brummie

Surely it is often nigh on impossible to spend money in January, no matter how much of it you have got, as teams don't want to sell their best players halfway through the season?

I don't mind Liverpool winning it. I'd rather United didn't win it, as they've both won it before, but just so long as it isnt won by Chelsea, that's fine by me. I think Bayern will win it, though.

Quality, quality player. £2.5m in the summer of '04, he would have been playing for City. But KK had already spunked all our cash on a load of s**** Liverpool are gonna win it btw. No-one else has stamped their authority on the cup like they have tonight and in Barcelona (Apart from perhaps Roma in Lyon, who I still have hope for...). Sorry, but I'm rooting for United. I've had two years of this 5 times nonsense 24 hours a day. I think my head would explode if they won it again. I can only begin to imagine how shite it must be to have to share your city with such succesful neighbours. See also Man City.

Personally, I think this would be a great idea. Let Man U, Arsenal and Liverpool go and play in a breakaway league, and they can take Chelsea with them. Then maybe, just maybe, we'll have a competitive league here again. Fuck them, let them do it. Lets see how those Man United fans enjoy the banter with PSV Eindhoven fans in the office on a Monday morning. By the way, don't kid yourselves that there'd be some form of promotion to this league. That's what they want, to protect their business interests by ensuring they play European football all the time.

I agree, it does say a lot. You lot can probably see the improvements made and that he is taking the club in the right direction. Wouldn't be surprised to see you finish top 6. I'd be surprised to see it next season, but it is hard to express properly to people who haven't witnessed it at close quarters just how much the club was run down by Ellis over the last 10 years or so in particular. There are a lot of things to be put right off the pitch as well as on it, and the progress off the pitch thus far this year has been nothing short of staggering. So long as the fruits of this success are then aimed at getting things right on the pitch, and evidence so far suggests they will be, then things are looking very bright indeed. Anyone (Villa supporter or not) who thought that MON was going to put things right in the first season is way wide of the mark. so what you're saying is it's reasonable to accept poor performance from a new manager, even possible relegation, because you're looking for a long term rebuilding exercise of a totally f***** club? radical I didn't say anything about relegation. But the suggestion that some degree of short term pain is necessary for long term gain, whilst making me sound vaguely like Thatcher, is appropriate in this situation.

I agree, it does say a lot. You lot can probably see the improvements made and that he is taking the club in the right direction. Wouldn't be surprised to see you finish top 6. I'd be surprised to see it next season, but it is hard to express properly to people who haven't witnessed it at close quarters just how much the club was run down by Ellis over the last 10 years or so in particular. There are a lot of things to be put right off the pitch as well as on it, and the progress off the pitch thus far this year has been nothing short of staggering. So long as the fruits of this success are then aimed at getting things right on the pitch, and evidence so far suggests they will be, then things are looking very bright indeed. Anyone (Villa supporter or not) who thought that MON was going to put things right in the first season is way wide of the mark.

Incidentally, Vic, as an addition to the above post, the proof of the pudding is in the eating. We're incredibly optimistic and really looking forward to next season, despite this season. I think that says it all, really.

absolute tosh MON has brought in more players than Roeder FFS have a look at MON's career. He is the f****** definition of the 'wait till next year' man MON has brought in Petrov at the start of the season. He then brought in Agathe and Sutton on short deals, purely because the transfer window had closed and he could only sign unattached players, and we needed bodies. Sutton has been injured since October, Agathe is long gone. So that's one permanent signing pre-season. Then in January, he swapped Carew for Baros, bought Maloney and Young. Maloney has only played three times and not played a complete match due to lack of match fitness (at least initially). Carew has played 5 or 6 times as has Young. Since we played you on the last day of the transfer window we have only played 5 matches. He's not really had much of a chance to make his signings count. So that's 3 players in in January, one in in August. 4 players in, and Milner and De La Cruz out. Oh, and Baros out, too. As for wait till next year, there wasn't a huge amount of waiting till next year required at Celtic, was there?

with that logic you'll be saying West Ham should be winning the league because they beat manure. Oh, its you I should have guessed mackems.gif It IS quite canny to see the great Martin O'Neill not doing so well mind. It might be canny to see him struggling at the moment, but it would also be sensible to judge him at the end of next season when he's had a season with his own squad rather than struggle with dross like Gavin McCann. It makes me chuckle the people who said when he took the job, "oh, he's got a job on his hands to keep them up" then when he really does show he's got a job on his hands, express some kind of surprise.

Is Duff really on 100kish? I'll be absolutely fucking speechless if he is.

I don't have a problem with people not from the natural catchment area of a club supporting them, not at all, so long as the club they choose doesn't happen to be largely successful. Bandwagon jumping is evil. I'd rather my kids turned out to be Birmingham City fans than Man United fans. Example: kid in Devon decides to support Man City for some screwed up reason. Fine. Kid in Devon decides to support Man United. Not fine, not under any circumstances. I'm adopting a Sopranos style "dead to me" facial expression whilst writing this.

