allani

£55m would put us 5th in the league. If I go to a bar, buy a pint using a £50 note and get £46.50 change, it doesn't mean I've spent £50. If I sell my bike to my brother for £50 and then go to the pub and buy drinks for all my mates and the bill comes to £55 - I have still spent £55.

Allani Newcastle 1-1 Arsenal Villa 2-0 Sunderland Bournemouth 1-0 Leicester Chelsea 2-0 Palace Liverpool 0-0 WestHam ManCity 5-0 Watford Stoke 1-0 WestBrom Spurs 1-0 Everton Southampton 2-0 Norwich Swansea 0-2 ManUtd GW2

Presumably we haven't bothered doing a Gabby one either... :-)

Allani ManUtd 3 0 Newcastle Palace 1 2 Villa Leicester 1 1 Spurs Norwich 1 2 Stoke Sunderland 2 1 Swansea WestHam 2 0 Bournemouth WestBrom 0 5 Chelsea Everton 1 1 ManCity Watford 1 0 Southampton Arsenal 3 2 Liverpool GWs=1

?????? Running our defence at the moment.

I think a lot of people have a very short memory to think that the club has not improved under Lerner. Villa was all about one person before Lerner arrived - everything began and ended with Ellis. If a hypothetical situation arose where there were two mutually exclusive options of (a) something being good for the club and fans or ( something being good for Ellis - then there would only be one outcome. When Lerner arrived he made huge efforts to understand what the fans wanted and tried to act on those that he could. Admittedly he has made some howlers along the way but we now have people advising him who seem to know how to run a club. Off the pitch we are beginning to resemble a proper football club - something that would never have happened under Ellis. Just a shame that Lerner didn't get this lot in when he started as we could have avoided a lot of the shit that has happened along the way. That is not to say that I want him to stay or that the last few seasons of on the pitch performances have been acceptable but if he left tomorrow then the new owners would be taking on a better club than the one that Lerner purchased. All in my humble opinion obviously!!!! Only the post you are responding too doesn't say we haven't improved since Ellis, it's says we are back in the same position and it's correct we are. Hopefully we might not be come the end of the season. Nobody in their right mind would argue we were better off/better run under Ellis or that he was a better owner. But the problem is that relative to all the other teams in the league we are no better now than we were when Lerner arrived in fact it could argued the gap between us and the top 7 or 8 has only increased. That isn't entirely Lerner's fault, far from it but that is the reality and so it's hardly surprising people are reluctant to heap praise on him. Kind of agree but the biggest reason that the gap has increased is because of the extra money in the Champion's League and then the big boys introducing FFP to stop anyone else from being able to compete on a level playing field. It is very difficult to come up with any plan to close the gap on the top 4 or 5 when they are practically guaranteed to earn £50 million more each season and have implemented a scam that prevents other clubs from finding other ways of "generating" that type of income. I guess that I just struggle to get over the fact that Ellis took "the best team in Europe" and dismantled it entirely because he hadn't created it. Maybe I just need to let it go now....after all it has been over 30 years.....

I think a lot of people have a very short memory to think that the club has not improved under Lerner. Villa was all about one person before Lerner arrived - everything began and ended with Ellis. If a hypothetical situation arose where there were two mutually exclusive options of (a) something being good for the club and fans or ( something being good for Ellis - then there would only be one outcome. When Lerner arrived he made huge efforts to understand what the fans wanted and tried to act on those that he could. Admittedly he has made some howlers along the way but we now have people advising him who seem to know how to run a club. Off the pitch we are beginning to resemble a proper football club - something that would never have happened under Ellis. Just a shame that Lerner didn't get this lot in when he started as we could have avoided a lot of the shit that has happened along the way. That is not to say that I want him to stay or that the last few seasons of on the pitch performances have been acceptable but if he left tomorrow then the new owners would be taking on a better club than the one that Lerner purchased. All in my humble opinion obviously!!!!

Mike Brearley - he was a brilliant captain.

Ah, the silly silly things that get said in July that often come back to bite the next May! If you look at the start of most transfer threads there is always stuff like this. I dont see how this is silly? Are you trying to tell me this guy is as good as Benteke? Seriously? And we have lost three of our main players with no signs of replacements...yet. Of course this could all change but I think we have a reason to be fearful considering the dross last season. Well the way that I read briny_ear's message - I hope that it IS a silly thing as that will mean that come May we will have avoided relegation and Adebayor has banged in goals for fun for most of the season....

Didn't see that coming at all! Great news.

because of one out and out mistake and some occasionally dodgy distribution you must have no confidence in 90% of the team then Given that we have struggled consistently against relegation for the last few seasons - I think any one who does have confidence in 90% of the team must have pretty low expectations of where we now stand as a club. A seriously high percentage of the squad are not good enough for a team / club that should be challenging for Europe. How many of our players would realistically start for teams like Liverpool or Spurs? Answer is probably Benteke. Ergo 90% of the team are not good enough?? I don't think Guzan would stop us being a top 10 team, but in my opinion he isn't as good as the keepers that we had when we were challenging for Europe on a consistent basis. Comparing our squad to that of a team in the top 8 is ridiculous. Is Guzan a top 8 goal keeper? No because if he was he'd already be there, is Guzan the best we could possibly do right now considering our plight the last few seasons? Yes, I'd argue we could in fact have a lesser keeper considering our last few seasons. Last season the defence got chopped and changed, the midfield for the majority of games gave no protection to the back four. Keepers will always get the blame but when the teams racking up an average of just....what was it 25%-30% possession what do you expect. ???? The point I was replying to was about having no confidence in 90% of the team - which is absolutely the case. My confidence levels in the club / team / squad will not be satisfied until we are back challenging for Europe every year. We shouldn't be basing our confidence levels on avoiding relegation. I can't believe that Sherwood and Wilkins are here to try and finish 15th in the table. Both have repeatedly mentioned finishing in the top half and alluded to conversations with Fox about that level of ambition. So taking them at their word and assuming that the club's vision is on finishing in the top half then I maintain that 90% of the team are not good enough and it is up to Sherwood and Fox to change that. And I'm sorry but I can't bring myself to having to consider which Villa players would walk into the starting XI at Southampton, Swansea or Stoke - that to me should be ridiculous (i.e. the answer should be 10 or 11 rather than maybe 3 or 4) not comparing ourselves to Spurs. PS - Maybe I am getting old but I still remember when we were only 1 or 2 players away from having a starting XI that would match any other team in the league. The world has changed a lot since then though! :-(

because of one out and out mistake and some occasionally dodgy distribution you must have no confidence in 90% of the team then Given that we have struggled consistently against relegation for the last few seasons - I think any one who does have confidence in 90% of the team must have pretty low expectations of where we now stand as a club. A seriously high percentage of the squad are not good enough for a team / club that should be challenging for Europe. How many of our players would realistically start for teams like Liverpool or Spurs? Answer is probably Benteke. Ergo 90% of the team are not good enough?? I don't think Guzan would stop us being a top 10 team, but in my opinion he isn't as good as the keepers that we had when we were challenging for Europe on a consistent basis.

Excellent news!

Possibly. But why would those players choose Aston Villa? Well the wages in the Premier League (even at Villa) are probably pretty decent compared to what other European clubs pay (particularly once you move outside those clubs that will be expecting to go a reasonable way in the Champions League). So it IS possible to attract some quite good players from a decent club. However, I don't think that our record of signing "technically gifted" European players has been particularly good (or even average) over the past 20 years so unless something in our scouting has improved dramatically I can't see why we should expect it to improve now. The signings that have worked have tended to be English-type players such as: Mellberg, Laursen, Benteke, Vlaar (when fit / bothered) even Savo/Carew. Clearly not an exhaustive list and I'm fully waiting for people to respond with Juan Pablo and other success stories. However, foreign (and half price) isn't necessarily a better option... I'd rather a manager recruited players that he has a good knowledge of (i.e. people he has seen in training in the middle of winter when the wind is howling and the rain is lashing down) than buying someone on the basis of some videotapes of their "best" matches from the TV. Obviously I'd prefer it if we had a strong worldwide scouting network that meant that we could pick from a bigger pool than just Spurs but... :-)

Sinclair and Townsend would be pretty good down the flanks - if we can get them both playing to their potential. Has the hallmarks of making us pretty exciting to watch - which would be a pleasant change from the last few seasons.

http://www.mirror.co.uk/sport/football/transfer-news/tottenham-transfers-aston-villa-target-5900623 Would be very happy with this - big potential.

