El_Hierro

Think we'll lose, but hopefully Bent will get off to a good start with a debut goal. 1-2 with the Sheikh's playthings scoring the winner just before FT.

Hows that then? Sunderland season ticket? Tottenham season ticket? I'm just passing on the facts mate - you all seem to be hanging your hats on a very skewed statistic that puts him in the Drogba/Rooney bracket when in fact 81 goals in six years only equates to an average of 13 goals a year. If Rooney and Drogba took their sides penalties they'd both have well over 100 goals in the same period, from less games. There's a big reason why those three are the top three scorers over the past 6 years - they're three of the VERY FEW strikers who've been playing regularly in the Premiership during that period. If you break it down to (a) goals-per-game or ( recent form he's not nearly as impressive, and to be honest that's something that's dawned on us since we've seen Gyan and Wellbeck. He'll score a few goals for you but you could get someone to do that for less than 10m; about £5m if you went abroad and knew what you were looking for. Instead you've panicked and bid about double the market value for a badly out of form striker who isn't even currently the second best striker at his club (like I say, please feel free to look through the thread on our board for about the last six months - it is regularly mooted that he shouldn't be in the side). I understand the wheels have come off, and that you're in dire straits, but this is probably the most outrageous panic buy in Premier League history. There's a reason that it's going to go through in less than 36 hours - the selling club can't get this done quick enough. 1) Both Rooney and Drogba has taken a fair few penalties along the way. 2) Bent has infact missed penalties both at Sunderland and Spurs, ie his stats could have been even better. 3) Bent obviously hasn't been happy at Sunderland these past 6 months. Once he's settled at Villa his form will pick up and he will start banging in the goals again. 4) If Bent's goals keep us up then this will be as far away from a panic buy as you'll ever see, infact it will be the exact opposite, a shrewd coup hailed by most. 5) Good luck holding on to that 6th spot without your best striker (on form).

Good result, great goals, positive vibes. Walker was very positive, motm for me.

It's a good team, hopefully we're in for a good experience today.

Well he won't get sacked as Randy doesn't have the balls, what's worse he probably still thinks he's made the right decision. Shame he didn't take a look at my list of priorities back in september before he decided who NOT to appoint: Looks like he won't walk either, so I guess we're stuck with him for now. Meaning we might as well start getting some new players in as those we have clearly don't/won't work under GH. F*ck balancing the books Randy, pay what it takes, and do it NOW, or you'll be penny-pinching our beloved club straight down the championship route.

1-1. Ash and Bent.

Well said

Excellent performance and fighting spirit shown by the lads. Loved the team celebration after the 3rd goal. I thought everyone was good today, but I have to give MOTM to Dunney. Great comeback from someone I thought was on his way out. So he made a mistake? Name one player who didn't. 9 - Dunne, Friedel 8 - Cuellar, Heskey, Petrov, NRC 7,5 - Clark, Young 7 - Collins, Downing, Gabby, Albrighton

Agree with the majority here giving Downing MOTM, fantastic performance by the DJ and so pleased for the lad who has taken great strides forward from last season (as some of us predicted in the summer I might add ) Oh, and the kids were great, the future really is bright!

I take it Johnson has started to hang around the club shop on match day?

Some overreactions here imo. I thought it was a good match from us, certainly better than I feared before the game. The youngsters were great, especially Bannan with some excellent passing behind their back four, been long since we've had a player who could do that with such ease. The assist, the pass to Luke Young's chance in the first half, a "no-look" pass to Downing ad so on, just great. MOTM for me. Ireland looked good when he came on, more of that please. We're not lucky with the refs so far, are we. Some blatant mistakes this season and even the 50-50's seem to go against us atm. Can only remember Downing's offside goal against West Ham as a lucky moment for us this season, other than that I've felt cheated most of the games so far, and I don't normally make a fuss about the refs as I happen to believe they do the best they can. We just need a bit of luck back and hopefully we'll get it because this is just silly. (The free kick for their goal was correct mind, silly mistake by Albrighton, but he'll learn from that.) We'll be allright.

So happy for Houllier, Heskey and the rest of the lads!

Bit risky this. I though Houllier wanted to win this cup. Not much on the bench either.

I have a feeling you might just get your wish there. GH has always deployed a strong, quality defensive midfielder in his teams. Dietmar Hamann, Mahamadou Diarra, Jeremy Toulalan... I think a defensive CM will be made a priority in January, remains to see what kind of quality we can get.

Well, I'm ready for some action. Seems like our last game was AGES ago. Hope we're up for it tonight, but I think Stoke are due a point or three, so I'm sad to say I have a bad feeling about this. 1-1 or 2-1 Stoke.

Welcome to the club G-man, I have high hopes for you

Not just Cheyrou and Diao though. What about Ferri, Kippe, Song, Traore, Camara, Meijer, Diomede, Arphexad, Vignal, Sjölund, Biscan, Baros, Le Tallec, Sinama Pongolle and Luzi Bernardi? :winkold: Every manager out there has their fair share of poor signigns, but that's quite an extensive list. 6 years at pool, Monny had 4 years at villa so lets take 2/3rds and say he bought 12 not good enough in a 4 year for a good liverpool side. Lets look at Monny (who i supported, and still thank for reviving us before i get slammed) and list his failures for a side that werent at liverpools level under Houllier: Maloney, Routledge, Salifou, Davies, Knight, Carson, Harewood, Sidwell, Shorey, Heskey, Guzan, Downing, Beye. All managers buy players who dont live up to expectations for one reason or another. Yes, but I think you're being a bit too harsh on some of those players there. I wouldn't put eg Knight, Sidwell and Downing in a 'total failures' list, like the signigns I've listed for Houllier. I'd compare those three to Houllier's 'average ones' like Heggem, Westerveld, Smicer, Barmby, Ziege, Xavier, Diarra... The list I gave was a 'total flops' list. :winkold:

Not just Cheyrou and Diao though. What about Ferri, Kippe, Song, Traore, Camara, Meijer, Diomede, Arphexad, Vignal, Sjölund, Biscan, Baros, Le Tallec, Sinama Pongolle and Luzi Bernardi? :winkold: Every manager out there has their fair share of poor signigns, but that's quite an extensive list.

If GH is appointed manager then of course he should decide for himself who he wants to work with. If the Telegraph article is true then that's a couple of serious mistakes on the trot Randy has made. Firstly to encourage K Mac to apply when he probably wasn't going to get the job anyway, secondly to appoint Houllier hoping he'd take Mac as his coach/number two. Surely this must have been discussed during the interviews though, so I'm holding out hope that the Telegraph story isn't correct. Either way hopefully K Mac returns nice and quiet back to the reserves without kicking up a fuss, not because I don't rate him, but because GH should be the one to decide. Anything else is a recipe for disaster. However if GH wants K Mac as part of his first team staff then that would be my preferred option. It will be interesting to see how this pans out.

That's correct.

4 Cups and two exhibition games and then went to Lyon who had already won the league 4 times straight and won it again twice a) yes of course, let's say the same thing. wow. winning a league must be so easy, especially when the team did it the year before... avram grant. c) what was the point in your post? was it just to belittle my opinion? If MON's record in Scotland doesn't count (you said so yourself) I think it's a fair deal that Houllier's two league wins in France shouldn't count as it was only one team in France at the time. In Scotland at least there were two.

Yep, unlike others I don't think Carew's days are automatically numbered even if Houllier is appointed manager. Remember it was Houllier who brought Carew to Lyon in the first place and before that he also tried to bring Carew to Liverpool at one point, so on the contrary I actually think Houllier quite fancies Carew. When Carew was swapped for Baros it was their owner Aulas who went public saying they didn't need Carew anymore, whereas Houllier remained silent. Aulas said he felt they didn't need both Fred and Carew and said that Carew was lazy or something along those lines in order to justify the swap.

So Hitzfeld it is then

At least it's not Koeman or Bradley

http://www.sundaymercury.net/midlands-sport/aston-villa-fc/aston-villa-fc-news/2010/09/05/aston-villa-barry-bannan-thanks-father-figure-stiliyan-petrov-66331-27203426/ Always said Petrov is a good man and a superduper captain. :notworthy: