JohnCresswell

If we buy Heskey we might as well just keep Harewood.

This thread is a month away from being five years old.

Oh, And my comiserations to anyone who has spent £650 to go to Hamburg to watch which will more than likely be a very similar team now we have qualified.

Thanks for the report, John. I must admit that I have become fed up of paying decent money for O'Neill to put out an ill-prepared, unmotivated team out on the pitch. He underestimated the opponents last night, and just as he was to blame for the poor draw on Saturday and should take the plaudits for the brilliant win at Arsenal, he can take the blame for this loss. He needs to find out why we are so ridiculously poor at home at the moment, and fix it because I have yet to see anything in the past five home games or so which to me suggests we are anywhere near challenging for Champions League. The players and management need to sort themselves out and quickly, because with Everton now right behind us and playing us on Sunday at their place followed by an in form Bolton at a Villa Park where we are leaking points we are going to find ourselves playing catch up once again. Still, on a personal level at least I can say that I've learnt MON clearly doesn't take cup competitions seriously - Leicester, QPR, Prague (which somehow we managed to win) and last night - until we start taking things seriously in competitions I'm not going to bother spending more money to watch a reserve team play - I'll join the 15,000 other stay aways. Brad Guzan - 5 - Not as good as he was in Prague for a long way. Should have done better with the first. Nigel Reo-Coker – 5 - not a right back. First goal came from his side. As you pointed out, would have been better to use in the middle. Zat Knight– 2 - Prat. Didn't concentrate on the first, didn't put a quick enough challenge in for the second. Get rid. Waste of £3.5million Carlos Cuellar – 6 – Agree with what you said on this one, John. Luke Young - 6 – And this one. Craig Gardner– 5 – Should have done better with the header. Not a great performance by him, but he was another being played out of position. Moustapha Salifou – 5 – Not good enough for the Premiership, so why is he good enough in Europe? Failed to push the ball forward and Zilna controlled our midfield. Isaiah Osbourne – 2 – Not good enough for AVFC. He slowed down any attack which went through him. Failed to challenge, failed to pass. Not good enough. There must be something in him which is making MON continue to give him chances time and time again, but I just can't see it. Ashley Young – 6 – Tried, but as with the past month, Young's delivery was poor all night. Marlon Harewood – 5 – Nice knock down but perhaps showed why he doesn't get a chance in the Premiership. Had a decent chance. Nathan Delfouneso – 7 – MOTM – Offered a bit of hope. Tried. Good shot for the goal, too. Substitutes: James Milner – 5 - Failed to get himself into the game once he came on and when he did his crossing was poor. Robertson needs to get working on him. Gareth Barry – 6 – Tried, but it was too late by the time he came on as it's hard to play with ten men behind the ball. Another free header missed tonight, too. Gabby Agbonlahor – 5 - At one point I had forgotten he had come on.

Sorry - the name didn't look particularly legal. My mistake.

Another great write up, thank you John. Interesting take on Ashley Young, because I stuggled to work out if he'd played poorly or was just defended against well. He's delivery from set pieces was pretty poor or night and if it hadn't been for that fantastic ball to Gabby I'd have been giving him a 4 or 5 personally.

Without trying to make this Poppy thing go further, why don't the club ask for an apology in the newspaper which explains what the club is actually doing and also ask for the newspaper to give a donantion split 50/50 between Acorns and the Poppy appeal as an apology? Make it public that this is what we've requested, and it's only fair following their incorrect story which appears to have had no research done into it. Simple. If no apology or donation is made then they look even more of a shambles.

Please, please keep this on a discussion on LEGAL music sites. Anything illegal will close this thread.

Hello. I have had this emailed to me:

If I dare answer this one for you...this isn't strictly the case. For example, say if Villa have ten telephone lines into the Consumer Sales. If there were nine people on the line and you got the tenth - you'd be put in the queue and have to wait. However, if ten people are already waiting then there is nowhere to put your call waiting, so you get chucked off. Seeing as there is a heightened interest with Season Ticket holders also needing to secure tickets those lines AVFC have are more likely to be filled, meaning it is harder to even get queuing. I phone twice and got the engaged tone. Tried again and was then put in the queue. Nothing has changed, its has just been jammed when you tried. So it's bad for you, but good for the club I guess.

Just so you get good feedback as well as the bad stuff.... Ordered my UEFA home tickets today and despite expecting a nightmare wait reading the things on here, I had a 5-10 minute wait an was through to a cheery chap only too pleased to help out and get it all sorted. While I'm at it - every time I've had to deal with consumer sales - extra tickets shirts etc - it's been an effortless procedure with the person down the line very friendly (when I ordered my home shirt the chap down the line even made a joke about having Barry on the back of the shirt) - it's not something that is often the case with help/sales lines so just a little well done and thanks to all involved, I guess. It's easy to complain at times but I think it's worth saying when experiences are good too.

