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John

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Everything posted by John

  1. Tom Fox walks the fine line between showing support for our current custodian whilst not saying anything that might not go down too well with our potential new custodian(s) with such comments. I like what he has done at the club to date and would like to see him continue at the club. But it may be that he considers a sale is likely to result in his going along with Randy.
  2. Is it Bobby Ewing & Cliff Barnes?
  3. The BBC Football site reports that he has posted the following on instagram "Thank you to the fans who have stuck by me through hard times. It has been a pleasure to play for you," He scored goals to keep us up and that is why we signed him. We sold the players that fed him and failed to replace them and then asked why he was no longer scoring for us. Derby will play to his strengths and he will repay them with goals. Good luck to Darren and thanks for leaving us with some style.
  4. What no Neymar? I would also have slight concerns about how well they would play together and where we would start Benteke in that forward line.
  5. Yes a point very well made. We looked beaten from start to finish and the gulf in class was there for all to see. But for me we seemed too ready to accept that we would be second best and this desperate performance was tough for us to take coming so soon after the fine display they had produced for us in the semi-final. It seems we had run out of steam at Southampton and were unable to come again even for a cup final.
  6. If he does move on then I wish him well and hope he can find the sort of form he produced for us in the past at Derby. Andi has given 100% effort every time he has put on our shirt and formed a nice partnership with Benteke. He also comes over as a player who has enjoyed playing for us and he played his part in keeping us in the top flight during his time with us.
  7. You may well be right but the club and players (who are still with us) should really want to get back there as soon as possible to make amends for this one. I hope the wait for the opportunity to do so is nearer 1 than 15 years this time.
  8. I'm sure we would all welcome a new owner who is willing to invest to move our club forward particularly given that our present custodian has made it very clear he wants out as quickly as possible. I would be as happy for the new owner(s) to be from the USA, China or from somewhere else as long as their intentions match our ambitions. This could yet come to nothing but it might also be the start of something big. I hope we will be able to look back at our change of ownership when it does happen in that way and the sooner that change of owner takes place the better for our current custodian, the club and for us.
  9. Looks like another player who had suggested he might be willing to stay might not do so. That will no doubt be dependant on how our offer compares with others he will get and the step up may well be in salary as much as in the status of the football club he signs for. I would like to see him stay because if we do lose him as well as Cleverley and possibly Benteke on top of that FA Cup Final defeat it would be a lot of negative news in a very short space of time for the club to be able to recover from by the start of next season.
  10. Shades of Dwight Yorke? I hope you are right on both counts.
  11. I wonder when Everton made him this offer? Before the Burnley game? Before the FA Cup Final? When he decided to sign for them after saying he was up for signing for us after that semi-final win? He did his bit to get us to the Final and keep us up but his going to Everton seemed so predictable from the day he signed for us on loan and it looks a bit underhand now. I hope we made him a decent offer and if we did not I wonder how Tim feels about that? I think and hope he will regret not signing for us. I now hope we will have the money to find a suitable replacement.
  12. Tim has also managed him at Villa more recently and has made him a player again. So if it is not money it may be that he prefers to live in Liverpool rather than Birmingham. If so, I would have to question his judgement.
  13. Agreeing to sign a decent player or three now when the window opens might suggest to Benteke and Cleverley that we are looking to improve on the bottom 6 next year. Oh well....
  14. I want him to stay. I had previously thought that he was just waiting until the summer so he could sign for Everton for nothing after playing for us for a season. But given how well he has performed since Tim arrived and his comments about wanting to stay with us I accepted he had changed his mind and was happy with that. I accept a lot of it is about money for players but I would like to think that if we offered him similar wages to those offered by Everton he would sign for us. If not, why bother to say he wanted to stay?
  15. It might take more than that but its a start. Is it Talksport or Liverpool or are they the same? "We need the money" - Have we become Small Heath since Saturday evening?
  16. Source: Player Match Ratings: 58 years of hurt and still counting!
  17. We last won the FA Cup in 1957 for a then record seventh time. We last beat Arsenal in the competition in 1974. Both of these records remain unbroken after our disappointing FA Cup Final defeat yesterday. By winning Arsenal lifted the trophy for a record twelfth time and Wenger equalled George Ramsay’s long standing managerial record of six FA Cup wins. So a season that might have become one to remember forever yesterday quickly became what it has been for much of it namely one to forget. This was all too easy for Arsenal who might have quite easily have doubled their goal tally on another day. They were clearly up for it from the start rather than slow out of the blocks early on as we might have hoped they would be and as they were in last season’s final. Yes, we were twice denied penalties on the 80th and 85th minute that should have given us the opportunity to hit at worst a consolation goal and at best goals that would have given us an unexpected opportunity to press for a late equalizer. But we were clearly second best and outclassed by the winners and that was very hard to take There were alarming shades of the 2000 FA Cup Final none performance about yesterday’s Villa display. Too many of our players let the game pass them by and at times we appeared in awe of our opponent’s fluent style of play. Our defence was put under relentless pressure, our midfield was chasing shadows and our attack gave Arsenal no cause for concern until the 80th and 85th minutes. My player ratings from a game that cruelly demonstrated the gulf that exists between these two teams that the difference in their final league table positions had already identified are: Shay Given – 6 – Made a superb one handed save from a Koscielny header on 15 minutes to keep us on level terms and got down low to keep out a Cazorla shot in the 56th minute. Kieran Richardson – 6 – MOTM - Made a great block on 24 minutes to keep out Walcott’s goal bound effort. Produced a decent defensive display under pressure and he can hold his head up high after this because he did his bit. Jores Okore – 5 – Did well to recover on the edge of the box on 61 minutes after Ozil had played a ball for Walcott to run onto that he looked likely to convert until Jores intervened. A difficult evening but he kept at it. Ron Vlaar – 5 – Did very well to block a dangerous Cazorla cross at the near post on 8 minutes. But was fortunate on 20 minutes that Ramsey hit his shot over the bar after the ball had fallen to him after Ron had failed to head the ball clear on the edge of the box. Alan Hutton – 5 – Unable to get forward as often as he usually did due to having his hands full in his own half Tom Cleverley – 4 – Did not have the impact we might have hoped he would have in a midfield that was bettered by their opponents with some ease. Ashley Westwood - 4 – Had a couple of decent moments but he was part of a midfield unit that was second best throughout. Fabian Delph – 4 – A disappointing display which is very unusual for him. Jack Grealish – 5 – Jack was unable to make anything approaching the sort of dynamic impact he made in the semi-final. However, he did give some brief glimpses of the player we know he is and the last of those should have led to a penalty. But for some inexplicable reason referee Moss ignored our 85th minute penalty appeals after Jack having been fed by Gabby following a strong run had beaten Bellerin and been pulled back by him inside the box. Charles N’Zogbia – 2 – Failed to make any sort of positive impact upon the game prior to his substitution and this was a sorry return to the Charles we had grown accustomed to seeing earlier in this season. Christian Benteke – 4 – If this is to be Christian’s last game in our shirt it was not the way he or we would have liked him to have seen him depart as he will have gone out with a whimper rather than with a roar. He had little to no service throughout and spent as much time trying to defend as attacking. Was too far in front of Mertesaker when he headed home their third. This was some way off being a performance to be remembered. Substitutes: Gabby Agbonlahor – 6 – Came on for the ineffective N’Zogbia on 53 minutes. Gabby produced a better level of performance than he has done of late and made a couple of decent runs one of which should have led to an 80th minute penalty. He made a powerful run from the edge of the centre circle to the edge of the box where he was brought down by Coquelin. But his penalty appeals were ignored by the referee who later booked him for questioning his decision a little too strongly for his liking. Leandro Bacuna – 4 - Replaced Richardson on 68 minutes. Leo failed to stay on Giroud in the third minute of stoppage time to leave him unmarked and unchallenged on 93 minutes to convert a cross for their fourth. Carlos Sánchez – Replaced Westwood on 71 minutes and did not quite have enough time on the field or do enough to gather a marking. Now get back there next year and make it up to us by winning the thing - Up the Villa! John Lewis
  18. I wonder if the Swindon 2 had a choice of QPR or us? Or did QPR bid more than we did, offer more wages and mention that they are a club in London? Those two otherwise seem to lack ambition and the confidence to back their ability to force their way into the first team squad of this season's FA Cup winners.
  19. If we do win the FA Cup I think he might just give us another year if we offer him the sort of money clubs that are looking at taking him off us would. Getting him to sign the last contract was no doubt dependant on the release clause and keeping him has kept us up and got us to Wembley this season. If he did stay on a better contract we could possibly increase his release clause to £40m + and insert say a 15% sell on clause for the buying club like the one it seems we will have to pay from any transfer. If we do lose him and that would be a very sad day then I will be expecting us to spend the whole of his fee and a bit more in the summer window. Anything less than £40m spent would not be acceptable.
  20. Thanks for your comments above lexicon. I agree that the highlights can give a different perspective on a game.
  21. Rodgers should listen to his fans! Why would Christian want to go there in any case? He can lose games 6-1 here as well as there. Although they do get to go on holiday a week before we do (we made sure of that)! Jog on Liverpool you cannot afford him and he is not for sale.
  22. I would have thought they would rather have moved up to the top flight. I would be shocked if QPR were in a position to potentially out-bid us/offer them better terms given their current financial problems. But it seems their manager with a Spurs history agrees with our own that these 2 are worth bringing in.
  23. Alan Brazil said this morning speculation should not have started until after the FA Cup Final and then interviewed Dwight Yorke (who knows all about leaving our club). From "The Times" today : Liverpool are preparing a bid for Christian Benteke but will not lodge it until after Aston Villa have played Arsenal in the FA Cup final on Saturday. Benteke enters the final two years of his contract at Villa Park this summer and Liverpool are hopeful that an offer of more than £20 million will convince Villa to sell the Belgium forward, who Brendan Rodgers wants to become the new spearhead of his attack. Rodgers wants to add greater physicality and firepower to Liverpool’s front line and believes that Benteke would provide both qualities, hence the 24-year-old emerging as one of the club’s chief transfer targets before what promises to be another close season of change at Anfield.
  24. Lots more on link. Anyone who has yet to click on the above link really should. Peter is a Villa legend and we really need to win this one for the boys of 1957. Could anyone really tell Peter, Nigel Sims or Jackie Sewell that we have no chance of beating Arsenal in the final? Lets win it for Peter, Nigel, Jackie and for our past & present Villa players/managers/fans on Saturday!
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