brummie

No offencem but personally, I'd have to smoke a prodigious amount of crack to even start to believe that Ibrahimovic is even a quarter of the player Rooney is, let alone Owen. And I don't even particularly rate Rooney. You haven't been watching italian football much, have ya? Admittedly, no, not this last year or so.

Tbf most people predicted Lee would fail as they did Souness. Bolton went with the cheap option as we did with Roeder although its no surprise for them as they have always been a cheap club who couldn't attract much better where as we..... no, you are re-writing history. Gartside was said by a few people to be superior to Shepherd, because he ran a good club with a good plan, didn't make panic buys, didn't make badly timed managerial appointments etc etc etc The thing is, you can't jump on the first sign of things not going to plan at Bolton and use it as evidence that, actually, they're a bit of a mess after all. Bolton have consistently massively overperformed for a while now. Newcastle (and, for that matter, quite a few other 'big' clubs) have massively underperformed for a long time. Pointing out that Gartside fucked up in appointing Sammy Lee is fair enough, but the fact is they've been a very well run club for a long time now.

No offencem but personally, I'd have to smoke a prodigious amount of crack to even start to believe that Ibrahimovic is even a quarter of the player Rooney is, let alone Owen. And I don't even particularly rate Rooney.

I'm glad he's gone. Watching MOTD and Sky Sports was becoming a nerve wracking nightmare just in case he popped up with his ridiculous verbal tic.

god help you if you have souness in charge- in any capacity!! i wouldnt give him a job cleaning the pissers Not me!!!I just had the misfortune of being born here. You're not far from me, then, billy, sadly. Sadly in the sense that I am currently domiciled closer to Coventry than I'd like. 18 miles as the crow flies mate.A dead city if there ever was such a place. I'm in Warwick. Far, far too close for comfort. Oddly enough, I never see any Coventry City fans around town. Mainly Villains, plus the usual smattering of repulsive glory hunters.

Who's he going to replace at Villa to be playing every week? Left back Bouma? Left side of midfield Ashley Young? I think not.

Decent call tbf I agree, too.

I haven't heard many people say Barry is a better player than Lampard, but I have heard plenty say England look better with Barry alongside Gerrard than Lampard. Those are two different things. Lampard and Gerrard have been tried together for England so many times, and it just does not work. That's been England's problem as long as I can remember (and I'm nudging 40) - always picking the bigger names rather than the ones who perform best. That's why Clemence hung on ahead of Shilton for so long, why John Barnes got 90 odd caps and put in 3 or 4 decent performances at most, and why Lampard and Gerrard were persisted with for so long. Barry has been ignored by the last three England managers, and now he's had his chance, he's taken it. Good luck to the bloke. To suggest that he's somehow gone from being criminally underrated to hugely overrated in the space of a few weeks seems a bit, well, unlikely

in 24 premiership games last season, Lennon got 3 goals and 8 assist so you're talking rubbish tbh. Whilst not terrible, that's also not brilliant, is it? I think Lennon is a good player, I do think he is overrated, though.

I can't make my mind up. In his defence, he is also an excellent finisher (witness goal against Everton a few weeks ago, and goal against Spurs, although most people could finish past Robinson). He also scored 10 goals last season in his first Prem season, whilst being played out of position for 90 percent of the games (MON persists in playing him wide). I don't think he's the great new hope of English football, but I do think he is very promising. Fully agree. Although, again, he's still young, thus needs to be given time. I thought he looked very, very lucky for long periods at the start of the season.

1986-7 season, one of the first home games of the season, a 2-0 reverse against QPR, shortly after I'd move up for college. I remember nothing other than the fact I'd never been at a top flight ground which was open at both ends. Went to quite a few matches over the next four years or so. The only ones that I really remember are a 5-0 drubbing of Swindon, a match against Villa after which I got chased across what seemed half of the city centre and some twat put a brick in my mate's sister's face from point blank range, and one (Luton maybe?) after which there was a sack-the-board, sit down protest on the Gallowgate after the match. I was, I'd imagine, the only Villa fan taking part in it, although my mate who was with me was possibly not the only Man United supporter there, such was their ubiquity even then

Ha ha ha http://www.webspawner.com/users/bungedup/bungedup.jpg Cheeky Mackem scampsters. Incidentally, that SMB Pinochet Puskas thread is legend on the Villa boards.

Those are all good players, but are they 'underrated'? Most people would tell you Lescott (picking one at random) is a good player. Also, regardless of how shit he is or is not, the previous poster who talked about Jenas .... Jenas has a load of England caps which suggest he isn't so much underrated as overrated.

god help you if you have souness in charge- in any capacity!! i wouldnt give him a job cleaning the pissers Not me!!!I just had the misfortune of being born here. You're not far from me, then, billy, sadly. Sadly in the sense that I am currently domiciled closer to Coventry than I'd like.

I think global nuclear war will effectively wipe out the human race well within 100 years. Only Keith Richards shall survive.

Do I feel Newcastle are a little hard done by in the Owen situation? Yes. Do I think Owen could sort it by being a little more vocal in acknowledging his debt to his employers? Yes Would I feel comfortable if he were a Villa player returning from injury to play two games for England? No. Do I think you're getting a shit return for your investment? Yes Do I think it will ever improve? Probably not. Would I want Villa to sign him? Yes. Therein lies the conundrum.

Possibly funniest post I've ever seen on here.

Martin Laursen is a colossus, he also seems to have got over his knee injury. Fact Last season Laursen played 14 league games for us. We didn't lose any of them. That says a lot. I'd have him as man of the match in pretty much every Villa game this season, so good has he been. He is starting to remind me of another well known centre half with fucked up knees we had at Villa.

Coventry going to the wall? *salty tears*

I would prefer it if Sam viewed him as just a striker. Doesn't add much in midfield apart from a regular yellow card. He'll add something later on in the season when injuries start to bite and you need people who can fit in wherever and do a job of some kind.

We were linked with Smith for a fair while too. My opinion then was as it is now - if you buy him as an out and out striker, he's a bad move, but if you want instant versatility added to the squad, then he's a good buy. 6m is not a lot of money to buy that versatility.

And he specifically said himself that he didn't want to go there. West Ham. Horrible grubby little club.

What have you got coming through your youth policy at the moment? Rarely see threads on here talking about it. PS Zog v Milner - doesn't Zog have something of a mardy arsed attitude? Milner wins hands down on that front, as his attitude is beyond question.

Harewood isnt looking like the best of signings, tbh.

Something is wrong with a football club when the chairman and director of football get mentioned with respect to player acquisitions more than the manager does - I'm sure MJ or KD can make a convincing case against this, and I'm not going to expand on the point any more than that, but it does strike me that something is wrong with that set up.