Please do not bump threads that have already died.

Please do not up old threads which have died.

mysteryman

benevans believes something is going to happen tomorrow but too scared to put money where his mouth is/can't be bothered to make up a proper rumour.

Some top quality attacking play, a defensive mix up and a late goal conceded. The first game of the season ws just like the majority of last season, wasn't it? Well no, not at all actually. I know we should judge a team on one game, and I know that this rule certainly applies to the first game of the season, but heck, keep it up, make the additions O'Neill is talking about and we could have a very exciting season ahead of us. There have been a few similarities between Villa and City over the past two years. We were both taken over by new owners at roughly the same time. In fact, had thing worked out differently and a different bid to Randy Lerner's had been accepted we may have had Sven Goran Erickson as our manager instead of City last year. Thank goodness for so many reasons that Doug Ellis who did have many faults - did the best thing he did in his many years at Villa and sold the club to the right man. Whilst Lerner remains popular with the support, and as evident before today's game still only too happy to talk to the 'normal' fans whilst signing autographs, Man City's chairman is not even welcome in his homeland and if reports are true the club has had to take out a big loan just to guarantee the player wages for this season. If that wasn't enough for them, then whilst Villa put in a dominating and confident performance in the UEFA Cup on Thursday brushing aside their opposition, Man City lost their first leg. So whilst the journey that both teams have been on is similar, If I were a City fan I'd be looking on at Villa with a rather large slice of envy. Martin O'Neill is desperately trying to plug up villa's leaky defence. Signing three defenders and two goalkeepers means you don't need to be a genius to work that out. And yes, he has managed it. Having Friedel in goal gave the defence a sense of calm - they trusted the goal keeper behind him, which wasn't something that you could say last year. He has hands like magnets - he made three or four saves where last season we'd have seen a parry or a punch - Brad simply caught the ball. We also got to see Villa with a right back. A proper right back. And if Luke Young plays the way he did today in every game he plays in then he'll rapidly become my favourite player at the club. Young is much more or a tough tackling kind of player - I'd never got that impression from him when in opposition - quite frankly the only thing he got wrong all afternoon was the penalty - which he wasn't all the blame for. The addition of a proper right back really did show what we were missing last year. Gabby's second goal was all down to some good play by Luke Young previously. And he knew it looking at his celebration when Gabby stuck it into the net. Shorey too looked good. He was steady, perhaps liked to hold on to the ball a little too long at times (something the whole defence were guilty of at times - it was a little like Arsenal's pass not hoof policy at times) but his distribution with the ball was impressive. so it's a shame that a defensive mix up between the two new full backs let Johnson in on goal - but not for long as Young brought the midfielder down with a spectacular foul - no nonsense again. At that point, 1-1, I must admit I was a little worried. Man City had begun to get into the game and I was wondering if Barry's missed chances in the first half would cost us. Our midfield was, ad you would expect, pulling all the strings in the Villa performance. It's not possible to comment on Villa these days without having to talk about the 'Barry situation'. Barry gave his all, he wanted to win and he tried his best but to me there was just something that wasn't 'there'. The sparkle didn't seem to be there. The alertness. I don't know if his mind was elsewhere, or whether I'm being paranoid - but he still managed two assists, so I can't be that harsh. Ashley Young was terrific, yet again and despite picking up a knock in the first half (Hughes's tactic at Blackburn of fouling any man who has the ball seems to have quickly bee learnt by Manchester City) showed exactly why Capello was a fool not to call him into the England squad. Carew and Agbonlahor must love it on days like this when the service they are getting is of such a high quality. Carew needs to be protected at times as he easily picks up little knocks, but his sheer strength is a joy to watch - and his header today is hopefully the first of many. Gabbys hatrick will take all the headlines tomorrow - and they were three excellent finishes - but had he not got the goals then the reaction to his performance would have ben much, much more negative. But I guess that's what the best strikers do - even if they are out of the game, they can pop up and get a goal - just as Torres did on Saturday. His third goal was just so pleasing - where before he may have lost discipline and wandered off side he realised how close he'd have to be, and then still with the power of Micah Richards chasing him he switched it to his left foot - something which this time last year I don't think he'd have done. It's worth mentioning Stan Petrov too. He's had his critics, but today was possibly his best game in a Villa shirt. He passed the ball superbly, retained possession and made interceptions when needed. The only criticism, as with the defence, he tried to overplay it at times. It was a really good attacking display, with a defensive show that gave promise of being a much stronger rearguard this year. It's all rather exciting, isn't it?

villan_007

brightonfan

Dante_Lockhart

JoshClem

Mysteryman

benevans