LukeMoore

12-14th with current squad - with injuries we could be flirting with the bottom 3 come March unless MON gets a move on in transfer market. We do not have a prem defense!!!

well how did 3 teams only lose less games than us last season if our defence is that bad?

General

I think it would be interesting to know who is responsible for dealing with other clubs to agree a fee, and who deals with players and agents directly to negotiate personal terms and convince the player to sign.

i couldn't choose just one

subways are good

double cheeseburgers are the best hangover cure

but every once in a while you can't beat a zinger tower from kfc

man i'm hungry

I'm sorry, Hippo, you will have to remind me of January's window and how cheap MON was then. That was a pathetic little display, wasn't it? All that money shelled out for BH and the "130 capacity holte hotel" (as if it is the fault of the owner that those who constructed the Holte back in the day did not make it a more spacious structure) definitely demonstrates how parsimonious the chairman is. It has been my wont to look at those things and think we have been spending money, but thankfully, you have cleared the mists and I now see the club for what it is: a load of cheap bastards. Well done, hippo and many thanks.

well said

this certainly beats past debates about who should play between angel, sutton and baros

luke has the better technical ability and is the better finisher

gabby causes major problems with his pace and is a decent finished

i'd have to go with luke right now

how great is it to have these two kids in our team

rather than replacing the first team players with better ones

apart from a right back who exactly needs replacing?

i think our first 11 looks dam good and certainly good enough to challenge for europe

Mellberg and laursen, do they need replacing?

NRC, petrov, young or barry? who needs replacing out of that group

Carew and gabby? i'm happy to start our season with that pairing upfront

Do people forget that during january we improved our team alot while the likes of pompey and newcastle did sweet f.a

do we forget that we went on a 10 game unbeaten run at the end of the season thanks to the improvements made in january

But all of that is secondary – because if I’m walking out of Villa Park after a defeat, I won’t be saying “Well, it’s a shame we missed all those chances, but on the upside the sausage and chips were lovelyâ€.

Why do you have such a defeatest attitude towards the upcoming season?

like i said above after the additions in january we looked a much better team.

we have now improved our midfield, we will have gabby and luke as strikers for the whole of next season and i'm sure young players like gardner and cahill will continue to improve.

We still need a couple more players but i can't understand why people are writing next season off as a nothing season

i don't see any reason why we won't be competeing for a european place.

I don't think Laursen will be able to play regularly and the jury is still out on whether he is over his injury problems. Therefore, I think a centre back is a potential weakness.

If laursen can't play regular then i agree it could well be a weakness.

I'd hope that between the player and the specialists they would have a good idea on what laursen will be able to do next season.

I think we need a central defender too LM. Maybe not for the first team but I would like someone like Curtis Davies plus Young, SWP and Defoe. We wouldn't need anyone else if we got those.

I agree someone like davies would be a good signing but i don't think starting the season with the 4 centre backs we have would cause us major problems.

A rb, rm and a striker and we are good to go

any other players would be a bonus and improve us even more but i just don't think we are as desperate for loads of players as some make out.

Do people think we need a huge number of players in? i for one think we would be fine if no one else left and we just brought in a rb, rm and a st,

for each position we'd have

gk - sorensen/taylor

rb - new player/delaney/mellberg

cb - mellberg/laursen/cahill/ridgewell

lb - bouma/barry

rm - new player/young/maloney

cm - nrc/barry/petrov/gardner/osbourne

lm - young/barry/berger/maloney

st - new player/carew/gabby/moore

We'd have a decent starting 11 and decent back up. We'd also have options as we have players who can play in a number of positions.

I don't think the squad is as bad or as weak as some make out.

General,

i've been meaning to ask if there will be another open day training session at villa park this summer?

i think including nrc we will have 5 new players

At the end of the day we have had 5 players go out and only 1 come in and we are already several days into pre-season training. I'm sure that if you asked MoN or any of the other coaching staff if this was an ideal situation they would tell you no, they would rather have the players tied up by now so that they could come in and work together with the rest of the squad so that they can gel before the start of the season

well the rest of the squad aren't in pre season training yet so there is still some time to bring players in.

Also at the moment not replacing players who wouldn't play next season is not a terrible thing. New players will be brought in as soon as the manager can do it.

can't see us playing 4-3-3 because carew is not the right man to be the main striker

It works if you have someone like drogba or bent, players who can hold the ball up but also score you plenty of goals. I think Carew is a fantastic player but i don't think he is an out and out goal scorer and for us to do well we need a goal scorer to partner carew.

I can't see us playing 3-5-2 because i don't think we have the players that can do the wing back job.

I think our best formation is 4-4-2

We can partner carew with a goal scorer

If we sign swp he can play on the right and young on the left, with nrc and barry to play in the middle. We also have flexible options if players perform poorly or get injured, petrov and gardner can come into the middle, barry can go out wide, young can play either flank and we also have berger and maloney also who can play out wide.

hopefully we will see

a rb

a cb

swp

a cf

possibly a keeper as well.

This next season he has to get us into Europe, either with the players he has today, or with the players he has on September 1st. Whatever, he has to get us into Europe, or he will have failed

Not sure i agree with that.

really he has only had two transfer windows at the club, i'd be happy as long as we continue to see an improvement and we are challengeing for a european place throughout the season.

