imho, but it would make me very happy as it would leave the Blessed Martin where he is for a while longer.

Not the most reliable of sources (John Burridge) (incidentally, one of my favourite players ever) but:

Didn't realise Hughes transfer activity was so astute. tbf...Friedel and Pedersen were signed by...someone else. Not that astuteness matters for owt when you've got bajillions to chuck about. David Dunn is a lardarsed twat, as well.

The irony is that a great number of supporters of other clubs would pick Allardyce from that list. Still he's got to the end of the season according to some.

Souness? *chortle, chortle* That would be a good consolation prize, but for us lot, DOL would be absolute manna from heaven.

David O'Leary is available and has been mentioned around these parts. Short of, say, winning the lottery, I honestly can't think of anything which would make me happier at the moment.

Blackburn were one of the three most hopeless sides I saw at Villa Park last season. Beyond awful. Yet, at the moment, Hughes is doing well, so he's flavour of the month, he must be fucking brilliant. Football fans are so fucking fickle and clueless at times, we all want instant results, so we'll lash ourselves up to whichever bandwagon is most popular at the moment. As for MON and what has he achieved - as someone else said, took a relegation bound shit squad, got it mid table despite not having a summer transfer window, and has us in 8th at the moment, despite having had an awful opening run of fixtures. I couldn't help noticing the presence of three Villa players on the pitch for England in the second half the other day, and one more with a very good shout of making the step up from the U21s soon. I've also seen a few articles by proper journalists recently talking about how Villa are in with a shout of providing the nucleus of the England team soon. Managers don't just get judged on whether they deliver instant results or whether they're two points above Newcastle / Everton / Spurs ' whoever, the really good ones build their club from the ground up and set it up for the long term. Looked at that way, MON is doing a very good job.

Bwahahaha! Thats fucking mental. Please tell me there is a scan of that diary on the internet somewhere! http://icbirmingham.icnetwork.co.uk/mail/news/tm_headline=football-club-s-inquiry-over-diary-blunder&method=full&objectid=18434823&siteid=50002-name_page.html http://images.icnetwork.co.uk/upl/icbirmingham/jan2007/5/4/0BAA8966-D854-14BC-8F51F0D01C2510B3.jpg Bwahahahaha! There are no words. Imagine what it was like for us, getting gifted a story like that.

At least he knows he's not going to get the sack when the takeover goes through, and the board there will probably be more supportive.

You lot don't know how unlucky you are, not having self destructing neighbours like we do. This year has been absolutely fantastic. They really are the worst run club on the planet. Firstly, there was the diary episode, where they printed and distributed several thousand copies of their official club diary. The first page listed all the honours they had won. Which is fine. The problem was that they listed Villa's honours list, which as you can imagine is somewhat more extensive (theres is one league cup and the leyland daf trophy). They actually made an official statement which said "We would like to clarify that Birmingham City has never won the European Cup". Can you imagine how much fun we got out of that? Secondly, there was the arguments over ticket pricing last week, where they made themselves look a bunch of hyprocritical cocks yet again. Thirdly, there is the problem with attendances. Every now and then (twice this season) David Sullivan has full page begging letters printed in the Evening Mail, where he pretty much slags their own supporters off for being apathetic. How humiliating. When we played West Ham last year in the middle of our 15 match no win spell, we got a capacity crowd. The week before, Blues had had 20,000 or something. Nothing particularly gloatworthy there, were it not for the fact that Sullivan comes out and says to the press "the club down the road get 42k despite playing the bottom of the league side, and not having won for a dozen games. How can we compete with them? We can't". Whatever you think of that statement, can you imagine how it felt for their fans hearing their chairman say something like that? Fourthly, their board has a combined wealth which I am guessing puts them in the top ten richest owners in the PL, easily, yet Sullivan was moaning recently how "I've spent 10m on this club and got nothing back". There's ambition for you. Fifthly, at a time when pretty much everyone is getting a new billionaire owner, their takeover is through a small time Far East player who can't actually get the money together, and then leaves them in limbo for months whilst he dicks them around, vetoing Bruce's new contract at the same time. You couldn't make this shit up. I pray the takeover goes through - Yeung has a track record of picking the team at his HK club. If he turns out to be like the mentalist at Hearts, I think I'm going to laugh so hard I spit my liver out at some point in the near future. So, if anyone is wondering why Bruce is leaving, the above points should clear it up a bit

Real life legend, he broke Robbie Savage's leg y'know, surely that's more than enough reason to let him stay? That makes him peerage material in my book.

No, in fairness, I think he has done a good job too, especially working with that shit board.

Good on you, Potato Head. You've got to take the chance when you get offered a bigger job, and he's taken it.

We all have a pop at Scousers for "whingeing" but they're fucking right when it comes to stuff about Hillsborough.

I care about England like, but as long as there's something to watch over the summer I'm not really bothered if they don't qualify. Exactly. My situation is a bit different. I also hope we qualify to keep Mike Baldwin in the job and the FA away from MON.

Out for a month. Ouch.