brummie

When he tried to buy us, there were those in the "anyone but Ellis" camp, and those who pointed out the fact that he didn't really have much cash behind him. I don't know if that has changed, or if he has a weighty consortium behind him this time, but you have to look at his serial attempts to buy a club and measure this up against his motives. As regards the stock exchange announcement, with our takeover, they announced something along the lines of "we confirm we are in talks with a third party regarding a takeover of the club, which may or may not result in an offer". We then got no further announcements until it was a done deal practically.

Scoring goals has been our problem all season. Only scored more than two goals once all season. Although, we've only lost 10 games so far, only 2 more than Arsenal. That's where our problem has been. Carew has got problems with his fitness still (see going off yesterday). He's good to watch, he's got all the makings of a legend (we too like our big, bustling centre forwards), and some of his touches are incredible. He and Barry are the two most naturally talented players at the club, by a long way. You're bang on with the mention of a natural finisher, though. Interesting that now finally Agbonlahor is playing up front rather than out on the wing (up front being his natural position) he has started scoring (although admittedly not whilst playing with Carew). But he's still a kid, we do need a natural scorer soon. The rumour is MON wants Bellamy, but even if Liverpool would sell him, is he going to be prepared to drop out of the CL elite? I'm looking forward to close season. We've got an excellent set of youngsters, if he can get the right experienced players to play amongst them, I think we could have a decent season.

Ah, that explains it then. I was really disappointed with Pompey, pushing for Europe and sticking 10 men behind the ball. Perversely glad for David James, though.

O'Brien wasn't on the bench. Hughes was, though, and I found myself thinking "fuck, I hope he doesn't get that close to the pitch again". He seems warmly remembered by Toon fans, which puzzles me, as he is one of the worst players I've ever seen play for us (and I've seen some real dross). He'll be available in the summer if you fancy him back.

Good to hear players being honest like this. Reflections of the "players statement" at Villa last summer criticising the parsimony of the then board, and we saw where that ended up (it played its part, indirectly). I'd rather Barton style honesty than David James's endless bandwagon jumping in the Observer (see latest one, encouraging performance related pay from the safety of the arse end of his career). And FWIW, he was absolutely spot on with his comments about the England squad, too.

Barry Davies and Peter Brackley are the only people who should be allowed to commentate on football, the rest are all rubbish. I've nothing against women doing it on principle, but that bint today was crap.

I'd watch non league football. Probably Solihull Borough or Moor Green. Fuck the Premiership

Stevie, it was gentle ribbing based on your frequent arguments that pretty much everybody is a small club, not exactly controversial, hardly the most mortal of insults, and certainly not designed to cause upset (and for what its worth, i wasn't even remotely offended by your reply, so there's no real need for anyone to assume it was offensive). Don't take things quite so seriously, mate.

I think Milner will be here regardless. Agree Zoggy is starting to look doubtful just don't see it - we've proven repeatedly as a club that we have no compunction whatsoever in sh!tting all over james milner if it "benefits" us - and given how little money we have, plus the fact villa will be tripping over themselves to spend yankee dollars on him, i can see us shipping him to sign one of glenns players There's a school of thought amongst our fans that we should be after bigger targets than Milner now we've got the money, but most of us, including me, would gladly have him back. I'd also add that you'd be absolutely mad to let him go, mind.

I saw Mirandinha in WH Smiths in Eldon Square. What I remember most was lots of people recognising him, and him just grinning at them, and the fact that his wife was wearing a truly vile leather and fur coat, and was wearing far, far too much make-up, to the point I actually thought she might be some kind of over compensating transexual at first. Oh, this was in 1987, by the way

Stuck rotting at Everton? Everton were one of the top clubs in England & Europe at the time. He scored 38 goals in 52 games for the club. I wouldn't call that rotting away. It's easy to criticise him because he never did much outside the box and say he relied on service but when you're such a phenomenal goalscorer you don't need to do anything else and when you're playing for a top team you don't have to worry about the service being provided. Throughout history there have always been players of that ilk and they always play for the top clubs. That's not a coincidence. It's not like he was found out at Barca either. He was one of their best players, had a great goal scoring record and won trophies. Same story when he came back to England with Spurs. I think you've got a VERY warped view on Lineker. Sometimes I think Stevie doesn't realise football existed before 1992. Everton truly were one of the top clubs at the time, and if it hadn't been for Liverpool getting English clubs banned, for my money that Everton side were a stick-on to win the European Cup at some point. He probably thinks you're the size of Plymouth or something.

For what its worth, I think Hughes has the makings of a really good manager, based on what he has done there, however I'd say that they were the worst, least interested team I've seen play at VP this season, and when we played them at Ewood last week, they were so unbothered (possibly thinking forwards to the semi final) that they made us look like Brazil 1970. I think it is too early to really judge Hughes properly - promise, yes, definitely.

I've got a lot of time for Martin Jol as a manager, and as a person as well. I think he's done a good job at Spurs, and you've got to put what he has achieved in the context of 1, The general movement is upward, consolidation at worst. 2. As mentioned on here the other day, Spurs have finished in the top six once in 16 years, which makes last season more of an achievement, but has the effect of possibly reflecting unfairly badly on this season 3. He has put together a good (admittedly fucking huge, so by law of averages some of them must be half decent) squad of players, with a decent mix of experience and youth. 4. Of all the second tier clubs, Spurs and Everton are the ones doing best, and the ones where you can say their managers are getting results. Just my (ill-informed, as I don't really pay that much attention to Spurs) two'penneth.

And what does that "heritage" involve? You've moved out of Highbury and you rarely field a single Englishman. And if you don't go the way of Liverpool, Man U etc you'll be stuck if you ever lose Wenger and can't find another manager so good at raising the game of relatively cheap young players. And who was it that found Wenger? Oh yeah, David Dein. Nail on head, there, regarding heritage. Our evil new foreign owners have shown far more respect and appreciation for our heritage than the very English Doug Ellis ever did. They're clearly taking the (no doubt soon to become vaguely xenophobic) "falling into foreign hands is bad" defence whilst failing to notice the absolutely ludicrous evidence on the pitch that this counts not a jot.

He was good, but he never had anywhere near the class of a Gascoigne or a Hoddle. With the one difference that Platt consistently produced for England. Something which Hoddle didn't manage. Depends if you're going to factor England performances in to your list, really. Example - John Barnes, fantastic player in the league, how many England caps? 80 odd? How many decent games for England? 3? Depressingly familiar.

I know what you mean, great fancy football, but it must be very frustrating to watch. Give me half the over elaborate build up play and a few more goals / results.

Based on position only I think. at £500k per position that would be £2m less than last year. This is all assuming we stay above the might that is Blackburn and Man City. Citeh are starting to look decent of late. Apparently they were good against Arsenal this evening, and they've got their traditional 3 points to come from playing us in two weeks.

yes you do your new owners are laughing themselves all the way to the bank tbh And who do you think is salivating most at the thought of another minimum 30m? Our new owners, or your current owner? We've just spent £9m on a new training ground and 4m doing up a pub next to the ground, Vic, we're minted. Haven't you heard? Get with the plan, baby.

Next season, don't the bottom club get 30m and the top club 50m? And don't the fans all have to subscribe to Sky AND Setanta, in order to pay for it all?

too much galacticos tbh. ^^^^^ funniest post ever ^^^^^ And I'm not joking

West Ham - Spurs was easily the best game I've seen this season.

Funnily enough, I wasn't there, but our fans said exactly the same thing about Bilbao, that it was the best European away night ever, and that the friends were incredibly friendly, a night to remember by all accounts. Later on in the competition, we played Atletico Madrid, which i did go to, and it was absolutely fucking dreadful, van loads of coppers driving around, jumping out and batoning our supporters, women and children included, at random. As we entered the ground, they were lined up at the side swinging randomly at us. The exact opposite of Bilbao. I've been a major fan of the Basque country ever since.

Yes, it was Villa 3 - Charlton 4, 99 or 2000 I think. Their keeper was sent off, but I think it was Danny Mills who scored the winner, and it may have been in injury time. It was indeed them going ahead, us pegging them back and so on. I seem to remember we had someone sent off as well, actually.

Doesn't appointing a DoF invariably lead to tension between him and manager, and manager leaving?