ThunderPower_14

Fantastic Article!

It shows, basically, that all we need to do is get the ball in the back of the net a bit more, especially at home! With Gabby and Carew looking like a dangerous pairing, our midfield looking more creative every game and 2 or 3 big signings we could be very, very dangerous next year.

Number one, I didn't say Moore, number 2, I would not be disappointed with either signing. We certainly need more depth up forward, and Defoe and Bent are quality players.

My point was that if Gabby keeps improving like he has this season, he will pretty quickly become a more dangerous forward than either of them. I'm a big Gabby fan.

I think Gabby will be a more prolific scorer than both of them. I'd probably take Bent over Defoe at the moment, but either of them will be sitting on the bench while Carew and Gabby rain in the goals IMO.

Credible rumours? Kaka could put on a Villa shirt and have a press conference pleading with MON to take him on a Bosman and I still wouldn't believe Kaka had any chance of playing here. You probably should have picked a less elite player to make it credible.

and the fact that it's his first post aswell.....

anyhoo, i was thinking. one of the good things about MON is he keeps his powder dry and doesn't let on who his targets are, so we don't know if we're warm or not. t be honest, any of his signings would be a surprise - look at carew and maloney!

kind of makes this thread redundant. it's still fun though.

we seem solid up front now so i think his rebuilding will begin at the back. GK, RB and DM.

Agreed, I think some signings will come out of the blue. I also think we should be looking pretty heavily outside the premiership. We will in general have less competition from Premiership clubs, and I think we're likely to get a better deal moneywise. I'm very much looking forward to this transfer period and the start of next season.

Credible rumours? Kaka could put on a Villa shirt and have a press conference pleading with MON to take him on a Bosman and I still wouldn't believe Kaka had any chance of playing here. You probably should have picked a less elite player to make it credible.

Don't mean to stir up any arguement here, but the badge as it is, without worrying about what it could have been, has really grown on me now. It just oozes class to me now. I play Pro Evo 6 on playstation 2 all the time, and i've put the badge on our kit with a nike design and it just looks fantastic. It will look brilliant on a kit, sitting next to a nike tick, i'm certain of it.

Hi General.

Got to watch the match on TV over here in Australia, what a great game! Couldn't have been a better result to celebrate '82.

This was discussed a bit earlier, but i'm curious if the club has any of the scarves left over, and if there is some sort of competition I could enter to win one? Obviously being over here in Adelaide it's hard to get to games, but the new scarf with the new crest looks magnificent from the pictures i've seen, and i'd love to have one.

Thanks for everything again, you and the rest of the new regime have brought life back to Aston Villa. It's truly a fantastic time to support our great club.

It's also a bit of a slap in the face to suggest the board messed up in seeking fan consultation and sets a precedent. The idea was well intentioned and must be applauded, the final execution poor.

20 20 hindsight hey? I loved the idea of the fan consaultation, it's typical of our brilliant new board. But honestly, looking at what we got (and this badge has grown on me, I would say i'm happy with it now), a single designer working by himself would have likely pleased a lot more people.

I don't think voting from 6 or 7 finished designs was the way to go, for the reasons people have stated. If they were all decent, we would get the winning design only getting like 30% or something. Not good. I agree now with whoever said before that they should just have gotten a designer to do it without asking us. If we weren't asked, we couldn't have gotten as upset when our choices didn't win. And honestly, without the survey, I sincerely doubt the badge would have come out exactly how it did.

A good design that stretched the guidelines in this case may have been better than a design that followed the survey guidelines to the letter.

That Said, I just went to the Aston Villa wikipedia entry, noticed they had the new badge up as our emblem, and went to myself "hey that isnt too bad". It's a grower all right. At least it's a classic design, not ultra modern or anything. This means that it wont go out of fashion.

On may 3 2008, someone should start a thread regarding the one year anniversary of the badge. By then I doubt people will still be bothered by it, and it will be accepted as part of the club.

Very good article, I can't disagree with much you have said at all.

The lion element has grown on me, I now like it better than the old lion, it looks classier. But other than that, while I like the elements enough individually, they haven't grown on me as a badge. You are dead right, we didn't completely stuff up, but it could have been much more classy, determined and "Aston Villa". Definitely a wasted opportunity for me.

