El_Hierro

Signed now. He'll have to stay motivated and play well if he wants to continue playing for Norway, which he's said before is important to him. Left out of the latest Norway squad (quite rightly), and will need playing time (and good form) if he wants to come back into it.

Could have been better, could have been a lot worse. Decent game, and despite the relatively few chances we created in the second half, I'm left feeling quite optimistic after today's game. Being honest I thought a good Braga side would beat us today. Positive from N'Zogbia and a very good cameo by Ireland. Looked sharp with his touches and worked hard. N'Zogbia and Makoun our best players on the day.

I like AM for the sheer fact he's standing on the line shouting at his players. So refreshing after GH.

Will be a good signing for West Ham if he goes there. As long as he stays clear of injuries (now where have I heard that before?)

Agree with Rob. He almost scored in his second game for us as well against Rapid Vienna with a beautifully timed run, put the ball just wide. Goal there and things might have been different, some players are like that. Played well against Rapid come to think of it. His 'awful' performances for us have gone from bad to worse as time has gone by it seems. Still bugs me that Gary Penrice missed the mother of all chances in his debut vs Luton, he'd have gone on to massive things if he'd put that away

General sir, couple of questions that seems to have gone amiss, which is not strange considering the amount of posts stacking up in this thread. 1. It is no secret that the criteria "Premier League experience" has been of great significance to the board in our search for a new manager (in fact to the point where 2 relegations in 3 seasons is a good enough return of said experience). Why is that, when almost every single success story in the history of this league has proven it ain't all that important? 2. How can the board go from a manager like Roberto Martinez to a manager like Alex McLeish in the space of a couple of days? These two managers have such differing ideas on how to play the game of football that it raises the question; Is the style/brand of football we'll be playing this coming season not important to the board? What I mean is, I understand it's all about results in the end, but my take on the situation is, if it all goes pear-shaped and the results don't come, a manager who tries to play the game the "right" way will quite often get more leeway than a manager who plays dire, boring football. If we win, style don't mean much (to me anyway), but if we lose patience will not be a word in Villa fans' vocabularies. See Zola and di Matteo as examples of managers who were given much freedom by fans even though the results didn't come, moreso than you'd think given the poor run of results they went through. In fact, I feel quite sorry for McLeish as he won't be given much slack if the results don't come straight away, given the style of football he seems to prefer. Anyway, back to the question: Is it not important to the board how we play our football?

Got to say, Gary McAllister, impeccable ending to the season, perfect management again today and good celebration at the end there. Credit where it's due.

Are you joking, aren't you? Did you see the goal the he conceded to an unmarked RvP? And the penalty that was going to concede? It's mathematically impossible to keep a clean sheet with Dunne in the team. Dunne was good today. Without him we would have conceded more imo.

So wrong it's untrue. What is? It was Walker who suddenly thought he was Messi.

Never a penalty, but Beckford's goal should have been given, the ball crossed the line, and he was clearly onside. (Besides, it looked like the ball came from Reo-Coker, although that's a moot point as he was onside anyway.) Here Had it been given, Bent would never have scored his second (not when he did anyway) so imo we were a bit lucky today, even though Jagielka did dive.

General, with all due respect, whoever wrote this: can't have been watching much football in their lives, as history is filled with examples, this very season even, where a change of manager has had an immediate positive effect on results. Often being a combined result of a) players playing for their lives showing the new manager what they can do, players relieved that a manager they don't want to play for has left and c) the new manager instilling much needed passion and confidence in the players. And you know as well as I do that that's what we need right now, results. Long term strategy is all well and good, but right now it's all about avoiding relegation. This may sound harsh, but hear me out; with Houllier in charge I have us as one of the favourites to go down, not because we have the worse team, because we really haven't, but because we lack something the other teams around us don't, that being experience from being in a relegation battle. The other teams are used to being in this postition, they have the passion, they have the fight, they show it week in week out even though the quality's not always there. We're the opposite, we don't have the fight, we don't have the courage, we don't have the bottle, and most importantly we don't have a manager that can instill confidence in our players, as we have seen over the course of the season. I fear you (the board) have put the nail in the coffin with this decision, General, I really do, which brings me back to the quote I opened with. Knowledge about the game. I know you have said before that Randy likes to ask around, but has the board consulted with "football people" on this matter, or have you come to this conclusion that keeping GH is the best solution on your own?

