Adam2003

Shocked by the negative reaction to Houllier. I'd be delighted.

He was on the market for £18m earlier that day. Levy got him for £8m. Quite obviously something dodgy has taken place - but Spurs get a good player. Same as with Crouch when by all accounts a cash payment to Storrie was the reason Spurs' £9m bid was accepted when Fulham had already bid £11m. Would you mind Randy paying a few bungs to get better players at the Villa? I guess that's one for each of us individually.

Hmmm. If we're playing a good attacking team, then yes we need two holding players behind him. Against teams like Stoke, I'd fancy him as one of the deeper players - but only if partnered with NRC, or Delph next year. He and Petrov are too lightweight together. But for all that I'd rest Downing and play as people are suggesting.

I would love McLeish. Great manager who has always spoken respectfully of the Villa during his time at the Sty.

Curbs is alright. The 40 points then give up thing is because every year his Charlton teams would be in the top six (massively overachieving) at New Year and then would ease off in Jan and not win a game again all season (ok, over the top, but you know what I mean). It was a joke everyone cracked every year.

No reason it can't work. The reason it often doesn't is that people have a manager then appoint a DOF and it undermines him, or have a DOF and appoint a manager who won't work with one. You just need both sides to be signed up to the idea and have clearly defined roles.

Clearly you need to do the maths about how much people attending a football match actually put towards the purse, you'd be surprised at how little it is. Just think of this... a shortfall of about 5k in attendance (which is usually all we're ever off capacity, and that usually when the likes of Fulham are at VP) with an average spend of £40 equates to £200k, now as that happens on average about (without doing the research) say 12 times a season thats a whole £2.4mil (£2mil net) over a season we're falling short through "poor attendance". Who you going to buy and pay wages for because that £2.4 mil is missing? is poor attendance really preventing us moving forward as suggested? I think not, its guff. It may be well intentioned but its not really the truth of the situation. The attendance shortfall is worth about half a Marlon Harewood financially.....(wages not included) Looking at it in that sort of isolation, then yes. 5,000 extra fans at a few games won't do that much for us. But the importance of matchday revenues can't be overstated. Arsenal and Manchester United make more than £100 million per year on matchday revenues (tickets and spend within the ground). Liverpool, a club of similar size, make about £40 million. That £60 million is two times Fernando Torres + wages. Obviously we aren't going to be pulling in all that extra, but we need more fans and (to be honest) we probably need those fans to be spending more money if we want to compete. (Whether we want to compete if it means pricing our fans out like many United, Arsenal etc fans are is another question.) Even the £2.4 million you mentioned - it might not be enough, but it could be used as £800,000 each per year that might have kept/keep Barry, Milner and, say, Young. Not saying that would be the ideal situation or anything, but you shouldn't dismiss it all as guff or just look at that £2.4m in isolation.

Sometimes. Sometimes one rich man might just stick a load of cash on it so they have to reduce it.

Pardew just left Southampton. Sure it would provoke outrage on here but I quite like Pardew. I'd prefer Hiddink obviously!

I agree with all of this. Dein is a key figure in the 2018 World Cup bid at the moment though, will be very busy until December.

It's who I've wanted to get it since the day MON walked. Guess if it happens we'll have to wait and see how it works out.

No No and NO I'd be happy with Grayson. Rather give an up and coming manager a chance than many of the other names suggested.

Cheers. Fingers crossed for him.

Didn't see tonight- what happened with his injury? Gutted for the lad if he's ruled out a while just as he gets some first team minutes.

Love the people saying Kev Mac's not experienced enough, we should get Jol. It's only a couple of years since Spurs decided Jol wasnt experienced enough, and they should get shot for Ramos. Football's a funny old game.

Well yeah, but MON (who I'm still a fan of, not knocking him) used to not make changes and give the young lads a run-out even WHEN we were well ahead, which people hated.

Yes.

Our best player yesterday for me.

I'd take Coppell. But he says he's retiring from management.

MacDonald please.

I don't really get this Jez. Not having a go at all but over the last couple of years your posts have suggested to me you'd be delighted for O'Neill to go. Surely you must see a positive chance in a replacement, no? Assuming it's not some absolute clown.

You're not wrong. We will get between 10 and 20 quid per shirt. Even if we miss out on 100,000 sales we're talking a small percentage of the sponsorship.

Well, there's the question... revenue. Getting Milan, Celtic and Lyon to Villa Park would cost, say, £2-3 million in appearance fees (it was about £2 million at Arsenal and we'd have to pay more). So assuming we could sell 40,000 tickets for each day - 80,000 total - at £25 then we'd break even at £2 million. And then, yes, maybe we could make money from TV/sponsorship. But do you really think we could sell 40,000 tickets for £25? We don't often sell 40,000 and our matchday prices are often lower than that. And our fans still grumble about having to pay it. It's a lot easier for Arsenal, who sell out 60,000 each week at £40-£50 per ticket, to make money off what is a 'discount' to their fans. Guaranteed revenue is more from getting paid to play in things, ie pre-season tournaments elsewhere. The reason Arsenal don't do this is because Wenger won't do pre-season tours, just a training camp in Austria, so they had to come up with the Emirates Cup. But I'm not sure it would suit us economically.

General - it may have been covered, and I know there's an element of PR/selling tickets to it, but I liked the touch of a letter from Randy/Paul F thanking me for my support last season. Nice touch!

Sidwell did very well to score the third then, seeing as he wasn't even on th bench. Tip top journalism. I think he means there wasn't physically room in the dugout. Ie Sidwell was a sub but the dugout was too small for all our subs.