brummie

Craig Gardener, Barry, Taylor (I can't believe I've said that) and Young were our best players today. Otherwise we were mediocre. Liverpool wasted a lot of chances, they won't win the league until they consistently put away chances like that. On today's showing, Man United would have had 4. That is the difference. Oh, and Mike Riley put in the worst refereeing performance I've seen in years. Not sending Pennant off, giving that absurd free kick purely because Gerrard wanted it, he is a fucking cunt of the highest order. If we sign Bosingwa and Curtis Davies this week, I will return to being very optimistic. EDIT incidentally, Liverpool fans are fucking 1980s throwbacks, saw loads of trouble after the game today, and apparently it was going off around the ground during the match, as well. They want to get a fucking grip.

I think the best approach to take with summer transfer coverage in the papers is to ignore absolutely fucking everything. The journos are all as bored as we are.

Apologies. It is the stress of a MON transfer window that is doing it. 2 days till start, still no right back, just the one LB etc etc Martin Nodeal. mackems.gif yeah yeah, well, yeah right, errm, Sam Bummerdyce, yeah

Apologies. It is the stress of a MON transfer window that is doing it. 2 days till start, still no right back, just the one LB etc etc ...and no nearer signing Jussi! We're having Carson on loan for the year. Then we'll be back for Jussi for nowt at the end of the season.

Apologies. It is the stress of a MON transfer window that is doing it. 2 days till start, still no right back, just the one LB etc etc

Yes better to have Nigel Reo-Coker sulking about having to play for you instead of Arsenal. Nigel 'England U21 Captain' Reo-Coker, that one you mean? Seemed quite happy to join for us, as it happened. Looked excellent on Saturday and in pre-season, played that holding midfield role excellently, kept the game flowing, allowed Petrov to get forward. Much better than that useless idiot who tried playing that role last year ... what was his name again?

When you're going to be struggling against relegation from the off, players with a shit attitude are the absolute last thing you need. How's his weight these days? Doesn't he have problems in that area?

Ha! Excellent, that's cheered me up already.

Is Mido still available? I don't know. Actually, I've just remembered, things could be worse. We could still have that pointless, clogging waste of organs Gavin McCann polluting our midfield, or Jloyd "Stroppy Teenager" Samuel flouncing around thinking he's Roberto Carlos.

Very good keeper. I'd have thought he'll be wanting a proper move soon. It can only get better.... i think Well it can't get any worse. If i was a girl, I'd have stormed out the office to the bogs in floods of tears today, so fucked off was I with this whole mess.

Very good keeper. I'd have thought he'll be wanting a proper move soon. I suspect it is Liverpool not wanting to sell, tbh. They're signing Itandje, who is the keeper Villa had on trial last week but sent back, which is a bit odd.

Villa to sign Scott Carson, apparently. http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/sport/football/premiership/article2224974.ece Good keeper. Although it is on loan, which is fucking annoying and what happens when you spend the summer with your head buried in the sand, pretending the transfer window hasn't opened.

This is probably the clearest example of someone hitting a nail square on the head I've ever seen here. Well said.

Nope, Richardson is Championship class as well. I think it is a bit harsh to call Richardson championship class, he is an unspectacular, mediocre Premiership player. Anyway, can we stop talking about transfers? I'm too fucking distraught at the moment. And it isn't about Gordon, either, before anyone asks.

If anyone has any doubts about Rennie, he refereed the match I was at on Saturday, and I can confirm he is STILL a wanker of the highest order. Gave 4 free kicks against Villa in the opening 90 seconds (I kid you not) and did his utmost to ensure he was centre of attention for the rest of the match.

