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philthevillan

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Everything posted by philthevillan

  1. :nod: Although even 'in the know' journalists need a holiday. It's just bad timing that his is before we appoint our new manager. Would you suggest he should avoid taking any time off just in case he misses out on a scoop?
  2. If they weren't in the club's pockets there'd be even less info about and they'd be having to make up stories just like the red tops do. All football clubs, with the exception of Wigan, try to do their business on the quiet these days because the media is so intrusive. In the old days we'd only find out what was happening once it had happened. I don't see how being keep completely in the loop would benefit the club in the slightest. All it would do is tip our rivals off to what our plans are. Just be patient and all will be revealed! Isn`t it the medias job to be intrusive(to a point)? to build contacts, investigate and report stuff which hasn`t been revlealed yet? If they just waited for stories to fall into their laps or just published what the club tells them when the club tells them then they would not really be journalists. To a point. I work in the media and my job is to report facts, not make up stories to sell papers like the tabloids do. Some local papers use that tactic too but I'd say Mat Kendrick is an example of a journalist being given the chance to build a relationship with a club so that he can be more accurate when he does tell us what's going on. As a journalist you can't just go and find out what's happening without having contacts and if the club are being extremly guarded about what's happening then who are the best people to keep in with? Tabloid journalists have contacts too but their accuracy levels are far, far lower.
  3. I agree. I just thought of it as a possibility. That is IF OGS was our first choice. There is no way that would ever happen. Villa are going to appoint a permanent manager this summer and it's likely to be in the next fortnight.
  4. Rolling contracts never expire, hence they are 'rolling'. It means taking Lambert should only cost 12 months' compensation as he always has 12 months left on his contract.
  5. If they weren't in the club's pockets there'd be even less info about and they'd be having to make up stories just like the red tops do. All football clubs, with the exception of Wigan, try to do their business on the quiet these days because the media is so intrusive. In the old days we'd only find out what was happening once it had happened. I don't see how being keep completely in the loop would benefit the club in the slightest. All it would do is tip our rivals off to what our plans are. Just be patient and all will be revealed!
  6. Please not Grayson. He is not good enough, having been sacked by a Championship club, and there are other reasons he is not right for Villa too. In fact Lee Clark is another I wouldn't touch with a barge pole because of similar issues.
  7. Tim Abraham said Paciencia's CV was looked out but that seems to be all.
  8. I know Comolli has been mention on a thread somewhere. But just to add to the speculation, I was told today that he was in the directors' box on Sunday. Read into that what you will. I am not sure what to make of it. If he came we have to bear in mind he was responsible for Liverpool paying £35m for Andy Carroll!
  9. I can't see the issue over Young, people are just jumping on the national press bandwagon. He won us plenty of free-kicks and penalties and I never heard anyone complain then, plus he left Villa on fairly good terms (unlike Downing). He also has been back to watch us, unlike Downing and many others. If we had the follwing(based on who is still playing and fit enough to play at a high standard), I'd be extremely happy: Friedel Mellberg Walker Cahill Barry Milner Young Reo-Coker
  10. Ray Ranson?!!! Have you seen what state Coventry are in?!!!
  11. It's amazing that we all knew he would fail and that we all knew Faulkner was deluded claiming Europe was the aim but still they pursue with a majorly flawed plan. It's about time we got some idea of what their long-term plan is, because right now I think it is likely to have a lot in common with slinging a load of shit against a wall.
  12. I heard some audio of Faulkner reacting to his carefully constructed statement. I quote: "The manager has never once complained about all the misfortune this season." Has he been listening to any of the press conferences? Does he genuinely take us as mugs? Does he really think one pissy **** statement is good enough? Just get out of our club Faulkner and take McLeish with you.
  13. I understand fans' caution right now but the fact is that almost everyone agrees he has to go. I don't believe we will win another game this season so regardless who is in charge we will be struggling. A change now, with a caretaker in charge, may even see an upsurge in form. Football is one big gamble and, although I can't see the board reacting to it, I think the time to protest is now. Otherwise we might be in exactly the same boat next season.
  14. Faulkner is the one who claimed just before Christmas that we are aiming for Europe. He is clueless. MON's relationship with Randy soured soon after he was made chief exec too. If Faulkner goes then Villa will improve. He's just a money man pretending he knows a lot about football, he doesn't. Get him gone Randy and start afresh this summer. You have too many leeches and not leaders.