Hmmm. Decent UEFA cup run, and if the luck goes his way in the remaining games, a not-too-terrible Premiership finish. Not sackably bad, anyway. I think you may sadly be stuck with him for longer. FWIW, I don't think sacking him between now and the end of the season is going to help.

Where do you stand on the bluetooth headset issue?

And putting a bit aside for his Craig, obv

truth. Van Der Saaaaaar, Frieldel, Given and Robinson make up the rest of the top 5. Agree on Friedel, but Robinson is one of the most overrated goalkeepers I've ever seen. Not a bad keeper, nowt special.

I don't think this bit is true. He was absolutely desperate for the England job and recently made a pretty poor attempt to distance himself from rumours linking him to the City job. Quote: "If Stuart Pearce was to leave and Manchester City were to make an official approach, who knows?". I'm absolutely 1000000000% sure he wants a bigger job. I've also heard its "common knowledge" around Bolton that he's taking the Newcastle job in the summer but I tend not to believe any of this ITK s****. I think Allardyce is a complete c**t but the way he runs a football club could be exactly what we need. Someone to bang heads together, get a plan in place and completely overhaul the entire coaching staff/physios/players...the whole organization. I hate the b******, but when he's sitting there with his stupid head set on you know he probably isn't making tactical decisions based on the supporters' chanting. I agree about the banging heads together thing, he'd sort the whole club out in his image, and make a good fist of it. But is Shepherd ever going to allow anyone to do that? That's the question. But without knowing how closely involved in football affairs Shepherd actually is, I would guess that his primary motivation is money. Newcastle the plc. And the business will be at its most successful when we are winning. It would be an adjustment for both of them, but Allardyce is never going to get a job in the top 4 and he may have burned his bridges with the FA. Assuming our finances aren't completely wrecked, Newcastle is still a club that has something to offer an ambitious manager. There must be a part of him that gets frustrated when clubs like Newcastle and Tottenham finish in the same places in the league but are able to go out and blow millions on players like Martins or Berbatov when he finishes in Europe with Bolton but has to settle for free transfers and bargain deals. Like you said, he's done miracles with Bolton, and it'd be interesting to see what he'd do with resources. Does seem that he's eyeing the Man City job, though. Bolton play horrible football, but you do have to wonder if that is just SA getting the best out of what he has got - he's clearly not got the players to play Arsenal style football, and it gets him results ... My main objection to him is that fecking bluetooth thing ....

I don't think this bit is true. He was absolutely desperate for the England job and recently made a pretty poor attempt to distance himself from rumours linking him to the City job. Quote: "If Stuart Pearce was to leave and Manchester City were to make an official approach, who knows?". I'm absolutely 1000000000% sure he wants a bigger job. I've also heard its "common knowledge" around Bolton that he's taking the Newcastle job in the summer but I tend not to believe any of this ITK s****. I think Allardyce is a complete c**t but the way he runs a football club could be exactly what we need. Someone to bang heads together, get a plan in place and completely overhaul the entire coaching staff/physios/players...the whole organization. I hate the b******, but when he's sitting there with his stupid head set on you know he probably isn't making tactical decisions based on the supporters' chanting. I agree about the banging heads together thing, he'd sort the whole club out in his image, and make a good fist of it. But is Shepherd ever going to allow anyone to do that?

Only because some bastard murdered our best player a couple of months before, mind ;-) http://freespace.virgin.net/heroes.villains1/best/3.htm

We need a w****** smiley on this board. There's WUM's and there's nobheads, but here we have an example of someone just making a tit of themselves. Isn't that quote kind of making the point, Stevie? I'm not sure who is the "nobhead" you are alluding to - me, Invicta or MON?

Mate, my point was that with investment, and hope, our potential is definitely there. if you look at attendance stats from pre 1990 - I'm assuming it was 1990 when SJH ousted McKeag and started instilling some ambition in Newcastle, but forgive me if I'm wrong - the average attendances of both clubs have not been hugely different over history. There've been times when yours have been better than ours, there were times when ours were better than yours. However, this somehow equates as Villa have never shown potential for great support, yet Newcastle always did, and Villa's potential is up there with that of Crystal Palace and Portsmouth? Get a grip. Mat if we won the league and were champions of Europe, even in the 80's 70,000 would've been too small, and that's a fact. Yet only 26,000 of you could be arsed on average. We've not won a domestic trophy for 50 odd years, you have and you've won the biggest cup of them all. And what exatly does that prove? That NUFC have a bigger fanbase or more potential? I don't think anyone would dispute that, it still wouldn't mean anything though and to be fair to Villa, they share their City with many clubs, we share ours with none which often gets overlooked and is without a doubt a huge contributing factor towards our abnormally high in preportion to success, attendances. They share their city with one club, West Bromwich isn't in Birmingham. They play in an area which is the second most densely populated metropolitan area in Britain. There are five clubs within 15 miles, which contributes to the reason why they'll never have a truely massive fanbase. No disrespect to brummies, and I've seen Brummies admit this, but they're seen as backward, as a backwater, forgotten by the media. For this reason they'd never have national appeal neither. Villa's traditional local rivals were always Albion, and the ground IS in the city, the city border crosses the pitch. More importantly, they draw a lot of their support from North Birmingham. I've even got some *spit* in my family. you appear to be contradicting yourself by saying that it is the second most densely populated area in the country, but then that we'll never have a big fanbase because there are other clubs in the area (despite initially having said there is only one other club in the city). Make your mind up. Oh, and as for the comment about Birmingham being seen as a backwater (despite having just pointed out it is the second most densely populated part of the country, and slap bang in the middle of it), well, really.

