MessiWillSignForVilla

Jammy bastards!

I was starting to get worried then, but you can always count on them to **** it up 

It was a GK **** up to apparently 

You beauties Bolton!!!

1-0 Millwall, even less hope for them now 

The bloke really is desperate

 

Squawking all the time to the local press he never used to release this many press statements

It's almost as if he's giving a press conference because there is a game tomorrow...

 

I thought it had been posted and confirmed elsewhere that the wage bill has actually gone up?

 

Can someone confirm this once and for all. 

 

Look at the new accounts thread started today on the front page. Only a small rise from £70m to £72m but not really the great cutbacks that have 'hampered' Lambert's progress? They are from 2013 and we have got rid of Dunne, Bent and Ireland since but given raises to Benteke, Weimann, Westwood, Lowton and signed a few others in the summer. I would be surprised if there is much difference in the 2014 accounts with regard to wages.

 

Bit of a myth this reduction in wages me thinks?

 

That's the point though.

In Lambert's 2 years in charge, the wage bill has increased by £2m, or £40k p/w. During that time 9 first team players have left and 17 have joined, leaving us with 8 more players (if you include Bertrand and Holt, it's 10 more) in our squad, for only £40k p/w added on to our wage bill. In other words, we've only been able to offer a whopping £5k p/w for any additions to the squad/budget, which doesn't get you much in the Premier League. How many clubs in this league buy 8 players, on top of their current squad, and only have their wage bill increase by £40k p/w? I don't think any do. That's where the budget constraints come from. Plus don't forget we still technically have Bent on our books, as is Given and I wouldn't be surprised if we were still paying Ireland something too until the end of June.

In this modern era of football, by having our wages effectively stand still, or at least have such a small increase, the wage bill has been reduced as we can't offer competitive wages to add to our squad.

 

One of the best players I've ever seen and is highly underrated in terms of international recognition IMO. Don't think many will witness a career like his again, especially in this day and age.

 

I think just the opposite to be honest. Giggs is vastly overrated because of the length of his career and his haul of medals. In terms of an actual on the pitch footballer I doubt he was ever one of the tope five players at united at any point in his career. People also over look that he was booed by Man Utd. fans at one stage. Even in recent years he has generally played a handful of games a season and usually only against the lesser sides. In terms of longevity and being a solid pro Giggs is great but he was never a great player IMO.  

 

I think this suggests otherwise:

Cos there's so many different characters to cover, very little of their stories move along in each episode.

I think it's pretty much this.

The 8th episode is called the Mountain and the Viper, so if you've read the books it's pretty obvious what happens in that episode, and since that episode isn't that long after the purple wedding in the book, it indicates they're going to be taking there sweet ass time to build up all the little sub plots so that either they don't catch up with the books too quickly or they just have some solid foundations for when they get to around the Winds of Winter/a Dream of Spring, aka the end.

Might be slightly spoiling the books here, but it's just a fan theory so not a proper, concrete spoiler, but I'll hide it anyway:

Personally, I think the whole thing revolves around R+L=J, and "he is the Prince that was Promised and his is the song of Ice and Fire"...

Don't think it'll be Ice v Fire, but do think Dany's dragons will play a part in stopping the White Walkers, and from every description they have in the book, they are most certainly the baddies, but then again the story is told from Human perspectives...

I think we'll be safe, just.

Cardiff - They need 6 points, they won't win 2 games, especially with Chelsea last game, they're down imo, or at least will be below us, they might beat Newcastle, but I can only see them finishing as high as 17th with 33 points.

Fulham - Again, they need 6 points, and the pressure is back on them to get points to stay up. When they beat us everyone thought they were down and they played without any expectations. With Stoke and Palace it's possible for them to get 2 wins, but with both of those teams in decent form, and could both possibly finish above Newcastle, I doubt it.

Norwich - They need 4 points, and with Chelsea and Arsenal as there last 2 games, they're down, I doubt they'll get another point.

Sunderland - They need 4 points, probably only 3 as GD isn't a buffer as with the others, and they team we really need to worry about. They're in good form and have got winnable games in WBA and Swansea, I think they might be the only team we'll need to get points on the board to finish above.

So to go down, imo, Cardiff, Norwich and Fulham.

Well... that was different.

 

Also...

White Walker Darth Maul?

According to the episode synopsis, it was the Night's King

Reading the HBO website, this has now been changed in the synopsis, I assume because they realised they may not have meant to reveal it?

