Adam2003

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.

Yeah, can't see that EVER happening at Villa Park ;-)

If you think that's Harry Redknapp's game then you don't know how he operates.

Why? What does it really achieve? He has been honest to his manager and said he wants to move but he has not come out and said it himself. We are going to double our money and have had a good season out of him. But yeah go ahead and boo him I'm sure he'll change his mind. I dont want him to change his mind. I want him to know he is hated at Villa Park, which if he plays he will then know. Good grief.

This irritates me too. If he started playing badly would we stay loyal to him? As fans we always want it one way. As players they do too. There's no real middle ground. All I ask is that a player doesn't go whining to the press as Barry did, and he hasn't.

I just don't get this. We signed him for £12 million. He's played well for a couple of years. We'll sell him for double that. It's a pretty good deal all round to me.

Not if he has international ambitions, given Italy's preference for picking players based in Serie A.

Bingo. Unlikely to be in the top four, could be anywhere from fifth to eighth even if we have a good season, would be shocked at ninth.

It was announced on the 10th June. I like the kit and am fine with the sponsor.

No club can keep its best players all the time. Could Man United keep Ronaldo? My viewpoint on this remains the same: if Milner goes, we get very, very good money. If he stays, we keep a good player. I'll be happy either way. But Manure got some mileage out of Ronaldo. We've had Milner 2 seasons. I don't see what differnece that makes tbh. But even if so, Spurs had Berbatov (supposedly their best player) for two seasons. Sold him and improved, after previously selling Carrick, also supposedly their best player. Manchester United struggled after selling Ronaldo, but back when everyone thought Ruu van Nistelrooy was brilliant they sold him and improved loads. We sold Barry and improved. I'm not saying we'll improve if we sell Milner, of course not. Just you never know what will happen and there's no point giving up because however good we get, even if we'd been champions three times running like United last summer, there will always be clubs rich enough to tempt our players away and/or offer us a price that tempts us into selling.

No club can keep its best players all the time. Could Man United keep Ronaldo? My viewpoint on this remains the same: if Milner goes, we get very, very good money. If he stays, we keep a good player. I'll be happy either way.

This seems to have been brushed over, despite the fact it's a mad claim. Have you been looking at the referees by mistake?

I've been told this as well by people who should know. Not at the Villa end, but apparently it's £20 million although some of that is dependent on league performance etc.

To be fair, anyone I know in the business or any business that works with it does. I agree with you I'd rather not have the tagline though.

People saying Milner's not there - surely that's as simple as him being off on holiday at the moment. He did the viral thing for season tickets after the speculation had started after all.

£80k p/w !! The best thing is Gold bragged about it. "I can promise you this is a multi, multi-million dollar deal" etc etc. Well done, David.

I agree but it isn't nowt. West ham are forking out more than £4 million a year in wages on him - I'm not sure he'd be worth being our highest-paid player even on a free. Joe Cole, mind...

I do agree with you, but I suppose it's a major revenue stream. We have cheap tickets, we don't get that many fans, but we have people demanding big-money signings. They can't really win.