iancharlie

wheres shaun teale when you need him?!

I'm still, in spite of results etc, keen on giving GH a summer and a chance to effect a real clear out and start over with no excuses for next season, but as that seems less likely by the week, I think learning from the lesson of before and ensuring we have the best pool of candidates to choose from would be better than jumping in now. Come the end of the season some managers will be more considerate towards sounding out for the role I would have thought. Why exclude these candidates for the sake of a few more weeks?

IF GH is to leave now, caretaker path is preferable

caretaker would have to be sid. supported by k-mac and t mcandrew

tony pulis? done great with stoke really. made them a very difficult team to beat but we might just be too big a team for him to boss

coyle - would be perfect but unlikely to leave bolton

holloway - no i think at villa he would revert to how he managed leicester

Big Sam - i like his arrogance and he is not afraid to say how he feels...not a bad shout

moyes - would definitely do a good job and a change may be good for him

lambert - a good shout could be worth a gamble

grayson - doesnt really feel right

mourinho - i wish! but to really prove himself better than sir alex, managing the villa and getting us competing in the top 4 and europe would show that he is really is a special one!

houllier - he might be doing things ok behind the scenes and he is giving the kids a good chance but, like with Dr Jo, the foreign revolution does not quite sit nicely at villa park

It's worth playing NRC just to sit him on Adam for the 90 minutes.

It might also be worth playing Bannan for two reasons: 1) Blackpool are a footballing side, so a game like this might suit him. 2) Former club rule.

On which basis I would like to see:

Friedel

Walker Collins Dunne Clark

Young Makoun NRC Bannan Downing

Bent

Young on the Right

Downing on the Left.

Okay... but what wing do you expect Gabby to play on?

The wooden one which sits on the side of the pitch underneath a corrugated iron shell.

i love the former club rule! i dont think it works for agent ridgewell though! yeah fingers crossed for a 6-4 villa against blackpool...or it might be 8-3 i cant decide!

I take home about £1500 a month. Might seem comfortable - but it is not: I'm on a part-buy/part-rent scheme and to be honest if I could turn back the clock I would. At the moment, the rent + mortgage is £750ish a month and that's excluding credit card debt, council tax etc. This month, I'm marginally better off as I managed to swindle some overtime (pretty amazing as it's generally not allowed where I work) and I managed to bring home £2000ish. That might seem good, but my outgoings are more than my incomings

I'm on about £26k annually (usually). I'm actually considering switching my pension scheme to "no contributions" (from me) to save about £80 a month but then that means I'll be paying higher tax. Gggggrrrr.

trekka what do you mean switching your pension scheme to no contributions from you? will you be salary sacrificing your contributions instead and your company making them on your behalf - if this is the case your tax will not be affected and you will also save National Insurance so you should be better off....r are you just not going to make pension contributions any more? I work in tax advisory so take an odd interest in these type of things...

btw i earn approx 2k net per month.

He wont regret it England are a joke. Should have playeU-21's instead of soe of the otehr but hey thats English footy for ya. Will play more often for Ireland from a younger age which will be good for Villa.

Agree. England aren't a much better bet than Ireland at the moment and he will hopefully get more gametime in the Irish shirt (and I am English).

completely agree plus playing with ireland will keep him off the press radar more...if mcgrath had been england's lynchpin in defence the press would have ruined him. clark just needs to keep doing what he's doing! next season could be brilliant if the kids can make that step up (I.E. transfer winning everything at reserve level to winning everything at senior level!)

He needs to play Gabby in the hole now imo, when Gabby played in the hole the game changed.. Gabby in the hole and Ash/Downing on the wings again.. Bent upfront.. other then that good sub changes though.