Marvellous - another return to work to face colleagues taking the mick out of the Villa, and not a single thing that I can say to defend anything about the performance. We looked like a team who thought that the best possible outcome would be a 3-0 defeat. Would have prefered to lose 8-0 and at least try and mount an attack at some point in the match. Can't believe that when we signed Darren Bent I genuinely thought that we were only two players off being a really competitive team. I look at the team now and we look like a mid-table Championship team at best. Bent will be off in the summer and if we manage to avoid relegation this season it looks like we'll achieve it easily next season. Still at least we are so bad that none of the big boys will be plundering the team for bargains. I just don't see that Norwich and Swansea and the like will be looking at any of our players and thinking - "hmmm that is just what we need to strengthen our team".

Unfortunately longer, better quality footage would have meant that ITV wouldn't have been able to fit in as many advert breaks. Not sure whether it was just me - but they did seem to have 3 minutes of adverts for every 10 minutes of football. Still I do love ITV coverage as it always reminds me how much better BBC and Sky are at covering sport. On the plus side - from what ITV showed we were brilliant. Had three attacks and scored three goals. Baker's cross for the third was awesome - I think the red card was the right call. The angle the players went into the challenge meant that it he would have been really unlucky to hurt anyone - so it was a good lesson for the lad.

Come on Villa - a 4-0 win to go above the Spuds please!!!

Sky Sports - "Villa have run out of ideas and belief by the looks of things". So a typical performance so far this season then...

I don't think any Villa fan would be 'happy' with 12th but in this transitional season if we can manage a top 10 finish whilst adapting our playing style and squad to suit our new manager then, whilst not being happy, i wouldn't see it as a massive disappointment. I don't see GH saying that he would be happy with 12th either. His interview would appear to suggest that he thinks that we can challenge for something - otherwise he would have stayed with France or taken one of the other opportunities that he spoke about. But let's remember he can't make any changes to the squad until January. Let's just suppose that Ash and Gabby get injured - who the hell is left to win us any matches? Carew and Heskey up front? If we had a very bad season then 12th is probably as low as we should fall. There are 8 teams worse than our worst. If we have a good season then I too think that 7th is currently about as good as we can hope for. That said I am sure that GH has seen enough of us to know that we are really only two or three players off being able to challenge for the 4th - 6th spot.

I'm with P&D here. I can see that at times players may leave Villa to join a "bigger" club or to try their luck elsewhere. That is football. It is a very rare thing indeed for a player to stick to a single club these days. However, there is a BIG difference between deciding that you need a change, chosing a really bad time to leave and then really disrespecting the club after you have left. Take Richard Dunne for example - no Man City fan in their right mind would take issue with the way that he left the team and the respect that he has shown Man City since he left. However, Curbs did leave with probably even worse timing than MON - but more importantly some of his comments after leaving were wildly inappropriate. I actually quite like Curbs as a manager and think he did very well at Charlton, although his reputation was tarnished by the West Ham debacle. However, even though it was 25 years ago - I still think that the massive disrespect counts hugely against him. This for me is enough to suggest that he has burnt his bridges at our club.

Thanks for taking time out to send us all an update General - good to hear that you are on the mend and hope that the rest of the treatment goes well. Looking forward to seeing the refurbishment completed. I managed to take two of my nephews to the final match of the season for their first ever trip to Villa Park and they were in complete awe of the stadium - in particular the Hotel End. A great reminder of just how impressive our stadium is. Looking forward to lots of congratulatory messages when MON announces our exciting new signings...

Surprised at the mark for Luke Young. But good to have the Blandy away trip reports back!

Who says we aren't interested? So far there has been nothing leaked by the club about who we are interested in and who we aren't interested in. OK so the media aren't linking us - as far as I know it's not the media that are buying players for us. I'd rather there was no news in the papers and then players appearing in the shirt on the pitch than the other way round.