Lion-heart

Houllier I can understand. But Phil Thompson!!!!!!!!!! Please No. He is a twunk of the first order.

It's not the size of the man in the fight, but the size of the fight in the man that counts. Love to see him make it. But....

Rant over! But I am yet to be convinced that the powers that be know how to run a football club and keep the fans onside.

Come on MM, what club communicates more direct to the fans than ours. We may wish to know the ins and outs of every decision, but that aint going to happen.

RL has a very difficult decision to make. The speed of the decision is secondary, the quality of the decision is primary. If the right calibre is not available now, we must wait and trust KM to hold the reins steady. If things go pear shaped and the right candidate either is, or can be made available then I'm certain he will be allowed to step back into his Second Team role. This season is not going to be very pretty.

On the "guff" that Bickster refers, I'm sorry the point about more bums on seats will result in better players is true, in my opinion. Man City or Chelsea we aint I'm afraid. A crowd of less than 30k for Rapid was not very encouraging.

Just wished a Mr Stewart Downing would show as much "balls". Cheers General. In Tough times you get to judge the Tough men.

But if there is no manager available who would both be interested in the job and take us forward, then a stopgap manager will be just that. Yet who in their right mind would take on a job until a suitable candidate became available. Curbishley would demand a 3 year contract, so it would cost a fortune to get rid. We are between a rock and a hard place. Personally I blame MoN for this chaos. He should have manned up end of last season and left.

Its early in the comp with no permanent manager and a reserve side out. People probably feared the worst.

Come on, no one knew, nor expected such an inexperienced side, when the tickets were bought. Maybe thinking about it a bit more, maybe it's just such short notice for the play-off rounds. 2 seasons ago, there were over 2000 at Prague and Hamburg, but those were announced way before the date.

Come on you. It was very likely we would play a weakened team there. The sounds have always been that the Europa league is for giving first team experience to the young players and is not to be taken seriously.

Vienna is no more expensive than Dublin.. I wonder how many would be demanding tickets if we just so happened to get there next year for the final. Again, I know that economically things are tight, but less than 200? Fulham took more than that away in the early rounds last year.

Fulham were definitely taking the competition seriously. They don't get to Europe that often. They were not going to finish fourth. It's a terrible comparison.

I think 200 fans going across Europe to see the reserves is good enough.

And yes if we get to the final, everyone will want a ticket. Are you new to the attendance of sporting events? And no one will look poorly on those who get tickets for not going to watch the team play in Vienna, nor will they look favourably on people like you who did go.

How big's your TV?

My TV is probably significantly smaller than yours, for what it's worth. And again, this is not a "better fan than you" thread. It was a statement of my views. From a cost perspective, a couple we met paid £280 for flights and 3 nights accomodation, which I though was pretty reasonable.

Funny enough, most guys I met went last year, had such a good time returned this time.

Before the game, the Rapid fans we met were great. After the game walking back to the Underground, wearing the only Villa shirt this side of the Urals, it felt that way, it was a bit intimidating, got loads of verbals.

Its early in the comp with no permanent manager and a reserve side out. People probably feared the worst.

Come on, no one knew, nor expected such an inexperienced side, when the tickets were bought. Maybe thinking about it a bit more, maybe it's just such short notice for the play-off rounds. 2 seasons ago, there were over 2000 at Prague and Hamburg, but those were announced way before the date.

Vienna is no more expensive than Dublin.. I wonder how many would be demanding tickets if we just so happened to get there next year for the final. Again, I know that economically things are tight, but less than 200? Fulham took more than that away in the early rounds last year.

I don't think it was shown on the box, but NRC didn't cover himself in glory either. At the end of the game he came over to the Villa fans to give his shirt to one of the crowd. He was certainly getting dogs abuse, maybe racist in nature I don't know, but he proceeded to give their fans the finger, twice. He was our captain and should have either ignored it or just clapped their fans, which would have been even more of a wind-up. He may well be cited for ungentlemanly conduct and face a ban.

In no way is this one of those I'm a better fan than you threads. I'm lucky enough to be in a position where I can get to follow the team in Europe. But on Thursday night there were less than 200 fans in the away section. Just with those I met, that included 2 fans of other teams, enjoying the experience, 2 who came from Barcelone, 2 from Hungary, 1 from Austria, 1 from somewhere in Eastern Europe(didn't recognise the accent) and 1 who had accompanied her boyfriend for a shopping trip. Now for a club which averages nearly 40,000 each home game, that is a poor turnout in my view. Talking to the Rapid fans, Liverpool took over 1000 for a pre-season friendly. Now Vienna is a beautiful city, hardly in an inaccessble location like Turkestan or Iceland, so why the apathy?

does anyone think that perhaps being settled on one wing for pretty much the whole game helped too?

it remains to be seen whether he has found a bit of steel for those wet wednesday night games in december but he could have done no more than he did on saturday so i second what a few have already said about him on this thread - i am very happy to have been surprised by his performance and i really hope he can keep proving us who doubted him wrong!

I really think you've hit the nail on the head with this one. Last season Ashley, as senior winger, dictated which wing he occupied. SD does not look good on the right in my view, but Ashley prefers the left. Giving Ash a free role and having Super Mark on the wing allowed SD to dictate positioning more. He certainly looked a lot better for it. He appeared more committed as well, however I still have my doubts, but hope I'm proven wrong.

And that is why the Press have to make up stories. Villa try to conduct themselves in a proper manner, not doing their business via the trashy red tops. Live with it.

Going 4-2-3-1 could be an option. Give me 2 physically strong and mobile Defensive Central Mids and a front 4 of Young, Ireland, Gabby and Downing if he could get out of the shithouse, would be an attractive proposition.

**** him. Get the dosh and buy a replacement with a bit of pace.

Isn't Milner still on holiday? I thought nothing would happen until he had face to face talks with MoN.

I'd like Thomas Muller please

I must admit KPB imressed me tonight. Good athelete, good size, good distribution. Maybe our answer for Central Mid.

If I was Milner. I'd seriously look at my opportunities at Man City. A Central midfield that already has Barry, De Jong, Vierra and probably Yaya Toure. Wide SWP, Johnson, Bellamy and probably Robinho. Plus whoever scores the winning goal in the WC Final. Could be a similar situation to SWP move to Chelsea.

General Krulak here:

4. The stained glass windows are "originals" and copies. We found several originals in the bin area when we took over the Club (amazing!!!) and used those to help fashion some of the ones we have put up.

Hi General, it maybe "amazing" to you, but it certainly isn't to those of us who endured for so long.

When will we know details of Pre-season friendlies?

Off topic a bit, but what's your opinion of the HBO Miniseries "The Pacific"?

Stay healthy General.

Isn't Randy due his end of season press conference?

This has got to be a joke right? Leave that **** Brown in charge? Christ no. A million, million times no. The man shouldn't be left in charge of a goldfish.

Well Well. Probably the first thing Risso has posted I've actually agreed with.

I'd have said anyone BUT Dunne. Shows what I know. Diddley squat. But at least I'm honest.