Ghost

If they can actually pull this off, it would be pretty amazing. #understatementofthecentury

His last tweet

RIP

Awesome PoB! When you score future goals, I expect to see your celebration on TV, involving you pulling up your top to reveal a Scuba Steve t-shirt underneath.

The Verge

There is literally no way in hell he's on $130k surely??? I know it's a bit of a stretch though. Very wishful thinking. FFA would foot a lot of the bill though, and I really do hunk it's doable. By all accounts he's on at least £70,000 a week at Villa, which would translate to around $115,000 a week here. Factor in that Bent supposedly still wants to get into the England national set-up and there's no chance of him coming here - too far away from any exposure to Hodgson and selectors.

Not live. They usually have highlights of the reserves and U18 games though.

Not sure if you're judging that by the Sky clips, but on the extended clips on AVTV, the team do celebrate with Benteke - there's high-fives all round. It's just cut off in the Sky vision.

It's all becoming clear...

So far, it's just a "goals" video. I'm sure they'll put up a video of the highlights later. But I doubt they'll put up the full game, which is a pity, would've liked to have seen all the play.

Sky link doesn't seem to work for the international audience.

Also the fact that his name is Samir Carruthers. What brilliant combination!

You can teach positional sense - it comes with experience. You can't teach pace.

TRO loves the quote button almost as much as John hates it.

That idea was started on these very forums from literally guessing young, highly related players that fit with what people think we need, from the Pescara squad?! Some idiot has created an ITK account, literally today, to sprout rubbish about it?! But an account had said we were in Pescara before we started discussing it. Villa Transfer News ‏@TransferVillan As I tweeted earlier, #avfc officials are meeting with Marco Capuano. Radio Sei just announced the transfer is to be confirmed tomorrow. Let the bollocks continue!

Watching him in the friendly game that just happened here against Melbourne Victory, he seemed completely uninterested. Even after he got the assist for the second goal, he kept looking really grumpy and didn't really celebrate with his team-mates.

Just saw Harry Brown. Thought it was quite good. Michael Caine is great.

A curve ball I'd chuck into the mix is that NBC is using Bale as one of their poster boys to promote the Premier League in America. They have a massive poster of him in Times Square. If he just picked up and left the league for Madrid, I'd imagine NBC would be spewing. Would be hilarious though.

I would be absolutely gobsmacked if that is actually Cisse.

So what exactly is it that classifies a fan as "plastic"? Supporting a team he doesn't really have a connection to? I'm a little curious as to that because I'm from London and we've a number of fans on the board who are not from the UK (Vandaq is one) - do we also count as plastic? Nobody has ever accused me of being a plastic fan, but I imagine that's simply because nobody can currently accuse me of gloryhunting by supporting Villa. But what happens if we qualify for the champions league in a couple of years? Do we then all become plastics? And if not, then what gives Villa fans the right to call fans of other successful teams "plastics"? It is something I've been mulling lately, given I'm actually closer to Arsenal or Chelsea in terms of where I'm from. I suppose this is as good a thread as any to discuss it in. For me a plastic is someone that supports a club on the back of their success. You rarely saw non-local Chelsea fans until recently and any Chelsea fans of that ilk 10 years ago probably had a good reason. It is possible to be a plastic United fan living in Manchester. I met plenty when i lived there. What about fans that started following Villa after the European Cup win? Would you call them bandwagon jumpers / plastic fans?

Hoping for above 9th is quite optimistic (IMO of course), but more power to you if you feel that. For me, I'd be very happy with a 10th-13th place finish. To me it sounds like, people are forgetting that other teams are also improving, nobody is really standing still, except perhaps Newcastle.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OHpTNLkZVHs

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YXIHXQjbtl8

So... How 'bout that Yacouba Sylla, ey? Shows quite a bit of promise