Had a bit of a crazy thought, and will probably just be a bit of wild conspiracy, but I think this is what SAF intended to happen in a way, in terms of Giggs becoming manager. Here's my thinking;

Fergie left Utd in a state that he knew wouldn't be able to challenge for the title this season, he must've known the squad simply isn't good enough, I'd bet that's why he retired. A lot of rumours were going about last season that Giggs might step up to fill the void, being such a huge icon at the club and knowing Fergie's Utd inside out. But the fact is, the pressure of following Fergie is huge for any manager, let alone an inexperienced one like Giggs. So I reckon Fergie might've suggested Moyes as he knew there was no way he could achieve anything with the squad Fergie left, as it was simply not good enough. That's not to say Fergie suggested him as he knew he'd fail, but just because all but the very best would've failed as the expectations on that squad were way too high, so he suggested a reasonable successor to take the brunt of this season when he knew Utd wouldn't be anywhere near expectations. Essentially, Moyes was used as a fall guy, the expectations were lowered so miuch that Giggs could come in as an inexperienced manager and not have the pressure of following Fergie but just having to do better than Moyes.

Short version: Fergie always intended for Giggs to be his long term successor, but Moyes was hired as a fall guy as the squad Fergie left was nowhere near good enough for Utd's standards so Giggs would've been deemed a failure if he followed Fergie, but will now just need to be better than Moyes.

Obviously, this will be all bollocks if Giggs doesn't get the gig permanently

Any spoiler free guesses who actually killed Joffry? 

 

It's not Natalie Dormer, nor is it Tyrion. Sansa is out of the question and same with any of Joffry's family I presume. I don't think it was Oberyn, so I am not really sure who it could be. 

As a book reader, I'm very intrigued as to what people think about this, got to say it was fairly obvious I thought, but that was probably because I knew what to look for.

Was it not revealed last episode though?

Wondering if its worth renewing my Avtv subscription, for the Press conference

Doubt it, it's just a press conference with Lambert I think, I don't think he's going to really spill the beans about a takeover or even the Culverhouse/Karsa stuff.

So buying poor players for cheap money is classed as performing well in the transfer market?

No, it's the few gems he has found when having to build a Premier League squad with such low figure signings, i.e. Westwood £2m, Bacuna £800k, Vlaar £3m, Benteke £7m, Okore (probably) £4m.

Also, some fans think that many of his "duds" can still come good, such as Helenius, Lowton and I'd even include Bennett.

Also, KEA has really improved this year and is starting to look fairly value for money.

I really don't get all this stuff about Martinez and how he would have been able to do so much better instead of Lambert.

One of the main criticisms of Lambert, and the main one imo, is that our defence for two years has been shocking. Despite it improving this season, it still is pretty shoddy. Now, I'd like an example of a good defence that Martinez has built? The defences were always the worst part of his Wigan teams, and the Everton defence? He has Moyes to thank for building such a solid base to build a team upon. Simply put, he's not very good at it.

As for signings, his best have been loans that we wouldn't have been able to get, and actual transfers have been pretty poor, other than McCarthy, all his permanent signings never start or even play.

Martinez has done a very good job at Everton, nowhere near as Herculean as it's made out to be, after all he's just filled in the gaps of Moyes' squad and encouraged them to attack more, but he's still done a good job. 

But if he'd come to Villa? He wouldn't have sorted out the defence, he'd probably be signing just as many duds as Lambert is and we'd have been relegated by now, imo. But we'd be playing pretty football, so there's that...

 

Guys, please use the GoT Books thread to talk about what happens in the books. Otherwise, hide your text using the spoiler tab thingy. Cheers.

 

 

To be honest I think the whole "rape" thing is worth discussing in this thread because it seems the TV show got it badly wrong.   The director has came out and said he didn't think it looked like a rape, which it clearly did, and GRRM has distanced himself from the scene on his blog.  Cersei was up for a bit of slap and tickle in the books, it seems they tried to show that in the TV version too and they cocked it up (though I guess when you bring Jamie back to Kings Landing so much earlier it was always going to be difficult). It might be more confusing for people next week when Jamie and Cersei carry on as if nothing has happened...

 

Was going to say this myself, the whole scene was uncomfortable and slightly disturbing, but for book readers it was also completely baffling.

The problem with the scene is, like GRRM said himself, they took the dialogue from the book away, which leaves it at Cersei pushing away and generally looking like she's not willing, however she explicitly tells Jaime to continue in the book, a line which could have easily been added and lifted a lot of the uncomfortable-ness from the scene, obviously not all though, as the scene is still pretty **** up. It's also worth noting that in the book, this is Jamie and Cersei's reunion after Jamie gets back to King's Landing, hence the random having sex in front of your dead son.

