VILLAMARV

I think the point is that Pearce could easily and probably should have said Jones was missing with a virus and left it at that. 

"Aim for the stars and maybe you'll reach the sky" 

if the agenda was saving football and ensuring "portsmouth never happens again" then they could simply add up all the prize money from all competitions and divide it equally between all 92 clubs every year. 

if the agenda - as I suspect from reading those leaked arsenal letters - is the big clubs protecting their investments and investability and trying to stop Chelsea or Man City from happening again. It would have meant no investment fuelled pop at the top 4 from Lerner.....

this was quite a good take on it i thought:

arsenal-financial-fair-play-moans-don-t-add-up

Unfortunately though, we only have ourselves to blame. We were part of the group that formed the Premier League running after Skys money with the FA. Then things changed. The Bosman ruling meant clubs lost all the power they had over the players and the ever increasing prize money has now led us to a point where most clubs receive more from prize money than from a whole seasons worth of ticket sales. hence ultimately no control over our largest income stream. 

If we took all the money out of it though, there would still be people here. wanting to play football, wanting to watch football. They would be football people though, with the game running through their veins. Not the seagulls that follow the trawler.......

Hell, he's not even in the same league as Kevin Nolan.

Premier League?

always happy to prove myself wrong................ well about the ban anyway 

Pitroipa gets to play in ref admits making mistake shocker

just to keep it somwhere near topic I still think Vlaar is a great aquisition for us!

While I agree that both Mellberg and Laursen were both great on their day and showed a lot of passion and commitment for the club I can understand people's opinions vary when it comes to legend status. 

It made me wonder how old people would be if they were born when God left for Derby - and they'd be 16 or 17 now. meaning there's 20 somethings around that cant even remember us being a good team or having great, legendary players.

If I was younger than me and had the last 20 years of villa to pick a legend from I cant think of many better choices than mellberg.

everyone posting here could well be in their 70's I dont know or care! I was just sharing

I thought both were acceptable? ^^^^ ok not the thread, move along. nothing to see here.

"Ipswich striker Jay Emmanuel Thomas posted his own message shortly after Chopra's, which read: 'Michael Chopra your a clown.' "

Just seen this on the BBC site.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-suffolk-21353178

To anyone who's not followed this story - when he left Cardiff for Ipswich he revealed he had a gambling problem and Ipswich alledgedly loaned him £250,000 to settle debts with some nastys. Last year he was implicated in a horse race betting scandal and subsequently banned along with others for corruption. He claimed not to have the £50,000 for legal fees from the enquiry. 

When I'm watching us on the telly and my missus is in the room (she wont be paying attention) if I ever cheer for no reason at all she now asks "did that australian do a pass?"

Utter Disgrace. No way should England play in yellow, looks totally wrong. Bring back the red and white. 

cheers maqroll anyways, That bit of Robert Cray made me go hunting for Old Love that he co wrote with Clapton. My favourite bit of Eric. haven't listened to this in ages.

Old Love 

Think he's over here this year doing a little tour to promote his new album, you just reminded me! wonder if there's still tickets available.......

nice, chilled me out a bit after this:

Went to see Walter trout a couple of years back, still mint but there was only one Stevie

Well done to Burkina Faso, but so gutted for them and Pitroipa in particular. If that ref wasn't on the take......... I dont know. He was SOOO blatantly biased towards Ghana. Blatant penalty for Burkina Faso after about 5 mins not given, Ghana's goal was a really soft penalty. Burkina Faso also had a perfectly good goal disallowed for what?? and then get their best player sent off for being blatantly fouled in the box so he misses the final. 

Much like Blanc for France someone else's wrongdoing robs him of the chance to appear in the biggest match in the nation's history. No way they'll overturn the red card coz no governing body ever does. The ref shouldn't be allowed near another professional match. 

there was one where he got tackled by the mascot? and showed us his silky skills. love how the guy on 55 secs gets one of the signed balls and just gives it to his mate

This is the same governing body that fined Bendtner 100,000 euros for wearing his "lucky pants". If it had said "**** Off" sponsored by Paddy Power they'd have committed a crime deemed 10 times as bad it seems. Good job they weren't wearing orange miniskirts at the time or they'd all have been removed from the ground wouldn't they?

Whether there were racial implications or not its an interesting point of debate on the modern game really, so it can be spun as overly officious by the media but probably crosses some minor indiscretion in the EUFA rulebook. Although Ive never seen such a thing and can easily be persuaded that they actually make it up as they go along!!

It's a weird one for me domestically as I know both lifelong Man City season ticket holders and Chelsea fans that went through years of shit with their respective teams and it's great on a personal level for them to have their moment in the sun. Who would have thought 20/30 years ago that these 2 would be two of the dominant forces in European and English competition?

I'm surprised there's no section of the media that spun it as "Ajax fans get club fined for showing support for the new EUFA FFP legislation" 

I will go and book myself in for some psychotherapy now, but I'm feeling strangely confident about Sunday. 2-1 Villa. 

How many players signed by Houllier will be sold for more than we paid for them?

 

How many players signed by Mcduff will be sold for more than we paid for them?

 

How many players signed by Lambert will be sold for more than we paid for them?

you missed out:

How many Stephen Irelands signed by Faulkner will be sold for more than we "paid" for him?

Before West Brom game 39 league games 2 goals 6 assists

Since West Brom 3 games 0 goals 3 assists. You've even tried so hard I'll remind everyone how close you came to scoring against Newcastle

keep it up Charlie. keep it up. 

yeah but its only "UEFA badge level 1" defending that needs training right?

All this match fixing stuff coming out in the press makes me even prouder to have Farina associated with our club. 

Lets hope there's some unknown conspiracy to lengthen the odds on us staying up at least. 

what about the fans?

yeah, I feel it! but the table on 85mins on saturday looked alot different to how it does now. not saying we'll definately pull clear but there are lots of twists and turns to come. 

For me the time to start praying will be after the double header against Reading (a) and QPR (h). Come the end of march we could be 9 points richer or looking to beat Man Utd + Chelsea in a 7 game win streak to survive and the only thing I can really say with any certainty is that that's not gonna happen

We'll be ok if they just stop ripping our hearts out at the death every week!!