brummie

Nobody gets it right all the time and I never suggested for a minute that they had. Their success, however, in those days could easily be compared with Wenger, who is as successful as anyone, and even he spunked £10m on Jeffers. Wenger's a legendary manager, but nobody will ever come close to matching what Brian Clough achieved with Forest. Mainly because these days taking an absolute nothing of a club like Forest and winning championships and european cups is actually impossible. Another sad fact that we might reflect on whilst we're all sat in our armchairs watching Richard Keys salivate over some Chelsea - Man United wankfest. nobody will ever come close eh ?...didn't watford with even fewer resources come runners up with graham turnip ? Turnip? I think you'll find that is Sir Graham Taylor Watford's achievements were absolutely nothing compared to Forest. Winning the league then the European Cup twice with a club which, at that time, would compare with someone like Stoke City today is an absolutely huge achievement Watford didn't come even remotely close.

Nobody gets it right all the time and I never suggested for a minute that they had. Their success, however, in those days could easily be compared with Wenger, who is as successful as anyone, and even he spunked £10m on Jeffers. Wenger's a legendary manager, but nobody will ever come close to matching what Brian Clough achieved with Forest. Mainly because these days taking an absolute nothing of a club like Forest and winning championships and european cups is actually impossible. Another sad fact that we might reflect on whilst we're all sat in our armchairs watching Richard Keys salivate over some Chelsea - Man United wankfest.

What I noticed - and this is far from exclusive to Newcastle - was that at the end of the game, the players sort of ventured about as close to the Newcastle fans as the edge of the centre circle, gave a desultory clapping gesture then fucked off. Few things fuck me off more about the modern game than this kind of thing. Show some fucking respect, people travel across Europe to watch you, you fuck it up, at least show some proper gratitude.

This is a strange phenomenon. I know that there are a lot of NEC Nijmegen fans who support Fulham for some reason, and a lot of Groningen fans who support Villa, now with the NAC Breda fans and Newcastle, there seems to be some weird pattern emerging. Oddly enough, i was driving up the M40 this afternoon and passed a flotilla of about 20 Dutch cars, and my immediate thought was "I wonder which game they are off to see tomorrow?".

"Even the supporters understand the problems we have had." How incredibly patronising.

If he was on bob a job he'd still be over paid. I agree, hence the raised eyebrows.

Is Carr really on particularly high wages? That surprises me. If he is, then you really do have problems.

Done it. See, you even get a Villa fan where you're not expecting one.

Our worst piece of transfer business ever.

Fantastic interview with Ian Holloway about this on SSN. He's the funniest man in football by a long, long way.

Get your money on him as first scorer for when we play them in a few weeks.

Personally, I prefer to sit (age and laziness) these days, but I can understand the need for safe standing areas. Also, I think it has got to the point now where so many people stand anyway, that the sensible thing to do is to give it some legal status. I can't remember the last time I sat at an away game, and it is starting to spread to sections of home support now (at our place, most of the Upper Holte stands). When you get a mixture of people who want to stand, and people who want to sit in the same area, then it makes sense to formalise things so people who want to sit can do, and people who want to stand can do.

Sounds like top 7 to me, a marked improvement Also, if you ever spot it on MTV, watch the episode of Cribs where they tour his house. You'll be making stabbing gestures at the telly.

Jloyd had one good season several years ago, and seemed to think this made him Roberto Carlos. All evidence since then suggests he is shite. Worryingly, not only is she shite, he has a dreadful attitude problem. He'll be on his way this summer. The only reason he isn't the worst full back at the club is the continued presence of Aaron Hughes. You're welcome to him. To both, in fact.

The bias towards Arsenal in the refereeing and linesmanship of the Villa - Arsenal game is quite staggering.

Personally, I don't mind Spurs doing well in Europe. In fact, i don't mind any English club doing well in Europe with the exception of any English club that hasn't won the EC/CL in the CL (selfish historical reasons), and Manchester United in anything.

I sometimes think we (Villa) are never going to win a game again. I'm currently watching it on a stream and considering myself relatively lucky I can't get to night matches.

I wouldn't touch Cassano with a barge pole, he's got probably the worst attitude (and weight) problem in football, the stroppy, spotty twat.

I'm too much of a peace loving hippy myself and more likely to resurrect some old Vietnam era protest chanting . "hey! hey! General K! how many kids did you kill today? and whilst you're at it, can you do something about the standard of catering in the Trinity Road stand? it is awful"

Better than that, he's a former Commanding Officer of the United States Marine Corps. He'd call in air support and wipe out the A Team before they'd even got out of their gay van. http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/0/0f/Charles_C._Krulak.jpg/200px-Charles_C._Krulak.jpg You should ask him those questions Tim asked Gareth on the Office. When he first appeared there was a sequence of "could you kill a man with your bare hands"" style questions. He's quite an entertaining bloke, to be fair, although almost everything you ask him triggers off some kind of USMC connection. He likes to refer to the fact he's been shot twice. He's very American, but has lived over here for several years so seems to understand us. Some wag pointed out that he may have done several tours of Vietnam, but he's probably never been somewhere with as many hostile, armed locals as Aston before.

Better than that, he's a former Commanding Officer of the United States Marine Corps. He'd call in air support and wipe out the A Team before they'd even got out of their gay van. http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/0/0f/Charles_C._Krulak.jpg/200px-Charles_C._Krulak.jpg

We have, at Villa, a member of the current board (Generak Charles Krulak, Lerner's right hand man, basically) who posts on the three main independent Villa message boards. Basically, it is a way of getting questions to the club, and supplying them with suggestions (an impressive number of which have actually been picked up on already). The first time he started posting, obviously nobody believed it was him, until a few phone calls from Lerner's people confirmed it really was him. Since then there have been a few meetings with representatives from the various message boards (plus other supporters organisations), and it really does seem to work as an informal link between the fans and the clubs, something I hope gets replicated at other clubs. They also use this link to occasionally drop nuggets of information with the supporters before they reach the press (recent kit deal with Nike is one which springs to mind), which is nice. This sort of interaction is pretty cheap and easy for clubs to engage in, and compared to the Stalinist Ellis days is a breath of fresh air. Hopefully more clubs will start doing it.

How about Aaron Hughes? Please.

Eh? Most of their young players are nothing special. If you can manage to bring even one single player through from the academy to first team regular, then that must surely be considered a success.

True, some English clubs do make the effort to develop kids, and if you can develop a kid and get him playing with any regularity in the premiership, then that means you are doing a good job. For example, Villa's - for academy products we've played Moore, Agbonlahor, Davis, Cahill, Osbourne, Whittingham, Gardner, Samuel, Ridgewell and Barry this season - and on occasions we've had 7 of them feature in the same match - (admittedly, the last two were poached from other clubs school setups when they were practically still foetal, but that doesn't stop people from praising Arsenal's youth set up when they talk about Fabregas). And Boro's academy produces decent prospects, too. How old was Barry when you got him from Brighton? 15, I believe.