Ponky

Apparently Silva's market value fluctuates.

For clarification it seems these were Randy's exact words as reported

MAybe they'll make a play for Holloway. He's shown in the past he'll jump pretty quick smart if a bigger offer comes up.

True, but we've seen only last week that you don't win anything with a team of self-important rocket polishers.

That was from the bottom of the same article

not convinced by this rumour of him needing to be at the centre of everything leading to the rift with gourcuff though and huge transfer fee ignored, there is still the near fact that he's want a 6 figure sum every week I was just making comment on the suggestion that Milner's value would drop because England played shit - not actually suggesting we would be in for Ribery but that logic carried over then most of the French players would be available for a croissant and a six-pack of frog's legs.

Yes, France were crap at the world cup so I think we should make a bid for Ribery - I am sure he'll be going quite cheap now....

I suspect what we are starting to learn about MON is not so much that he deliberately leaves things until the last minute but more that he identifies his targets and pursues them doggedly until he either gets them or it appears that there is no chance of getting them, even if it means following them until the last week of the window. Fair enough - we saw with Warnock and Dunne last off-season he got his men in the end, albeit quite late in the processes. The problem is when that player proves impossible to get there is little time left to go on to plan B or plan C. On the other hand, he identified and we signed Downing quite early - and i think that had a lot to do with the fact that there weren't a lot of other suitors for him at the time.

But if a player like him doesn't have the confidence to back himself to earn a regular place for himself then he's not going to want to leave in the first place.

Of course it was much better to buy before the world cup because his value was going to skyrocket afterwards ...

The blogger on the Mail's minute by minute commentary of the Aus v Serbia match here was giving the Brum fans some grief over Zigic. Here are some examples, for your amusement:

I think perhaps people are overstating MIlner's performance in yesterday's match. He was very good, yes, but largely by comparison to an underperforming England team as a whole. I don't think we could be adding too many zeroes just for now.

Emerton is a fantastic player & 4 years ago would have been a great signing for us but now he has too many niggly injuries and like most in the Aussie team is too long in the tooth.

There was a story a few weeks back that had Ian Storey-Moore saying Villa weren't sending any scouts to the WC because there's not really anyone they'd be interested that they don't already know about. I am sure MON is watching on the telly, but you never know...

He's probably still on the beach somewhere with his trousers rolled up to his knees and a handkerchief on his head.

I think Altidore would be a player that would suit our style of play from what I have seen of him.

So - don't know if this has been mentioned but - Yakubu anyone?

That's not the way I remember it. For what it's worth: here

To me Heskey is more suited to teams that attack through the middle - we don't do too much of this but you can see he works well with Milner at times and I reckon if we picked up another creative midfielder and started to play up the guts a little more.

I don't understand these expectations of loyalty - he has been a Villa player for 2 seasons, 3 if you count his loan year. He came to us from Newcastle without too much prompting, and even put in a transfer request to get it done. I am not sure what Villa have done to expect loyalty from him, apart from develop him from a 12m player into a 30m player (according to so-called market value). In the end I suspect he will do to with us what he did with the Barcodes - jump ship to a team with what he sees as greater prospects and earn us a transfer fee well in excess of his actual worth. That's not a slur on Milner at all - it's simply the way football is. It may work out for for the best for all parties, and maybe not.

Used to enjoy FB but now my sister stalks me there and ambushes me with PMs the minute I log on to bore me with the sordid details of her virtual life. Spend quite a bit of time on VT and the equivalent for my Aussie rules team.

If they are in a rush to beat the world cup I hope it's 28m plus a healthy bonus for England appearances

Ditto - Martin Petrov is unplayable on his day. However, he has a fair few sick days - you'd want to make sure you weren't paying ridiculous wages to have him sit in the stands.

It's not chaos - these threads have a particular structure they follow each year. We start with the "when's the window open", then progress to the Miguel and Zigic links, followed by the "When is MON back from holidays". We are about to move on to the "all the good players will be gone if MON doesn't get a move on" phase.

Suggest a name change might be in order for you mate. :winkold: