Crayola Kid

Usual concerns ahead of this fixture - namely that cattermole is likely to try to injure one or more of our better players, which could mean them missing subsequent matches and leaving us weaker in those games. There isnt another player around who does this so blatantly, imo

basjen the 'swiss ramble' website is pretty thorough, and fairly unbiased, but the age old problem with such queries is that the most up-to-date information is often 18 months old when published the sporting intelligence twitter site often comes up with good links, also

Possibly, think Keegan threw them all in a couple of times too. Was gutted when Peacock, understandably, left. me too, but i remember thinking not too long afterwards that it would have been just a bit hard on him had he stayed as he wasnt getting in the team we ended up with. obvs he would have backed himself to challenge had he stayed, but life got in the way so we'll never know

didnt peacock miss a few games here and there, little injuries? and i cant remember clearly, but one of them must have made way for cole, who played the last 12 games?

Beardsley scored 2 brilliant goals against Carlisle and Man City at home and they were almost identical. He was running away from goal on the left chasing an opposition player who had the ball almost on the half-way line. Both times he went down almost on one knee and wrapped his foot around the ball from behind the player. Both times he stood up as quick as he went down and he went on to score, I don't think I've ever seen a player score a goal like that before, Beardsley did it twice and it might have been in the same season. He was good enough to be able to admire him as a liverpool player - and thats not easy. I dont like anybody else's players! Then he came back and was our x-factor, our whatever the difference between talented/plucky and being dangerous is. What a time, those first two seasons back up here

Hmm. Why? Looks a bit championship to me... Don't know much about him, personally. Goal scoring record seems decent according to Wikipedia. Still... Brazilian striker! So was Mira and he never settled FFS man, Mira had a pig farm in Brazil to attend to, he couldnt just piss around suitin himself playin footy?!!?

I had a family who werent interested in football, so didnt get to go as a really young kid. I had a strip though, and a neighbour saw me in it and gave me a signed photo of KK right at the end of his playing days. KK was already big news to me, this sealed the deal. 'Shortly' afterwards, the 86 world cup, pretending to be asleep but watching the games after midnight on a 9" black and white portable. PLEASE DOES ANYONE ELSE REMEMBER?! Beardsley in one of the games taking the ball on half way out on the left (near side for the camera), nutmegging one with his first touch, playing it round the next guy one way while running around him the other way with his second, then twatting the ball just over the bar with his third? It was late, I was a kid, but this sticks with me. It is in the realms of possibility that I imagined it! I think it was the game he scored in, while Lineker got treatment. That tournament lit up the game for me, as far as watching and becoming attached to players went. I think I may have been Boniek in the playground a few times, but Beardsley was the one, from then on.

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Is he talking about getting players in next January, or about seeing the benefit of last Januarys signings in the new season? Bit cheeky by .com, IMO

whats the story? coach, scout, what is he meant to do for us? this fucking club

Is the no10 thing Pardew's way to evade direct questions about Cisse leaving? From day one of the confirmed link to Bent, the worry has been that Cisse would be leaving. Since then, the Wonga shirt thing has become serious enough for Cisse to miss the Portugal trip. He's a goner IMO, and Pards is spouting this 'clever' (in PardsWorld, obvs) story about playing both together just to avoid going public just yet

I'd give him more credit than that, that goal at Liverpool was brilliant and goal of the season for me. With such a young side they were bound to have erratic form. But overall they looked good with the ball, cut the defence mistakes out and that's a good exciting team. He stuck to his plan and it worked. I'd have rather stayed up playing like Villa Lambert's way, than we did with Pardew's s*** football. any other season in the last few years they would have gone, i think. not to be too hard on the villa, no axe to grind, but brummie did suggest that lambert was completley vindicated by the end of season. i call it that he was right, but also a bit lucky. some lovely sides have tried the prem and gone down passing, and some rotters hang on year after year.

a season of tiny margins in the premier league. villa ended up a win or two from top ten but in fact spent the whole time down the bottom. if they had dropped, i think lamberts refusal to play the percentages of working to bents strengths would have made him look a fool. but they just about stayed up, so he did the right thing. perhaps he's the 'lucky general'. but perhaps without either bent or benteke to call on, villa will struggle

yeah but, if they had gone down, would we still be praising lamberts bold stance against his 18m quid misfit? he was treated quite badly from the outside, at least as poorly as when 'arry slated him for missing a chance and compared him to mrs redknapp. he may have deserved it, i dont know but lambert may have taken flak at the end of the season if one of those wins had been a defeat

not a massive bent fan, but i have a slight issue with this bit, brummie. you stayed up by the skin of your teeth. would it have been just as clear if you had gone down by a point, or a goal? and, given that benteke may well leave, are you completely sure getting rid of bent is the right thing for your club? the next 7m quid striker you pull in may not have the same impact as the guy chelsea and spurs are trying to take away?

