Daweii

I don't care if we win, lose or draw we are finally playing a team I have wanted to see us play since the start of the season. Sure we may get demolished but these youngsters may also surprise us. For the first time this season I am looking forward to a match because regardless of the result it'll be great to see what is in store for us when some of these guys get a bit older.

Actually does Petrovs health and strength give him a better chance of surviving. This is because a young and strong body can take more/stronger/harder chemotherapy treatment than someone who is not so strong and this will help the body to remove the false cells faster and keeping them from starting to reproduce again. The reason that a person gets so sick and weak during chemotherapy is that the chemo does not only kill the bad cells but also the good cells that the body needs.

Myself i will if all goes well be finished with all my chemo December 19th.

From what I gather from reading his health and fitness may give him a better chance, but it seems to me like it's a roll of the dice almost. It all seems to come down to how each individual person reacts to chemo and what other illnesses it brings on when the immune system and white blood cells are lowered.. He has every chance but his form of leukemia has like a 30% survival rate in those over 30.

As for you mate, I wish you all the best of luck. Not that you'll need it, you seem like you're strong and handling it well.. I think overall positivity is the strongest weapon against any illness including cancer.

Sorry Heskey but it's you..

Couldn't have come at a worse time for the guy.. He's looking at possibly his last 8 games in a Villa shirt due to age and he's now likely to miss them. I know health comes before football but that is a double blow to one of the nicest guys in the game.. Get well soon Stan, you've been a treasure to this club.

Got to be Angel.. The guy was great when he found his feet here and better yet when he left he still loved the club. I miss those days really where we were still considered a big club, could still get some big players and then still have them love us after their tenure at the club.

Personally I don't think we'll get a better offer.. Start of the season I didn't think I'd be saying that Gabby should go, but for his sake it's for the best and for Villa possibly for the best as we are weakening the side trying to find places to play him because he has been so loyal. If we aren't playing him upfront then stick him on the bench don't shoehorn him into a role he doesn't like.

If we do get him here's hoping our world class training facilities turn him into a superstar.. I was gonna say like it did for Young, Barry and Milner but arguably they all had some talent before we transformed them into regular England Internationals and bait for the Worlds elite teams.

I am actually preparing myself for relegation now that way if we stay up it'll be a bonus.. No point this close to the end claiming it can't happen and then when it does being depressed and in shock.

The match, featuring U.S. internationals Brad Guzan and Eric Lichaj and English internationals Emilie Heskey and Darren Bent (all players listed are subject to change depending on availability),

glad i read that last part

Haha yeah.. We know two of the players mentioned will be out of contract by the time the match takes place.

It's not going to be Cuellar as he's moving to Valencia if rumours are true.. It's not going to be Guzan as he's going to want first team football now and fortunately age is on our side with Heskey at 34 I don't see McLeish jumping for it. He plays Heskey now because he's around but given a choice he'd want Bas Dost or Olivier Giroud..

Nothing to do with reality but I just sold Heskey for £2 million on FM 2012 to MON of all people lol.. So with that MON in the summer you are welcome to pay Villa £2 million to have Heskey back.

Well McCleish did say Newcastle were a model we should take after, must mean the getting relegated first part and all!

Haha hopefully he just means we'll be getting cheap players with a lot of skill lol..

Congrats Weimann! McLeish is actually considering starting you against Chelsea.. I just hope he goes through with it. I used to have a coach that would tell me he was contemplating me for a start in the team, would get my hopes up only to turn up on match day to find out I'm merely a substitute. I know Sunday League isn't quite the same but the emotions are very much the same especially when you know you are better than players that start ahead of you.

I like that line up chappy.. So with that said Heskey break your leg and Petrov take you time in getting better, just think if you milk it your end career holiday could start now .

I wouldn't keep him.. He plays where Gardner or Bannan would play. I wouldn't do anything to stifle their chances of first team football next year. I'd get rid as those two in less time have shown themselves to be far better than Delph. I also don't buy the excuse that it's because he hasn't had a solid run in the team, why is that? It's because he's always injured do people seriously want an injury prone player on our books? I know all players can get injured but he gets injured, comes back for 1-2 games and gets injured again, that would be fine if it was a basic minor pulled muscle but no he does his cruciate and shit like that.

Times: Charles N'Zogbia, the Aston Villa winger, could miss the next month of the season after being injured during training yesterday.

Posted on the Official Site earlier.. I thought he was already injured? I thought he was in Paris? He's apparently back from Paris and was healed enough to get injured again... Yeah he's going in the Summer, we won't see him play in a Villa shirt again Mcleish clearly didn't like him going to the press.

I'd pick Valencia.. Hell if I was at Villa right now as a fan or not if Valencia or Athletic Bilbao came knocking I wouldn't hesitate I'd be gone. If that mindset is currently shared with others in our squad then while McLeish does want a big rebuild some players he may not have a choice on. I do think several of our players looking at another year with McLeish will be phoning their agents the second the season ends saying "get me out of here, start throwing out claims i'm unsettled and wanting to leave, see who bites"..

Because he was the only manager willing to take the job?

I doubt anyone such as Benitez would take job they would at least want a pot to piss in

The amount he's being paid we could have got anyone to this club.. The prestige of Villa or lack thereof doesn't factor when you are being offered £2.8 million a year to boss two dozen people around. Someone posted a list of the top paid managers in the World and McLeish was at number 10, most of those around him other than Mourinho who gets £10 million a year are on similar figures.. We could have pretty much got any manager in the World with the salary we were banding about.

Ah, I don't doubt he can perhaps see a talented player when it's infront of him, nor do I doubt that he is desperate to come up with a 'philosophy' which he wishes to implement at Villa, but whilst we are in a position which we currently find ourselves, I can't feel confident about the future. If these younger players are technically gifted and what he plans on using, then why play Heskey? Blood the players now against the likes of Arsenal - they will feel on top of the world having participated in that game against fellow youngsters like Oxlade-Chamberlain... Look how he has turned out now.

I think McLeish maybe working more to Lerner's schedule than his own.. The Arsenal game was the perfect time to start with Herd and Gardner, it was the perfect time to start with Weimann but he didn't.. Now maybe McLeish really is stupid (a possibility), but he saw what Weimann could do with just 20 minutes on the pitch and any other manager would have started the kid but McLeish didn't.. I know McLeish has a bad rep but that doesn't make sense to me, that isn't what a manager working under his own guidance would do.

Brilliant, we can't even get games against decent MLS teams

Eh.. I think the tour is less about testing our mettle but more about building confidence. It doesn't matter who you play, if you win all your pre-season games you go into the new season on a high and I think that is the goal here. Sure we could easily have a pre-season where we play Real Madrid and Barcelona etc, but we'll just go into the new season with confidence shot after losing each game by more than 10 goals.

My ultimate team (Netherlands) has Elia and Lens on the wings - they are epic!

Howcome we are being linked to so many Dutch players - is McLeish really going for this total football approach? There is signs of it coming through now, what with our all out attack approach and fluid, precision passing.

Triangles all around!

I think ultimately he just wants a few more technically gifted players..

I don't think he's blind I think he can see that Gardner, Herd, Bannan, Weimann, Carruthers and others have been trained to be technically good players. We know Ireland is a technically gifted player with a great footballing mind.. If you stick those guys around Dutch and Spanish players that are trained and very good at passing the ball we have a good basis..

Sure we know McLeish likes playing hoofball but so did MON and look at Sunderland right now, I do believe that if we get rid of the players that can't play the slick passing game and replace them with those that can McLeish won't play hoofball.

I say go for him.. The guy is cheap so if he fails it's no big deal as there are plenty of avenues to either sell him back to the Dutch, offer him out to Spain or even offer him to teams newly promoted from the Championship.. He's not a dead end unlike many of our transfers where the only way to sell is to another Premier League team or if the player agree's to take a sizeable pay cut.

Is AM pursual of nothing but forwards of late his way of trying to subconsciously convince us he isn't negative?

I think it's more he has a concern that Bent will be on his way out and with Heskey already going and Delfouneso a possible exit as well he needs more depth in that area. It wouldn't surprise me if Gabby was relegated to a permanent left wing role and we start playing 4-4-2 with a combination of Dost/Dzyuba or Dost/Weimann or Dzyuba/Weimann. I really do believe that McLeish thinks Bent will be going.. If Bent was staying he wouldn't be scouting so many strikers, given when fit Bent is our number one and only striker.

We really shouldn't be getting rid of Cuellar. He's our best defender by miles. If he goes but the clowns Dunne and Collins stay I'm gonna be so pissed.

I think they are all going.. Hutton and Lichaj will probably be the only "first team" defenders left. Some may be promoted from the reserves but I think defence will get an overhaul for better or worse. That said I think the whole squad will be different come next season.. It seems McLeish was brought in to balance the books, keep us up and then rebuild from scratch. Much of the MON-era squad will be going I believe.

Thought he showed good movement and good touch against Arsenal if i was being critical tho i think he should have worked the keeper a couple of times but got a good feeling hes going to score a couple on saturday

I think he let the occasion get to him a bit which is understandable.. I know his ambition is to be in the first team, but he is only 20 and 2-3 weeks ago he would have been lucky to get 2 minutes on the pitch, now he's getting 20+. It's gonna take him time to adjust to being on the big stage against teams like Arsenal, though the best way to get him used to it is to play him so he needs to start against Chelsea.. We have nothing to lose playing him.