For me it kind of destroys all the character building of Jaime from the last few seasons too, he was starting to become a good character, you could begin to understand his motives and that under it all, he's actually an OK guy, but now it seems he's a rapist as well as everything else, I just don't know if I can like TV Jaime as much as I like Book Jaime.

It was one of the few examples of the poorly implemented scenes by the show. They may nail most of the show on the head, but there's a couple scenes they've absolutely butchered for no real reason, other than to possibly come across as edgy, Drogo "raping" Dany from S1 being another example (as noted in the link CED provided up top)

 

 

 

I found the win % stats I was searching for...

 

Houllier 35.29%

McLeish 21.43%

Lambert 31.33%

 

So Lambert has a better win % over McLeish and is just about on par with Houllier's. For the record MON's win percentage 42.11%.

 

If you wanted  be pedantic, you could argue (based on those stats) that Lambert has made a better job than his predecessor and has more or less been on par with Houllier who at least was afforded the luxury of being able to spend £24m on just 1 player.   

 

EDIT: That Poll is rather damning though. 86%  WOW!

Not sure where you got your figures from but Lambert's is currently a tad over 26%.

 

 

No it isn't. For this season it is 27%, last season it was 34.78%, overall it's at 31.32% as originally stated.

 

How so? This season he has won 9 out of 34 and last season he won 10 out of 38. Maybe at your school these figures equated to 27% and 34.78% but not at mine.

 

I'm using every competitive game, not just league, how every managers win% has ever been calculated.

 

I found the win % stats I was searching for...

 

Houllier 35.29%

McLeish 21.43%

Lambert 31.33%

 

So Lambert has a better win % over McLeish and is just about on par with Houllier's. For the record MON's win percentage 42.11%.

 

If you wanted  be pedantic, you could argue (based on those stats) that Lambert has made a better job than his predecessor and has more or less been on par with Houllier who at least was afforded the luxury of being able to spend £24m on just 1 player.   

 

EDIT: That Poll is rather damning though. 86%  WOW!

Not sure where you got your figures from but Lambert's is currently a tad over 26%.

 

No it isn't. For this season it is 27%, last season it was 34.78%, overall it's at 31.32% as originally stated.

Why would Doug be bothered about searching for and then convincing a new manager to join for a new owner?

Because at the end of the day, he's still a Villa fan. He still wants the best for the club, he's still the president even.

Also, he can massage his ego by saying to all the Villa fans "Look, I sold the club like you wanted, and as I left I hired MON, our most successful manager in recent years, and sold to Lerner, someone who pumped loads of money in when he came"

Then, despite not being chairman anymore, he can still take credit for our success.

Andi, do me a favor. Stop mouthing off to the referee every three minutes. Worry about your own job, stay on your feet, and get into that 18-yard box so you can score.

I understand what you mean, and I agree to an extent, but it shows how frustrated he is currently. The reason he's arguing every decision is because things aren't going his way with the ball, and instead of lashing out at himself, he lashes out at the referee over every possible decision to get his frustrations out.

If he ever manages to recapture his form, he'll stop arguing as much. He just needs to concentrate on his own game though to do that imo.

 

   

So what do you think he did? Just told Doug to hire who he wanted and he'll stick with him? And like I said why would MON come to villa unless be knew full well the new owner wanted him as the manager of the club?

 

Considering that we are consistently told that Randy knows nothing about football, then yes, I think that's exactly what happened. MON was Ellis' parting gift. And of course MON knew someone was taking over, but no-one has disputed that.

 

As I have received confirmation that I am in need of a sense of humour by-pass, and that boring plane talk is allowed, here is the PM.

Please note that this is an observation, not an ITK, and that it is only something that fits 'circumstantially' with David Thomson but is, in my opinion, highly unlikely.

Canadian registered movements are fairly rare at BHX though:

Something or nothing, but two private jets showed up at Birmingham last week from Toronto.

The bigger one stayed for a day, the second one stayed until yesterday, so possibly a team who had some work to do (due diligence)?

Canadian private jets are all registered to a couple of operating companies, so it is difficult to know the actual ownership.

Could be completely unrelated, but it was unusual.

What makes you think its unusual though or possibly Villa related? Just because its rare?

 

Both of your questions are answered in the post you've quoted;

 

 

Canadian registered movements are fairly rare at BHX

Unusual: Canadian movements at BHX are rare.

 

 

Please note that this is an observation, not an ITK, and that it is only something that fits 'circumstantially' with David Thomson but is, in my opinion, highly unlikely.

 

 

Could be completely unrelated, but it was unusual.

Villa Related: these two sentences suggest that thetrees thinks it's just coincidence.

where are strong belwas and brown ben plumm?

Not in it,

like Jeyne Westerling.