If we miss out on one then i'll be dissapointed but i won't consider the season a failure

like everyone else said that really is a top post, we have great people running this club.

Great Post. But I still think its a very small minority of fans who are getting worked up and in a frenzy for no reason. Let me explain....For arguments sake lets say theres 40K passionate villa fans and 2K of them come on this site. Out of that 2K I'd say about 20 maximum are acting like its the end of the world and are being very negative.

So my point is I still think most fans are very exited to be a villa fan at the moment but are remaining quiet and patient while letting the club do what they have to do in a professional manner.

Agree with all that as well.

All of a sudden you believe in rumours...only when it fits your opinion?

Surely the exact same thing can be said to you tricella as when you were on about players we'd missed out on you mentioned

If you want me to name players I will give you these:

Steve Sidwell. (I am positive MON tried)

Sylvain Distin.

And these are just players going to English clubs.

I dont have any proof we´ve been rejected...no...but you have no proof we havent...so as far as I am concerned we are both allowed to write what we think.

You can write what you think but i think it looks a bit silly talking about players rejecting us when there is not a single piece of evidence to suggest it.

You could look at the list jez posts every so often and moan about eveyone of those players rejecting aston villa when in reality there has only been evidence to suggest we are interested in NRC

I'd stick to the facts when it comes to transfers.

Spurs become favourites to sign Sneijder from Ajax

By Jason Burt

Published: 08 June 2007

Tottenham Hotspur have edged ahead of Aston Villa in the battle to sign Wesley Sneijder as they are willing to pay the €15m (£10.2m) transfer fee being demanded by Ajax.

The creative midfielder, who is 23 this weekend, is also keen to team up with Spurs' Dutch manager Martin Jol and would prefer a move to London rather than Birmingham. Talks are understood to have been held with his agent, Rodger Lindse.

Ajax have already rejected a series of bids from Valencia for the Dutch international which peaked at €12m (£8.1m). He was recently watched by the Villa manager Martin O'Neill at the Dutch Cup final but Jol is believed to have the advantage in chasing his signature.

If he does arrive at White Hart Lane, it will be another bold statement of intent from Spurs who have already spent up to £10m on Gareth Bale from Southampton. The pair could link up down Spurs' problematic left-flank although Sneijder, who is genuinely two-footed, can play on either flank or through the middle. Sneijder, who played for the Netherlands in their friendly victory over Thailand on Wednesday, has been a first-team regular at Ajax for five years. He has two years on his current contract and the Dutch club has said they will hold on to him and run the risk of him going for free if they do not receive the transfer fee they are demanding. Spurs' interest in the player is even more long-standing than Villa's with Frank Arnesen's enquiring about his availability when he was sporting director two years ago.

Meanwhile, Sir Alan Sugar has sold his stake in Spurs to the sports and media group Enic International, which already holds 54 per cent of the club's shares. Sugar, who was chairman until 2001, will receive £25m for a deal that values Spurs at £209.5m.

The board of Enic, whose managing director Daniel Levy is also Spurs' chairman, said it had increased its stake "as a sign of its long-term confidence in the club and to provide ongoing stability to the club".

Clicky...

Oh well...

I read west ham were favourite to get ashley young at one point to.

He may well end up at spurs and i know confidence in signing players isn't your strong point jez but we should probably wait untill something official appears.

TBH we still have no idea if MON wants him.

I think his agent is the Norwegian Per A. Flod. I don't think he has any clients in France.

i just had a look on google, hoping for some list of players this guy might represent but i can't find much.

i'd love to see Petrov's face if he was demoted to the bench. can't see O'Neill spending 8m on him, 8m on Reo Coker (TBC) to only play one of em in the middle

and Barry should be a CERT in any Villa side. and i'm tempted to say Young should be too after his strong end to last season

If we manage to get Sniejder then Barry may well be the fall guy because Sniedjer is better than Gareth, all the other midfielders (if we include Reo-coker) are Mon signings and he won't want to be seen to be wasting money,

Sneijder Petrov Reo-coker Young

is a top four midfield imo, people need to understand that Barry is not the be all and end all!!, no-one should be a "cert" at Villa in this new era.

I'm confident barry will still be one of the first names on the team sheet next season.

Just considering the PR babble we have been fed

Didn't surprise me in the slightest when i saw who posted this.

How about we give the club a chance to bring in the players they want before we write off their positive comments as PR babble.

If that is true.....that will also mean Glaston Spur was not talking bollocks...

Of course he is talking bollocks. Even I could have predicted him going to Spurs, if he goes there. Out of the interested parties Spurs clearly

were one of them and they did make a bid in January I think. So you didn't have to be a scientist to understand it after all. Going onto a forum

for another club and claim with a 95% certainty that he was going to sign, without any knowledge other than "I think this and that" and "I have

done some math and he has to sign", is bollocks. At least I am 95% certain of it.

agreed, i think most people predicted spurs as soon as charlton were relegated.

NRC will be a quality signing,

I can't believe anyone would want barton over him, who would you rather be in the dressing room someone who has been captain of wimbledon, west ham and england u21 or someone who attacks his own team mates?

I think Luke Moore's days at Villa are numbered.

i hope not

TBH MON praised him during the season and especially when he went back into full training.

He still played in the reserves and was in the squad making sub appearances.

If his attitude is so bad and villa made it clear they didn't want him surely he'd be desperate to move and we would have heard something from him.