McGregor1888

Hear, hear! Gabby is setting a great example to the rest of the Bodymoor Heath lads, too. Stick with Villa, work hard and the rewards will be far more sweeter than joining a plastic, financially doped club. It all brings a sense of togetherness, stability and purpose to the squad - well done Gabby. Now let's win some matches and trophies.

We're a long long way away from Spurs, even when we loaned Walker from them. It's a strange point you make there. :? I would have said Spurs were a long way from us not too long ago. It doesn't take much for things to change in football. There won't be much separating us and Spurs next season in my opinion.

Rodgers wants rid of Carroll to free up cash.

So, over 60 appearances aren't enough to form an opinion? Sixty appearances are more than enough to tell me Albrighton can be a top, top player for Villa. Don't listen to the moaners Marc. You find them everywhere in life - simply ignore 'em.

That Ajax team had Suarez and Huntelaar up front and Vermaelen at the back. Villa's lads were far better than any of them. To be honest I can't understand any of the hype around Suarez and Vermaelen and simply think its down to lazy journalists bigging up the players of clubs they support.

Ha, ha! You think Grealish (and Ciaran Clark for that matter) are "England rejects"? I would argue they are two top, top prospects who are simply very proud to be Irish.

Yawn. I personally think Arsenal would accept 12 million for Walcott. Wouldn't want him any where near Villa, mind.

Not helped by the galvanised iron poles at the BMH entrance. A blunder by the architect. A couple of nice sandstone pillars are required to give the place a look of permanence and stately respectability. As it is it looks a bit here-today-gone-tomorrow. One for the next SCG meeting (That is to say Supporter's Consultation Group, and NOT Sir Cary Gayhill). Good point about the pillars...it's all in the little touches. If we can get those awful metal shutters off the Trinity windows it would be a step in the right direction too - they don't half form an unsightly backdrop to the McGregor statue. Welcome to Villa Karim!

link I think it's pretty obvious that they adopted Villa's colours, you can see how their strip tends to mirror ours in the early years. It's interesting to hear another theory put forward as to why they wear claret - that's three separate stories I've heard of now! They should simply embrace history - like Crystal Palace, too - and celebrate being inspired by Villa. That's the way football was in those early days, the early giants inspiring the fledgling clubs. (I believe Spurs wear their particular colours in homage to Preston North End, for example.)

Didn't one of our coaches lose a bet with the West Ham coach that he couldn't pay so he stole a kit to make good? West Ham skipped off back to London with a new kit and that has been their colours ever since. Yeah I heard something like that. I think it was something like this West Ham coach or player bet some of the Villa coaches or players that he could beat them in a sprint. He won, quite comfortably I think, and he asked for some of our old kits as payment for the bet and from then on West Ham adopted claret and blue as their own colours. A shame he didn't have a race with some guys from Blackpool instead. Our shade of claret is nicer anyway. As someone said earlier, it's more of a deep claret-red than the purple-claret West Ham have. I think that West Ham kit story is simply East London urban myth, there are no facts to substantiate it at all. My view would be that they (like many other clubs) simply copied Villa's colours because Villa were the most famous and celebrated club around. There's no shame in that, but I feel West Ham are a little too proud to admit it and have thus pedalled this story over the years. It's a nice little story. I heard another West Ham story that they wore the colours because the blue represented the colour of the River Thames and the claret represented the blood of the royalty who used to frequent the area (something like that.) At least Burnley have no problem at all in admitting that they changed their kit to claret and blue in 1910 because of the influence of Villa. There's no harm in paying tribute to the originals.

Theres a general confusion about that in Ireland too actually. Turns out its something to do with the fact that the Irish Olympic team covers all 32 counties, 6 of which are in the UK. So, the torch goes off-piste. Nope. No confusion here Gazton. See post above.

The UK Olympic Committee have very generously allowed the flame to make a visit to Ireland (Irish Republic) as a gesture of goodwill in the light of the peace agreement between Ireland and the UK, hence its little journey to Dublin. Rest assured it will return from its brief detour to the UK very shortly. How people can scratch their heads at such a neighbourly gesture I don't know. "Mainland"? What "mainland" do you refer to, the Irish mainland or UK mainland?

...and of course, a bit of Champs League exposure would have us storming up the table, too.

Nineteenth biggest brand with relatively little work put into building the brand of the club shows the huge potential of the Second City's number one club. Just imagine what five years of serious investment and exposure would do for our club. There are simple things we could do right now that would build the brand. For example, in lettering along the top of the Doug Ellis Stand, we could have "Villa Park, Birthplace of League Football 1888" so the world could see our place in history. In the press conference room we could hang a huge, grand portrait of William McGregor next to the Villa badge. In the players tunnel we could have "Villa Park, Birthplace of The Game"... Little touches that would do so much and stress the uniqueness of the club!

He's right though. It would be a crazy appointment. We might as well get Neil Lennon in. As for those people citing Fergie's opinons on Solsjaer, give me a break. Fergie is the same man who gave /offered coaching roles to Bryan Robson, Roy Keane, Steve McLaren and so on. If Solsjaer was genuinely as good as some of the people on here have talked themselves into believing Fergie would have made sure he stuck around. This whole thing has snowballed out of nothing into some kind of x Factor generation popularity contest. I hope for the good of our club that RL/PF pay no heed whatsoever to the opinions of a whole load of excitable youngsters on internet forums. Lambert, Martinez, AVB, Rodgers, A.N. Other are THE options. I'd love to see how OGS would react to thirty odd thousand fans booing him out of the ground ten matches into the season with Villa rock bottom of the table. Has he the character, guts and experience to deal with that situation? He certainly hasn't got the experience. My final worry is that OGS will be using Fergie as a mentor, buying his crocks and taking his players on loan. This would not be good for Villa's long term future either. Likewise the six guaranteed points for his mentor every season. In short a huge NO to OGS. It would be an utterly insane appointment. I kind of agree, i am not buying into this OGS hype at all. Have to look at credentials when it comes to managers. But having said that if he does come in i can`t imagine him being any worse than mcleish, 2 months ago i would have taken anyone if it meant he was going to leave. So i will keep my fingers crossed and get behind him if he does come in. Oh I'll get behind him too. I'll also be having a pain insurance bet on a Villa relegation before the season kicks off!

He's right though. It would be a crazy appointment. We might as well get Neil Lennon in. As for those people citing Fergie's opinons on Solskjaer, give me a break. Fergie is the same man who gave /offered coaching roles to Bryan Robson, Roy Keane, Steve McLaren and so on. If Solskjaer was genuinely as good as some of the people on here have talked themselves into believing Fergie would have made sure he stuck around. This whole thing has snowballed out of nothing into some kind of X Factor generation popularity contest. I hope for the good of our club that RL/PF pay no heed whatsoever to the opinions of a whole load of excitable youngsters on internet forums. Lambert, Martinez, AVB, Rodgers, A.N. Other are THE options. I'd love to see how OGS would react to thirty odd thousand fans booing him out of the ground ten matches into the season with Villa rock bottom of the table. Has he the character, guts and experience to deal with that situation? He certainly hasn't got the experience. My final worry is that OGS will be using Fergie as a mentor, buying his crocks and taking his players on loan. This would not be good for Villa's long term future either. Likewise the six guaranteed points for his mentor every season. In short a huge NO to OGS. It would be an utterly insane appointment.

I'm sure their eyes did blink and are continuing to blink! Dalglish would be a wretchedly poor appointment for Villa. He is a dinosaur hideously out of touch with the game. He is a Liverpool man with zero interest in Villa or making Villa great again. It wouldn't surprise me at all if Lerner yawned and didn't give it a passing thought when he heard the news of Dalglish's sacking as he (Lerner) has his eyes focused on a far more hungry and credible candidate.

Nope, I don't think most Villa fans would be creaming themselves over that at all. I remember O'Neill's last season when many Villa fans were very frustrated despite a couple of Wembley trips and top six finishes. A top eight finish and League Cup would be nice (all silverware is nice) but people wouldn't be deluded enough to think we've hit the big time. There'd be no "creaming". For historical/financial reasons, a top four finish or an FA Cup win would be "creaming" territory for AVFC.

They remind me of Sunderland fans.

The General owes no one an apology. He was simply stating his opinion, and we're all entitled to do that. He came on this site voluntarily, in an unpaid role, and I for one appreciated his dedication. If he owes us an apology for giving us his opinions then I hope all the bed wetters, who hogged this site for the past couple of months telling us all why Villa were going to get relegated, come out and apologize for not keeping their glass half full, inferiority-complex-loser mentalities to themselves. If offering opinions is now not allowed, the drama queens should be the first to be lined up against the wall. Who would I want fighting beside me in battle, The General or The Bed Wetters? Give me General Krulak any day. No apology required when you've done absolutely nothing wrong.

I reckon Macron are on the up and they will be signing plenty more teams over the next few years. As for the man utd kit: putting the words "gingham" and "football" into the same sentence is bewildering. A triumph of awful marketing over common sense. Nike have run out of ideas, that kit is the worst I've seen since Coventry's brown Admiral (I think) number of many moons ago.

Pass on the message that he's not good enough for Villa. Thanks. We've got McLeish right now.. Beggars cannot be choosers, if Poyet wants to come here then we should accept him. He's better than McLeish by a considerable margin. We're not beggars. There's plenty of other (smaller) clubs that can gamble on Poyet, we are better off aiming for someone with a little more proven experience at a higher level. I'd file him under "one for the future" certainly, but not now.

Pass on the message that he's not good enough for Villa. Thanks.

The media are no more labelling our fans than they did Liverpool fans, Arsenal fans, Sunderland fans etc. when they were all moaning about their managers over recent seasons. The boardroom needs to know in no uncertain terms that their decision making and leadership of our club has been wretched these past two years. Ninety minutes of "McLeish Out!" would do the club a HUGE service. A bit of "Lambert In!", too, just might give Randy and PF a little heads up on what a decent manager actually looks like.

Stan's the loudest Villa backer in the UK media. I think he's evolved into a very good broadcaster too. I've only positives to say about the man - we need more Villans in the media.