Not enough in the world for this man. ffs personal gain? Its like selling your house for half price to a family of chav scum because you hate the neighbours. He gets no f***ing gain! This is something I dont completely understand - the personal gain thing. Does anyone know, and I have to say I do not know the answer, whether a business owner can simply take cash out out a business account and put it in his own personal account? I mean, say NUFC sold two players this summer for 30M quid. Is there a legitimate pathway for that money to be dropped into Ashley's own account, now or in the future, other than as a declared payment against outstanding loans owed to him, which would then be diminished by the amount paid? Anyone? Theres nothing really stopping him taking money out at all, he has done so over the years. Its the idiocy of selling the best players for 'personal gain' resulting in getting us relegated and losing tens of millions in the process that is such a backward notion. His greatest personal gain would be to spend as little as possible while ensuring we stay in the PL and paying off his debts til he starts taking out profit year on year. In other words what he is doing now. Do you know this to be true though? I mean, the accounts are scrutinised publicly for this kind of business, can you really just put your hand in the till as an owner (any type of business) without tax implications etc? You can maybe guess, I'm no accountant. It doesnt feel like it should be that straightforward, though? I'm a director of my business and I draw a wage and get a directors dividend at the end of the business year. I can only take more money out of the business via a higher salary or a bigger dividend, all of which gets taxed. I imagine its the same for Ashley, although if he is owed money from the business by way of loans/credit then that's another thing altogether. Fucking Bingo. Hoped someone with knowledge of this kind of thing would be on here. Glad to know we cant be ripped in this particular way, cheers.

Not enough in the world for this man. ffs personal gain? Its like selling your house for half price to a family of chav scum because you hate the neighbours. He gets no f***ing gain! This is something I dont completely understand - the personal gain thing. Does anyone know, and I have to say I do not know the answer, whether a business owner can simply take cash out out a business account and put it in his own personal account? I mean, say NUFC sold two players this summer for 30M quid. Is there a legitimate pathway for that money to be dropped into Ashley's own account, now or in the future, other than as a declared payment against outstanding loans owed to him, which would then be diminished by the amount paid? Anyone? Theres nothing really stopping him taking money out at all, he has done so over the years. Its the idiocy of selling the best players for 'personal gain' resulting in getting us relegated and losing tens of millions in the process that is such a backward notion. His greatest personal gain would be to spend as little as possible while ensuring we stay in the PL and paying off his debts til he starts taking out profit year on year. In other words what he is doing now. Do you know this to be true though? I mean, the accounts are scrutinised publicly for this kind of business, can you really just put your hand in the till as an owner (any type of business) without tax implications etc? You can maybe guess, I'm no accountant. It doesnt feel like it should be that straightforward, though?

With Pardew as our manager he would get those assurances and be part of 'Plan A'. Cisse's future is still far from clear. Agree. Dont like this idea

Thats the worry here for me, just to be clear. Since his name was linked, it only makes sense if we lose Cisse, so on that basis I'm against it

And Bent coming for any period of time on our bench is less likely than Ashley getting 267m. He'll want to know he will be playing I'd imagine, at his age and with the world cup coming up. If he leaves Villa's bench it would be to a club who offer some assurances that he features in 'Plan A', or has he fallen so far he cant ask for that?

Not enough in the world for this man. ffs personal gain? Its like selling your house for half price to a family of chav scum because you hate the neighbours. He gets no f***ing gain! This is something I dont completely understand - the personal gain thing. Does anyone know, and I have to say I do not know the answer, whether a business owner can simply take cash out out a business account and put it in his own personal account? I mean, say NUFC sold two players this summer for 30M quid. Is there a legitimate pathway for that money to be dropped into Ashley's own account, now or in the future, other than as a declared payment against outstanding loans owed to him, which would then be diminished by the amount paid? Anyone?

you'd think mispronouncing someones name would be seen as a lesser evil than mistaking them entirely. far too much being made over this when it is really the least of the concerns about him and wouldn't really be mentioned if it were someone we rated. didnt it sound quite deliberate at the time though? i may be being daft, but the surreal nature of the interview left me assuming he had gone on air to stir things up, and part of that was the mispronunciation of so many names. it felt like he was drawing fire to himself on purpose at the time, and the lack of info since hasnt changed my opinion on that

Got to wonder where Douglas will end up though, and how this will reflect on the judgement of the club for passing up on the deal. Some different opinions have been aired above as to whether it would have been JFK's decision or not given the timing of the revelation. Either way, I've only seen Fulham suggested as competition for his signature, and now we're hearing he may go to russia. If he was such a massive loss, rather than what feels like a significant event in the light of the turmoil this week, he'll end up at a decent club, yes? I'm one of the 99pc (suggested by a previous poster) who hasnt actually seen him play, so i cant fully digest the news that we've missed out until I have more information, and I think the name of his next club could fill in this gap to some extent?

he must have put the phone down and burst out laughing has to be on the wind up, has to be