Disgrace. Houllier out. New manager and a honeymoon period which will give us the points we need.

And on the subject of players playing on the "opposite" wing it should be noted that 3 of the 4 goals were either created or scored that way yesterday

-----------------Friedel-------------- Walker---Cuellar---Collins---Clark ----------Makoun---Bradley-------- Downing-------Bannan-------Young ------------------Bent---------------

Boring in the sense that apart from the goals we didn't create any (big) chances, and neither did Fulham, and apart from the first 15 where we played well and the last 5 when it's always a bit nervy if you're drawing it was kind of a dull affair imo. As dull as a 2-2 match can be if you will. Besides Fulham is a boring team with boring players, I mean Danny Murphy and Steve Sidwell, come on

Poor (and boring) game, didn't create enough. Fulham are a good side, but were there for the taking. Makoun was good, some excellent touches and decisions, quality player we got there, but not as good as vs Man.Utd. Downing our only player able to create something yesterday, so I went for him as MOTM. Everyone else just average. Brad at fault for both goals. No major mistakes, but could have done better in both situations imo.

Blackpool 5 losses in a row, bound to get some points soon, us usually being the team that teams tend to break poor runs against, hmmm..... I don't think we'll win this.

Fulham impressed me a lot vs Liverpool and Spurs (didn't see them vs Newcastle) and we need to take them very seriously, which I'm sure we will. Look out for Dembélé, good player.

Bradley and Makoun please. All I have to say.

Like everyone else says Makoun and Friedel were excellent today. Class player Makoun is, hope we can build a good team and hang on to this lad as he will be great for us. Some mistakes at the back, Clark isn't a left back (Warnock no better mind you), Walker out of position a few times (should probably have played Cuellar today), Dunne some easy mistakes but also some great stuff, Collins a bit better. Expected a loss today, but much better than feared, so I choose to look at the positives today. Good passing, movement, Makoun great, Bent scoring etc. Must win vs Fulham though, and that won't be easy as they have looked very good lately vs Liverpool and Spurs.

Not optimistic in the slightest. 2-0 Man.Utd.

Adam staying at Blackpool according to Karl Oyston?

Downing wasn't shit at all, he wasn't perfect, but he was just fine. Being shit, in my book at least, means you can't do anything right and generally stink at everything. Sure his end product wasn't there today, his crossing was mostly off and he didn't find Bent when he should have (then again neither did anyone else except for Ash with a beautiful pass in the first half). What he did do however was he worked hard, he tracked back, he brought the ball out of defense at pace several times with good close control, his general passing was good (not crossing) and he took on defenders. Besides he found Ash with a perfectly weighted pass for the penalty, and I'm glad he did because, in the end, it led to us winning the game.

Didn't like the look of the last 20 mins, almost like we took the foot off the pedal, started to pass the ball around casually, lost a bit of intensity and perhaps thought we'd already won? However the first 70 was very good imo, and everyone contributed. Baker had a good debut against N'Zogbia, Downing was very energic, Bent worked hard, Ash good again (finally getting back to the player we know he is), Makoun looked very tidy, excellent touches, can't remember a single mistake except for a silly yellow. But I have to give MOTM to Reo-Coker who I thought was immense for 75 mins until he, like the rest of the team, lost his way a bit. Big, big win though, so important to get that when we have Man.Utd coming up. Message for Ian Holloway: We're not 7 points behind you anymore. Can we have Adam now?

Aston Villa 1 Manchester City 0. Goal: Darren Bent. Looking at that scoreline and realising who has scored the goal just fills me with such an enormous amount of joy, I can't even begin to describe it. The team I love beating the team I hate the most. Pretty childish I admit, but it's just a wonderful feeling, it really is. Collins and Dunne Men of the Match, closely followed by Petrov and Bent.