philthevillan

I'd much rather be sixth than where we are languishing now.

Hiddink wouldn't have come. O'Neill was the best man for the job and we've missed him since. He got loyalty from a lot of fans but not all plus if you had enough money in the bank to enjoy life and fell out with your boss and he refused to back you with the resources you needed to do your job properly, I'm pretty sure you'd walk too. I don't buy this loyalty rubbish because if that was the case then why did Ron Saunders, our greatest post-war manager, go and take over at Blues?

On the example quoted, Davies was out injured long term and Cuellar was playing week in week out at right back at the time that Collins and Dunne were bought. So I would be interested to know what you think MON should have done about the centre back positions at that stage. Maybe keep Cahill... I'd argue Cuellar is good, Davies proved to be a flop but as I previously stated - no manager gets every signing right. We should have kept Cahill but we didn't, we still achieved relative success in the league, including some fantastic entertaining games, and I still miss the O'Neill years. All those fans who didn't like him and wanted him gone are left arguing that we could do as well, if not better, without him. Well the proof so far is that we can't.

Big deal, with the amount of cash he spunked up the wall we should have achieved more. The inbreds achieved more than us, they actually won some silverware.. The point is he closed the gap. He had to spend lots of money quickly to do that. He made mistakes in the transfer market but so does every manager. As time goes on in a job managers tend to learn from their mistakes too. O'Neill knew how to regularly to get results and was a great motivator. I'm fed up of hearing fans arguing that he wasn't good enough for a Villa side that could have realistically got relegated twice in the three years before his reign. The stats prove he was. A regular sixth-placed finish is a fantastic achievement for any club outside of the 'Big Four'. Do you believe if he had spent any less we would have got that close to the top four? Do you believe any other manager would have achieved a lot more in under five years? Does Harry Redknapp get Spurs in the top four every year? Have we ever had the spending power of Man Utd, Chelsea, Man City, Liverpool or Arsenal? My answer to all those questions would be no. Some Villa fans wished for O'Neill to leave and I hope they now realise that old saying is one to always remember - 'be careful what you wish for'.

really dont blame him being furious He's only got himself to blame, continuing to back a man who bought Marlon **** Harewood. Yep that's right just focus on a manager's bad signings. Let's ignore the three sixth-placed finishes, victories against Man Utd, Chelsea, Liverpool, Arsenal, the FA Cup run and Carling Cup final. With hindsight and looking at the records of his two predecessors I'd say he was pretty rubbish wasn't he?! As for the fallout with Lerner, I believe he wanted to sign Scott Parker to replace Milner but Randy wouldn't agree. Then just days after MON had left we signed Ireland but no-one seems to know who rubber stamped that deal!

he had the biggest budget in the league and a 48.88 win percentage isnt that special in League 1 i didnt know the inns and outs of his time there all i knew was that he was percieved to be a good manager tbh id take anyone other than Mcleish atm There were other reasons for his dismissal than just not being in the top two, which IMO prove he is not the man for Villa.

in demanding Kean out? their protests have hardly been helpful I was thinking in demanding our manager out during the impending protest at their ground. Not sure Kean is our concern!

How about we join in with the Blackburn fans?

Not sure Clark would be the man for the job, there were underlying reasons why he left Huddersfield and I think a lot of his success there was down to having the biggest budget in the league. A talented up and coming manager is what we should look for next though. Not someone necessarily with Premier League experience because look where that's got us!

I think you're right, they believe everything will improve and that McBore is the right man for the job. But the fact is we all know they are wrong. They won't take notice of the fans until the media start taking us seriously. The board are hoping this will all go away but even if Villa improved it would return once we go on another bad run. Yesterday I read quotes from Martin Keown saying that maybe Villa fans need a reality check. It got me thinking that even the so called experts don't get it. We understand we may not have lots of money to spend but when clubs like Norwich and Swansea can go out and play attractive football and being all but safe from relegation we are left in 15th place watching dross. The manager needs to go because his style of football is killing the club and destroying our loyal fan base. We need to get the media to realise that's it's not all about h being an ex Blue nose and then maybe the board might realise that this bad PR won't just go away. By the way I'd like to see Faulkner out too. I hope an effective protest strategy can be agreed.

I have never been convinced by him, his comments about us challenging for Europe showed how massively out of touch he is.

Almost all of the credit for O'Leary's sixth-placed finish must go to Dion Dublin, for a stirring rallying of the troops at Christmas, and Nobby Solano for some superb set pieces.

So is getting us from relegation possibilites to challenging for the top 4 in just over a season. Not going so well at the minute be shows things can change in a short amount of time if things are in the right place. It hasn't been 'going so well' since about August 2010. A bit longer than 'at the minute' I would think. I would say Christmas 2009 but I get your point. Ah yes Christmas time when we followed up a five-game winning streak, which included a 1-0 smash and grab at Old Trafford, by losing to Liverpool and Arsenal. Villa then got booed off in a 0-0 draw with West Ham but soon after we had reached the Carling Cup final. That was the time when I realised how deluded some of our fans can be. It wasn't going wrong, we still finished sixth and came very close to winning a trophy but that wasn't enough for the fans. And look where we are now. Up shit creek.

According to your rules we should only worry about proper things so I suggest all football forums are shut down. Football is just a pastime afterall.

Why comment if you aren't bothered? There are plenty of other discussions going on.

Good on you, supporting Nike first and foremost. I buy Villa shirts for two reasons: 1: To show my colours, proudly wearing it. 2: To support the club with money. I was excited when we got Nike, I can't deny that, but as it seems we didn't get that much out of it, this seems to be a lot better deal for us. If you're United or Barcelona then Nike is probably the best, but for a club like us I don't think it's that beneficial. At least we get paid some good money for this one. I agree, and even more i'm somewhat of a shirt collector, but for personal preference, i'll stick with and wear my Nike Claret and Blue proudly. Plus if were getting good money for this deal and it's not based on shirt sales a la the Nike deal, then I won't have to buy poorly manufactured goods. I have owned 4 of our Nike shirts, none of which were poorly manufactured. I also liked all bar last season's kit (I don't like chest bearing V-necks). I bought 3 Diadora shirts and two Hummel ones and I have chucked all of them away because they were rancid, especially the Hummel one with the light blue dog collar and the all pink Diadora home shirt. I have kept the Nike ones because they are good quality and just look less chavy. My other favourite Villa kits were made by Umbro and Reebok; all strong, established brands. Is it any wonder that I am slightly sceptical about a company associated with no other Premier League club and only a handful of largeish clubs around Europe? The last few times we've had kits made by smaller brands they've been crap. That's not to say that lesser known brands are guarnateed to be rubbish but from the Macron kits I've seen I haven't seen one that I really like yet. To me they all look like fake Kappa. If I bought a pair of trainers I would always choose a reputable brand and having learnt from previous mistakes that is what I would prefer to do when it comes to football shirts. If I don't like the new Villa shirt I won't just go and spend £45 on it anyway out of loyalty, I can find other stuff to reflect my love for the club like a scarf, although the ones they sell in the club shop at the moment are rubbish (unfortunately I lost my very long stripey Villa scarf). But I do wonder how many other fans feel like me and whether this deal could see less shirts being sold? For me it's not about fashion but whether I look like an idiot or not and most of the time the reputable brands tend to get it about right whereas my experiences with Wizadora and Pummel have been bad. As for those not bothered by lables, you cannot ignore the fact that the Nike tick does help with sales. Kids are bothered by labels more than adults so those saying 'what does it matter?', well it might do to Villa's commercial department. Do you trust them to get this one right? I don't.

Having made all the mock ups I have I know it is hard to get a design everyone will like Bearing in mind a lot of people seem to think it doesn't matter I assume we will be getting a brown paper kit.

its a lot better than paying for your shirts to be made. Its a bit embarassing people moaning about style of jersey maybe we should have asked Armani or Dolce adn Gabbana to make them When did we ever pay for our shirts to be made? We never have well not in the era of kit sponsors anyway. We may have had to to fund the manufacture of our kits pre-1970, but I think what Zatman was saying is other clubs such as Crystal Palace have to pay companies like Nike to make their kit for them.. We are fortunate to still be in a situation where manufacturers are still willing to pay us for the luxury of making the kit. Bearing in mind we are in the world's most lucrative league and are still a highly regarded club I cannot believe that paying for our kit to be made is even a consideration. Zatman's point was pointless as are a lot of comments on here.

its a lot better than paying for your shirts to be made. Its a bit embarassing people moaning about style of jersey maybe we should have asked Armani or Dolce adn Gabbana to make them When did we ever pay for our shirts to be made?

If we had finished sixth again last season we could have expected a much better deal than this. £3.75m a year is not a lot for a 'big' club. As for the Gok Wan comment I think the fact people care about what kit their team wears doesn't make them wannabe TV fashion show hosts. If you don't care what kit we are going to wear then why bother trying to argue with those that are.

Macron started in 1971, Nike started in 1964. Macron are not a new company.

I would be amazed if the shirts were cheaper. I don't think £5 would change my mind, many people buy the shirt because they like the look of it so design will have a major influence. I didn't buy last season's shirt because, personally, I thought it was horrible. I wore the season befores for an extra year instead so I suppose Nike gave me value for money! For £40 a shirt (which is what Leeds and West Ham fans pay) I hope we get something decent, but I think just the word 'Macron' makes it looks cheap because it is percieved by many to be a 'cheap' brand.

Ok then look at like this its an 87.5% increase of revenue. How is that not good? It's also less than Habib Beye's annual wage so this actual deal is relatively insignificant. What makes the difference is if people will buy the merchandise. Do you think Macron will sell as much as Nike have done? I'm not convinced.

When you break up the figures like that I don't think it's that impressive a deal. Nike deal was signed 5 years ago so you'd expect a new deal to be a bit better. Plus I'd imagine Villa would make more out of selling Nike merchandise than Macron.

It's a decent deal for where we are at the moment and it may well be that Macron offer some really good quality merchandise. But I still can't help thinking of the days when our kit was made by Diadora. Some of the merchandise we had then was shite!