gmvillan

With this, I could not agree more. In fact I made such a point in an article on this very site. While Gareth Barry is a fantastically gifted player, he's not a "complete" midfielder. Playing a withdrawn role in the national team differs from that required in the premier league, and quite frankly neither Barry or Petrov are strong enough either defensively or with the ground they cover. For all the flack that he gets, Nigel Reo Coker was missed big-style in that holding role.... No matter how good your centre-backs are, if you run at them enough you'll eventually get through - "every now and again even a blind squirrel finds a nut."

It was in 81/82 I believe - he filled in when Allan Evans was injured/suspended. Only happened about three times... I agree to a point - players have to be able to cope with anything, but typically they get enough abuse from opposing fans.... MON, on the other hand should expect to get some heat (which I think he does). The only time he has spoken out against the crowd was when he felt his young players were being targetted - you can't blame him for that, all managers should protect their players....

WHY IS AN ARSENAL SUPPORTER READING AND POSTING ON VILLATALK.COM??? TRYING TO DIG AROUND FOR SOME POSITIVE NEWS PERHAPS? I COULDN'T EVEN TELL YOU IF THERE IS AN EQUIVALENT ARSENAL FAN SITE, AND I HAVE ABSOLUTELY NO DESIRE TO TRAWL AROUND THE INTERNET TO FIND ONE...... :?

As much as I agree that the whole saga is twisted, I cannot concur with your sentiment that this has somehow left the club with an embarrassing situation, nor dented our future. Martin O'Neill and Randy Lerner have acted in the best interests of our club throughout this situation. As a player under contract Gareth Barry takes the vast majority of the blame in all of this. When Liverpool first showed an interest he had a chance to say/do the right thing. He didn't. Instead, he went to his unethical, greedy agent and sought his advice. Mr. Black, since that day has handed out "advice" and "guidance" to Barry that breaks all possible ethical guidelines and moral approaches. Barry could have walked away from Black at any time he wanted. Instead, he chose to follow that route. He has been slapped in the face by Benitez and Liverpool for four months - the failure to sell Alonso, the purchase of Robbie Keane, the offers of reserve players in exchange, the comments about how much he liked the combination of Keane, Torres, Gerard and Alonso in the friendly game, and most of all, the continued under-valuation of a player who is currently entering the peak of his career and is a national team regular playing in front of Lampard, Hargreaves, Carrick - all of whom have recently been valued at similar or higher prices. GARETH BARRY HAS BETRAYED HIS TEAMMATES, THIS CLUB AND HIS MANAGER. He has put self before team and failed to recognize the one reason why his career has elevated over the past two years - Martin O'Neill.

Fantastic Article! Ever since I was a little kid I always dreaded this match - mostly because of the mindless idiots who made the game one of paranoia. Perhaps the biggest issue I have is the fact that the favorite "celebration" song at VP is taunting Small Heath. Why????? I can understand it when we are playing them, but honestly, is that the best we can come up with when beating other teams??? Lets use our energy to get behind the boys instead of ragging on the meaningless team from five miles away. To those of you who are bothered by their fans "talking about it" - do you really CARE what they think? Since I can remember, Birmingham fans have been good at one thing - making up ridiculous comments about how Villa's history is meaningless and they are a big club.......

Great observations. Here's mine: 1) If Marlon Harewood was a brummie or Villa academy product, he'd be getting pushed to replace Luke Moore in the team. I honestly feel that Luke has been useless and this was his solitary contribution to the game! 2) Zat Knight is our version of Titus Bramble - skillfull, strong, quick and athletic, coupled with no tactical sense, focus, or willingness to "get stuck in where it hurts." Gardner was attempting to clear a ball that had pinged around our box and was headed towards goal by a player who was being "marked" by Zat. He was playing with a slight groin pull and I'm sure that impeded his ability to stretch for that particular waist high ball. That's squad depth - who else was going to play on the right of midfield? 3) I watched the Spurs game and this game twice - Gareth Barry has been awful in both games and with NRC getting himself booked every game it has rendered our central midfield as pathetic. In the second half of the Spurs game he touched the ball three times.... that's not tiredness!! Petrov is a better option at this point in time (when McCann was hurt last year Petrov played the holding role superbly) 4) MON has refused to name names, but I think the substitutions told the story, along with his post-match "Gabby and Young were great." Expect to see Maloney in for Moore, Osborner for Gardner, Petrov for Reo-Coker and Davies for Knight.

Throwing in an American idea here - what about an AVFC "Hall of Fame/Museum" somewhere on site - where past players, managers, and all of these greats who have created our history can be honored. Each significant contributor to our past would be inducted into such a Hall and have a permanent plaque/bust detailing their achievements and contribution to AVFC. Those such as Rinder, MacGregor and Ramsay can have pride of place at such a location. I think one, or even three statues limits the club in who can be honored...... it could easily be argued that the greatest moment in the club's history should be remembered with a statue of the architect of that team - a man who was Small Heath's manager at the time......

Sorry, not directed at you at all.... just an overall plea to fellow Villans to get out of this awful habit of scapegoating players. It's been going on since Ron Saunders signed Ken McNaught.

Personally I thought Barry and NRC were poor all night, and the quotes above reinforce that. Reo Coker didn't put a tackle in all night after picking up a stupid yellow card for a needless challenge. Barry seemed unable/unwilling to match Huddlestone physically..... Agreed, but he didn't cost us the game as many are saying. I WISH VILLA FANS WOULD LEARN NOT TO MAKE ONE PLAYER A SCAPEGOAT!!! We conceded FOUR goals, not just one penalty. I understand that the third was a back-breaker, but we were under constant pressure at the time and he was back there trying to ease that.... Gardner was getting run-ragged by Bale, who was the source of everything that Spurs were doing in attack. I'm sure the thought was that NRC's pace could handle Bale better and that the introduction of Petrov might see a central midfielder who could actually keep the ball (Barry and NRC were failing at that - see above). In retrospect, it may have been better to move Gabby out wide..... To be honest, I do, to a point. Villa defend zonally on corners (becoming a very common tactic at all levels of the game) and Laursen was slow to react on Berbatov's goal. Also, the third and fourth goal were a result of us failing to clear the ball properly - something that the GK and centrebacks are ultimately responsible for. Look at how many times Ghaly won headers inside our box immediately before scoring the fourth....... THREE TIMES. I AGREE 100% - AND STOP BLAMING HAREWOOD!!!

Considering Harewood and Reo-Coker are both English and young is a clear indication that they are good value based on the over-inflated prices being paid for good young British players. Is Darren Bent worth 16.5 million? Never, in my opinion. I agree that Sidwell is a great piece of business, but also feel that he may move on in a couple of years to get playing time. He has the potential to be a successor to Lampard, but he may have to wait three or four years.

I stand (partially) corrected. I think, in fact that it was a policy of not buying Londoners, rather than from London clubs. Rimmer and Swain were bought from Arsenal and Chelsea but both were from "the north".... I know Cropley had played for Arsenal but i thought he was at Hibernian before coming to us...... I may be wrong, but he was a proud Scotsman, as were quite a few members of his teams...

how do i get edited out for comparing a good article with a bad one and yet this gets left in? Good article CV

I think it's quite possible that we'll see the return of the 4-3-3 with Gabby and Young bombing down the flanks, Carew leading the line and Barry, McCann and Osborne/Davis/Petrov forming a midfield trio that will nullify Dyer and co.

Abuse edited out. Welcome to the site, but please read the site guidlines.