He'd be in mine. That was a bloody awful team he inherited at Villa. To turn it around for a top half finish is quality work. It's a shame they finished in the bottom half then. O'neill's massively overrated, compare his record with someone like Sven and it shows him up abit. He performed a miracle to keep us up - dropped into the job a few weeks before the season, with a shit squad, with the takeover not gone through (and which didn't go through until after the window closed) so not much chance to get players in, forced to use out of contract players to boost numbers, forced to borrow Crystal Palace's third choice keeper because we didn't have a fit one at the club, and to finish 11th in a season where the club went through total change off the pitch. Incidentally, he did the above starting the season with an 11 match unbeaten run (the last team in any division to lose a game) and finishing it with a nine match unbeaten run, going through a bad patch in the middle of the season when lack of squad depth started to bite. If we'd have had a decent striker at the start of the season and a bit more squad depth, and won just a few of the many matches we drew which we should have won (West Ham away, Newcastle away, for example), he might well have got us into Europe. But no, apparently a bottom half of the table finish was a bad result, and shows he is a shit manager doesnt it? Some people, I don't know .... Oh and incidentally, bottom half finishes ... hmmm, glass houses and whatnot!

he didnt go to a shit league to manage the best team in it, he went to a team that had seen its moneyed neighbour win everything year on year, and with practically no money to spend, turned it around. And who said anything about world football or top 20 in the world? And as for trophy-in-the-cabinet achievements, a lot more than most other managers managing in the PL

In a list of how many? MON isn't one of the best managers in the game at the moment? Hmmm.

Villa have signed some talented footballers?! When did this happen?! I think it is fair to say that Ashley Young, John Carew, Gareth Barry, Gabriel Agbonlahor, Luke Moore, Nigel Reo-Coker, Shaun Maloney, Wilfred Bouma and Stiliyan Petrov are talented footballers. Or wouldn't they get a look in at the Reebok?

Yes but you're desperate! The only way that Jaaskaleinen is going to sign for a bunch of under-achievers like Villa, is if you offer stupid money for him and judging by the £4M you've spent on Harewooden, Martin O'Neill is obviously not averse to spending stupid money on players! Yes, what could possibly attract Jaaskelainen to a club like Villa ..... the chance to work with one of the best managers in the game, talented footballers alongside him. Perhaps we'll take him to the trophy room and show him the history of the club, where maybe he'll notice the European Cup, seven league titles and seven FA Cups. Alternatively, he might prefer playing in the footballing equivalent of a multiplex cinema, with the cringeing sight of people running up and down with flags and the sound of music when you score, safe in the knowledge that he'll be in the Championship next season. Still, you've always got Jloyd and McCann, muhahahahaaaaaa!

Talk is that although that kind of money is a bit mad, we desperately need a goalkeeper, so we'll take him. According to Five Live, Hearts have only agreed a fee with ONE Premier League team and Gordon has left today to join them. If Villa are that desparate for a goalkeeper, why not offer Bolton £8M for Jaaskaleinen? Save yourself £1M and get a far better goalkeeper! How many goalkeepers with one year left on their contract go for 8m? I'd be equally happy with Jaaskelainen, tbh, but that'd be at 1-2m.

No uproar from us, but masses of it from them. Albion are our traditional rivals, and especially for fans from the north side of the city, where a lot of Albion's support is, there is still rivalry. I wouldn't be surprised if Albion told Spurs they wanted 6m and us they wanted 8.

I've no idea, Dave, I haven't seen him play either. But what I do know is that Sorenson is out for a month, Taylor is fucking rubbish and we sold our third choice keeper 2 months ago, which leaves us in desperate need of a good goalkeeper, very quickly. I guess players are worth what people are prepared to pay for them.

Talk is that although that kind of money is a bit mad, we desperately need a goalkeeper, so we'll take him. I'd be confident he'd choose us, but there is one factor which concerns me. Sorenson (despite being shit) is an international goalkeeper. Although Gordon, at that price, would go straight in the team, he'd nonetheless have an int'l keeper competing with him. At Sunderland he'd be up against a couple of no-name mooks. MON is playing his transfer cards so close to his chest, though, that nobody really knows what is going on. I can't believe we're so close to the start of the season with next to nobody in. The money is there - you don't spaff 4m on a fourth choice striker if it isn't - but he's always been very guarded in the transfer market. He said at the end of last week that he hadn't had a knockback from any of his main targets, which amazes me, as I thought Defoe and SWP would definitely have been two of them. It is frustrating, though. I think that by the weekend we'll have signed at least one of Gordon, Bosingwa and Curtis Davies, and possibly all of them. But the chance that we'll sign none of them is a bit worrying.

Not given a squad number at Villa, and MON said on Friday that there was news re Delaney, but it was best to come from the player himself. Which suggests he is going to retire.