Do people really, really believe that a board containing an exec who is CEO of one of the biggest sports marketing companies out there will throw something together?

This is something i mentioned in the closed thread. There are people on our board who surely know about this kind of stuff and even Randy will know how important logos and marketing a brand is from his NFL experience.

Not to knock Randy, but the Browns logo is about as boring as batsh*t. It's just a brown helmet. It would be like Villa having a plain image of a claret shirt with blue sleeves as it's emblem.

Branding isn't all about the emblem though, far from it.

Not that the Australian market is huge, but Leeds got tons and tons of fans over here when Kewell and Viduka were playing for them. If we make Europe with Lucas Neill in the team, look for a huge boost in the Australian supporter base.

Turning 21 quite soon

Van Der Vaart would be a magic signing. Absolute magic. Trabelsi is a very good player as well, and plays in a spot where we are in need of quality, he would be a fantastic addition. Only problem is he's 30 years old, and we should be looking at more long term prospects IMO.

If you have any spare scarves general, send one this way! I'll pay for postage!

Just kidding, sending one to every international Villa fan that asked would be a nightmare. What to do with them would depend on how many were left over. If it were thousands then giving them to fans who couldnt attend the sheffield united game might be a good idea, but if only a few hundred it might not be worth it.

How about one of those "Why you love Villa" in 25 words or less competitions on the OS? Would be a pretty fair way to go... and it would give me a shot at getting one.

Van Der Vaart himself would be almost 20 Million. But he would be an absolutely awesome signing. A way bigger signing than Carew, and he was an awesome signing.

i dont want chelsea to win it...

dont want them fuckwits joining us as clubs to have won it..

other than that, i dont care...

how can u say sorenson. He costs the villa points all/every season. I swear some people watch a different aston villa who post on here.

I know this was a couple of pages ago, but care to point out where he has done that this season? He has been terrific. The games where we hade Kiraly in goal really made me appreciate how good a keeper we have in Tommy.

Hero for Villa.

We never quite had the team to make best use of his talent. If he was 24 now and we signed him in the summer, he could have been that 20 goal a season striker every team is looking for.

I was 50/50 between Sorenson and Barry, went Barry, and i'm actually pretty shocked Sorenson hasn't gotten a vote considering Petrov and Angel both have. Not saying they suck, just saying Tommy was more valueable to the team this season.

Over here every bloody person is a fan of one of the big 4 teams. It's a joke. No-one bothers with family heritage, they just glory hunt.

Over there it's even worse. Every person has a relatively local club, and unless you have parents or family who follow a different club, your local club should be the one you support. A brummy Manchester United "fan" is a joke. SHA fans may be scumbags, but at least they support the team that represents them, and not one of the big 4 just so they can support a team that wins a lot of silverware. Silverware isn't what supporting a club is about.

Over here in Aussie Rules football we have a salary cap and draft system, so no club is ever up or down the ladder for too many years in a row. We like to say that if you don't support the club with all your heart during the bad times, you dont deserve to enjoy the good times, and they wont be as sweet anyway. The Brummy Manure fans decided they were too good to support a club that would have bad times, and I guarentee they wouldn't enjoy Man U winning the Premiership anywhere near as much as every member of this site will when Villa next win the premiership.

Just out of curiosity, because my Brummy born Dad has an Aussie accent and my memory is foggy on the accents of my Grandma and Grandad, what makes a brummy accent a brummy accent?

Oh and I don't think it as a penalty.

Think it was dude, seeing it on MOTD; 2 players infact fouled him!

Exactly, without rugby tackling him, I can't imagine a much clearer penalty. The player who caught his left foot just caught him (and we have seen penalties for less this season), but the guy on his right foot took him right out.

Hey, better a villa fan is shaking a claret and blue shaker than sitting down doing nothing IMO. It might get the fans actively supporting a bit more.

General,

Alan Perrin the Villa fan from Devon who was nominated as the Barclays fan of the month has won the award. (He was particularly pleased with your vote !)

Can we have him on the pitch at half time at one of the next two home games so that we can give him a round of applause?

I will second that. The man devotes his life to helping others and supporting Villa.

Very much agreed. Inspirational stuff.

God no, loan him out to anyone else for this month where we have no games, but not bloody SHA. He would be tainted. Unless he was just there to score own goals...