  15. Surely someone who uses this site has access to Paul Faulkner. If so please just tell him to sack McLeish now. He will never win the fans over so give up and start afresh. We don't need to go for a manager with 'Premier League experience', there are no guarantees you'll get a safe pair of hands in charge. We need to be ambitious, maybe go for someone in the lower leagues if we have to. But most of all, I just desperately want us sort out the apathy and the dwindling crowds. We need excitement because being a Villa fan right now is **** dull. Sadly I know I am wasting my time writing this but I have at least tried to be heard by someone. Unfortunately I have more chance contacting the dead than getting through to the suits at VP.
  16. Met him at a cashpoint once (he was with Carlos). A thoroughly nice guy, a true pro and a real servant to this club. This is the time to give him the support and credit he deserves. Get well soon Stan!
  17. My bad, I misread this... ... to suggest that you were saying O'Neill was in the running to sign Bent and that he decided not to pursue it. Obviously you meant that he wasn't after him at all. Therefore maybe the reason was that he couldn't sign him as he didn't have enough money to spend to buy him or that he didn't see him fitting into his plans and thus he consequently didn't allow Bent to join Sunderland, they just happened to sign him. I mean if you go down that route then I suppose you could say he allowed Spurs to sign Van der Vaart or Liverpool to sign Torres, I could go on. Of course this is all just speculation though and not 'fact'. For two years we had Mellberg, Laursen and Bouma as part of regular our back four. In that first season we had Bardsley on loan and Hughes as right-backs (both left that summer as it was the beginning of the rebuild). Mellberg left for Juve in 2008 and Laursen and Bouma suffered career ending injuries the following season (although Bouma has since gone back to PSV but was never going to be the same player). Before bringing in Dunne and Collins in 09-10 we had to make do with our back-ups of Davies and Knight (Knight was only ever really used as a back-up for Laursen and Davies was signed because of his potential - which he never fulfilled - possibly not helped by injuries and with hindsight we should have kept Cahill etc.) partnering Carlos, I'm pretty sure that wasn't his plan - although cynics may believe he should have known Laursen's knee would go. Collins and Dunne were part of the fourth-meanest defence in the league, a feat that has not been achieved since under Houllier or McLeish - is that MON's fault too? I'd say most of his changes to our defence were not his doing and that most of his dodgy defensive signings were players brought in as cover or extra competition. It's not as if he came in, tore apart a strong defensive unit and turned it into a shambles, under him it worked well. See above. As for your transfer list, yes there were good and bad deals. This has been covered many, many times and everyone will continue to disagree. The fact is he signed some very good players and some bad ones, as every manager does. In the first of his three seasons in charge, and after we were on the brink of the relegation zone in that December. Now don't believe this if you wish but I have it on very good authority that the reason for our upsurge in form was down to Dion Dublin giving the players a Gladiatoresque rocket up their backsides that Christmas. O'Leary left the club in turmoil, he was hounded out by fans and players and O'Neill came in just weeks before the start of the season and finished a respectable 10th. You'll be back and your 'facts' are very one-sided.
  18. You hate a manager who saw us winning games and challenging top 4. You loved a manager who saw us losing games and fighting relegation. You now hate a manager for doing exactly the same. It's very strange. Actually, I used to quite like MON before he threw his toys out of the pram five days before the start of a new season. Like some on here I used to think he was the messiah but after he left I realised that the legacy he left behind wasn't all that great. I also realised that he spent a lot of money and that the job he did while decent, wasn't the sutff of miracles like people make out. I never loved Houllier. I really don't know where you get this from. As always, putting words into my mouth. Yes, I do hate McLeish, but it's more than a bit unfair to lump the two together. Overall McLeish has been working under easier circumstances. Also with McLeish, there have never really been any good signs where as with Houllier there were at least some. The most important point at all is McLeish's negative attitude. I know we'd sometimes surrender before the game had even started under Houllier but we seem to be doing this way more often under McLeish. Even the games we don't surrender we still don't put up much of a fight. We never dominate teams. We play the worst football I've ever seen. Of course, this will probably all go over your head and you'll accuse me of loving Houllier and being hypocritical for hating McLeish in a couple of weeks time. God knows. I criticised Houllier a number of times and have said on multiple occasions that whatever the circumstances we shouldn't have been in a relegation battle. I think more happened than just one man saying 'I've had enough' and chucking his toys out of the pram. He successfully sued the club for constructive dismissal.
  19. If you believe there were lots of managers that could come in and do better than O'Neill then you are deluded. Name me one manager who you guarantee would have done better, that is a realistic appointment, and I will back down but personally I think when you take charge of a club that is lightyears away from the established top four and you get as close as he did you can be pretty happy with what you've done but regret never having the chance to complete the job. He signed bad players but he signed some bloody good ones too. And as I've mentioned before, the January transfer window is not an easy time to sign a striker. Look how much we had to pay for Bent? And that was a panic buy! O'Neill desperately wanted a striker but chose to bolster his defence and midfield first, sounds a sensible approach to me. It's not like our strikers have been getting much service this season is it! You can also bang on about the squad left by O'Neill, has it not occurred to you that he would have continued to make changes? He was in charge for less than five years, if you expected more success in that time, bearing in mind what a mess we'd been in under O'Leary then you are clueless. You write that shit and call me clueless? He could have bought Bent but allowed him to go to **** Sunderland cheaply because he wouldn't know a striker if he fell over one. You say he sensibly built from the back? He replaced the entire defence he himself had just bought with money that could have been used elsewhere on, oh let's say, the striker we desperately needed? January is only a bad time to buy if you're Martin O'Neill and only shop in the UK. Or if, for an example, you haven't bought properly in the summer because you've just bought an entire defence again (at the last minute of course), plus the odd shite midfielder and forgot to buy that striker we desperately needed, so wait until January and still get it massively wrong. Not a **** clue. I personally couldnt care less if you "back down" or not but it's pointless talking managers because you would only say "we wouldn't have got him" or whatever. But I do not agree, nor will I ever, that Martin O'Neill was the best man for the job or the most capable. If you'd gone to a lot of the best managers with a billionaire ready to plough tens of millions into a project you honestly think they wouldn't be interested? But Randy had to work with him as he'd just been appointed (no doubt with Randys blessing). And please spare me from the great squad buiding work of O'Neill from the dark days of O'Leary (who was a clearing in the woods). As if splashing millions on players is a difficult task. He still inherited some of the best players from O'Leary and managed to do no better in the league (6th). Big **** deal. The truth is that due to his lack of foresight in buying a defence (he bought Shorey on Sidwell's advice for **** sake!), his inability to buy a striker even though lavished with a huge transfer budget and his uk only myopia in the transfer meant that, unfortuantely for us, he was not the ideal person to be spending the money we had. Money that if better used, would have put us in a very strong position then and now. Yes, he bought some good players. It's not really that hard. Good players tend to be quite obviously good. But he also: - Spent £5m on the hopeless Sidwell and gave him £50k p/w - Heskey for £4m on £60k p/w :shock: - Beye on 40k p/w - Bought Marlon Harewood - Bought Shorey on a recommendation of a player he hardly used. - Sold Cahill and bought Davies at twice the price. - Bought a winger with a broken leg when we needed a striker. - Left everything to the last minute. - Could rarely win a game after February. This is really the best we could have hoped for at Aston Villa? I think my expectations are higher. Some of your claims are hogwash. Don't use tabloid stories to try and win a debate. There is no proof that he tried to sign Bent or that Sidwell told him to buy Shorey. You claim he had an inability to buy a defence? I've never heard such rubbish. We had the fourth meanest defence in the Premier League in 2009/10, his last season in charge. Actually it is hard and that is a very silly statement. O'Leary finished sixth once in three seasons (in the subsequent seasons he finished 10th and 16th) and was hounded out by his own players. We made one League Cup semi and got battered at Bolton. He did inherit some good players and some bad ones too. Have Houllier or McLeish done any better than O'Neill with his players? By the way good to see you wrote a detailed list of his mistakes but failed to list his successes. Oh and calling my opinions 'shit' is an intelligent way to try and win a debate!