Aren't you the one with 10,000 plus posts on gg-chat.net?

Mate, my point was that with investment, and hope, our potential is definitely there. if you look at attendance stats from pre 1990 - I'm assuming it was 1990 when SJH ousted McKeag and started instilling some ambition in Newcastle, but forgive me if I'm wrong - the average attendances of both clubs have not been hugely different over history. There've been times when yours have been better than ours, there were times when ours were better than yours. However, this somehow equates as Villa have never shown potential for great support, yet Newcastle always did, and Villa's potential is up there with that of Crystal Palace and Portsmouth? Get a grip. Mat if we won the league and were champions of Europe, even in the 80's 70,000 would've been too small, and that's a fact. Yet only 26,000 of you could be arsed on average. We've not won a domestic trophy for 50 odd years, you have and you've won the biggest cup of them all. If you think any English club would have pulled more than 70,000 on a regular basis in the early 1980s, then you're clearly off your rocker.

Based on top flight average, ours pisses on all of there's at 35,000 I believe. Size of the club was always based on fanbase in the past, which is why Manchester United despite a bleak 26 years, were always perceived as the biggest club. It's how Wenger judges Arsenal's status. It's just a new gimpy feature of the modern fan who has changed this, Manchester United's case is a special one, given the cache the club obtained post Munich. And you refer to their "bleak 26 years". Yep, they may not have won the title for 26 years, but in that time they managed to win 4 FA Cups and 1 European Cup Winners Cup. The fact of the matter is that big clubs win things, something Villa and Newcastle have managed to avoid for too long now.

Mate, my point was that with investment, and hope, our potential is definitely there. if you look at attendance stats from pre 1990 - I'm assuming it was 1990 when SJH ousted McKeag and started instilling some ambition in Newcastle, but forgive me if I'm wrong - the average attendances of both clubs have not been hugely different over history. There've been times when yours have been better than ours, there were times when ours were better than yours. However, this somehow equates as Villa have never shown potential for great support, yet Newcastle always did, and Villa's potential is up there with that of Crystal Palace and Portsmouth? Get a grip.

Much like yourselves before you got an ambitious board willing to spend money and finally started getting a whiff of success, you mean? He said "potential". The thing is you've had success and still couldn't get the numbers. Second in 1990 and 1993, averaging 25,000 and 29,000. Second to us was success, we mid table non-entities and we're still averaging over 50,000, that is a club with a huge potential fanbase. 34,000 when you won the fuckin league, and 26,000 in the season you won the European Cup. Sunderland have more potential than Villa by far. A huge potential fanbase to me is a club who at their peak could average 80,000 fans: i.e Man Utd, Newcastle, Arsenal, Celtic FULL STOP, THERE'S NOBODY ELSE. You seem to be neglecting a few facts. In 1993, we averaged 29k, yes you are right. But you dont mention that it iwas the third highest average in the Premier League that season. Same with 1990 - average attendances across the league 20K. Arsenal only managed 33k FFS. When we won the league? Are you aware of what football crowds were like in the early 1980s? 1980-1 average crowd in Div 1 = 24,000. 1982 = 22k. The early 80's yes I'm well aware of what gates were in the early 80's, better than they were in the mid 80's, when you were barely scraping 15,000 as an average in the top flight. Newcastle's 30,000 in 1984 was the third best in England despite being in the second division. We're the only club to my knowledge, to take over 14,000 away on more than one, occasion, Liverpool 84, Spurs 87, the potential to have a massive fanbase, was ALWAYS evident here. It never has been at Aston Villa. Ever. Gates in the early 80's..... What like Manchester United's 52,000 in 1980. In your year of being reigning champions, you only averaged 26,000, two years later we averaged almost 5,000 more in division two. To say Aston Villa potentially have a MASSIVE FANBASE, is the same as saying Crystal Palace potentially have a massive fanbase. You seem to be incapable of taking any comment about another club as some sort of comparison to, or sleight on, Newcastle. It wasn't meant as that, and isn't. If you prefer to see it that way, then carry on ranting and raving. Do you think one club having a big potential fanbase in some way means it has to be comparied to Newcastle? Because it doesn't, you know. I could point out that in 1972 our average crowd was 32k - pretty much the same as yours, except you were in the first division and we were in the third. We could pick out statistics like this that show both arguments all night, but it has absolutely no relevance whatsoever, because the original point was not about who has the largest potential fan base, you just seemed to fancy making it look that way to create a bit of confrontation.