  20. If you believe there were lots of managers that could come in and do better than O'Neill then you are deluded. Name me one manager who you guarantee would have done better, that is a realistic appointment, and I will back down but personally I think when you take charge of a club that is lightyears away from the established top four and you get as close as he did you can be pretty happy with what you've done but regret never having the chance to complete the job. He signed bad players but he signed some bloody good ones too. And as I've mentioned before, the January transfer window is not an easy time to sign a striker. Look how much we had to pay for Bent? And that was a panic buy! O'Neill desperately wanted a striker but chose to bolster his defence and midfield first, sounds a sensible approach to me. It's not like our strikers have been getting much service this season is it! You can also bang on about the squad left by O'Neill, has it not occurred to you that he would have continued to make changes? He was in charge for less than five years, if you expected more success in that time, bearing in mind what a mess we'd been in under O'Leary then you are clueless.
  21. The comments of someone who believed every word of the generals PR spin. Yes, really Sunderland are losing every match but the papers and tv are tricking everyone into thinking their results have been excellent since he arrived. Why are we still blaming MoN. He has nothing to do with our revenue sources and plans for future revenue. He left behind a squad that just had it's best season in years and had nothing to do with appointing a past it prick and a useless clearing in the woods as his replacements. Saying he should have got top 4 is utterly stupid. Even if we had of achieved it would it have solved all our problems? Would our revenue have increased that much that we could still add to wages in order to compete the following year? With city and spurs continuing to strengthen could we have managed to continue to spend enough to fight their challenge? And if we couldn't manage it the following year what mess would we have been in then? Lerner must love it that there are still fans out there who refuse to blame him for the position we know find ourselves in. And no doubt the Messiah loves it that there are people who absolve him of any blame for both the zero return on huge money invested, and its effect on our current situation. Personally I think that Lerner and the Messiah are equally to blame, but Lerner wouldn't have hired the Messiah without the recommendation of Ellis, so let's blame Doug for everything, just like the good old days :winkold: As one of the few who is willing to defend the fact he gave me some of my favourite memories as a Villa fan, I haven't absolved him of any blame but I know how a football club works behind the scenes and I know that his mistake was telling the board to buy a few duffers. Big deal, he bought some good players too.
  22. If any manager ever didn't accept a job because of the fans' opinions, he's not the sort of manager you'd want anyway. The point is some people on here are far too quick to blame the manager for everything and if you are taking over a club that is struggling but whose fans believe should be competing for the top six, would you take the job? Especially if you know you won't get the funding to all but guarantee success? Mantis made the comment that O'Neill is partly to blame, fair enough I do agree with that but he wasn't in charge of finances, he didn't have the authority to rubber stamp deals (that only happens in films and computer games) and he was never put in a position where he could sign Luca Toni or Huntelaar, that is fantasy press tittle tattle. We were linked with big name strikers because newspapers need to sell stories, that is all. However what I can't understand is why some people on here just will not accept that things are much worse with out him? The league table doesn't lie. Plus if McLeish had listened to the fans and not taken the job we would have all been extremely happy!
  23. Heskey was never ' the answer', I never remember his arrival being billed as that. He was an addition to the squad in the January transfer window. Managers don't just get given £12m and all of a sudden they can magically sign whoever they like. I am pretty sure there are other strikers O'Neill would have liked but if they weren't available would you have preferred him to sign no-one? I am not a Heskey fan, I never celebrated his arrival and I also think O'Neill should have spent more time scouting abroad. However, blaming our inability to finish a season strongly and break into the top six is ridiculous. Man City have spent £200m getting into the Champions League, Villa spent a lot but never quite enough to guarantee a top four place. We could spend all day arguing over who was a good O'Neill signing and who wasn't. And yes everyone has a point. But the fact is the football was much better to watch (although high tempo more than flamboyant), we finished 6th three seasons in a row, we played in Europe regularly (yes Moscow was another mistake) and we went on cup runs. Personally I miss those days, because compared to the immediate couple of years before and after, we were successful and people thought we were a decent team. No manager is perfect, there are better managers than O'Neill out there. But it has been proven twice now that none of them want the Villa job (especially if they are not given a big budget!) and if they ever came on this forum and saw the criticism they would get for achieving relative success in the league then I can understand why they wouldn't touch the job with a barge pole.
  24. So it was all down to the signing of Heskey. Give me strength.
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