Totally agree.

completely agree with this. Gabby offers more there and Young is wasted there. have the option then to bring on heskey for bent or aggy or take off a midfielder and bring on heskey and go for it!

would like to see reo and petrov in mf for the season with makoun and delph taking over next. good to see herd and baker getting in and around.

albrighton needs ot be rested now and again but he shd def be playng against utd!

great win always difficult at wigan esp as houllier had makoun and baker playing and a very trial and error formation (well players playing in random spaces). lets go to OT and finish off what we threatened to do at villa park for the first 80 mins!

same team as saturday with aggy and young swappng roles. let makoun wear a colourful jumper and jeans on the bench and hopefully heskey (if back?) can come on and set up bent for the last goal at the death - i'm going 3-1 us. blackpool to draw with man utd too!

Milner made a choice to go for a large increase in wages. Who here wouldn't.

He also chose to move from a club where he could do little wrong, was arguably already a big fish in a small pond, for a life in and out of a squad, on the subs bench, and prejudicing his England career.

Ultimately, he chose cash over career. Thats his choice to make, and not one worth cheering or booing about.

I'm sure if he starts on the bench, he will know he would have been playing if only he's stayed still. We will also know how the citeh fans slag him off, and how villa fans sang his name. I'm sure he will have regrets, who doesnt when you change jobs and it doesnt quite work out.

I suspect he may regret the move later on, if citeh dont actually win anything, and will realise a medal you won by spending 90 mins on a bench is worth as much as no medal what so ever. But at the moment, when he drives in his Aston/Bentley/Ferrarri home to his house made of gold bricks, those regrets will quickly vanish.

To us, he's a no one anymore. Not at Villa long enough to be anyhting more than a small byline in our history. Could have been a legend, chose instead to be very very rich. Its only when you retire, and realise you didnt really need all that cash, that he will realise how good he had it at Villa.

completely agreew ith all of this

i just want milner back. its such a waste of a talent. it seems city bought him purely to hinder the villa...and it worked he went, MON went we went down the league table..... if he wins anything at city it will be meaningless for him as he will not have contributed unlike at villa where he was the man in the middle and also the england star. he couldnt put a foot wrong lat year...and all for a couple more quid. i can see why barry moved to city but milners was all wrong. for him for villa dn for city. his career has really gone backwards.

i think gerards after marcus bent - he's just got confused! is very unlike villa to bag a striker wo scores goals Dublin was the last one i think with proven prem record! i still remeber the near misses on bergkamp and ferdinand though! fingers crossed its darren!

im going to start my honeymoon in NYC in June - staying at Hilton Times Square for free! should be great never been before

thats great thnak you! much appreciated. i know all the stereotypes about pool but we thought we would give it a go! we like italian/british/mexican food generally but all your recommendations sound worth checking out! we are probably likely to get a meal out close by on the friday night as wwe will be travelling there after work (so prob within ten mins walk of hotel) and then explore a bit more on samstag.

Bickster those tunnels sound very odd - we may have to take a ride to see them. Thank you for the ideas on what to do! will check them out too and see what looks best!

watched kite runner the other night - very good film

Parish, Herd, Baker, Lowry, Lichaj, Hogg, Osbourne, Gardner, Stieber, Delfouneso, Weimann

please.

this with bannan, albrighton and clark coming on at the end if required!

Dear all,

Me and my fiancee are going to liverpool for a weekend away in a couple of weeks. Neither of us have been to Liverpool and i have booked us into the hilton in Liverpool city centre (right by Albert docks) and i am looking for help on:

- where is a good place to eat? (we like nice restaurants) /go out in Liverpool?

- what is a good thing to see in Liverpool (Beatles apart).

Hope you guys can help! Muchos gracias!

Really looking at the fixtures, once february begins, everything is very very winnable up until a trip to the emirates on the second to last day...if houllier gets his right men in, I fancy us going on a good run feb-april, which is the opposite of the MON days...hopefully the harsh midseason fixture list was good to get out of the way??

To be honest it's far more comfortable getting points on the board rather than having all the pressure on these games. I think we are underestimating the teams we have in this period, a lot of them will be fighting down there with us (and fighting is a key word as we have lacked it recently).

yes agree...i remember when jg took over in like the feb/march. if the season had gone from his first league game to the 38th in the next season there was a stat that we would have won the league by an absolute mile! we normally switch off in spring but this year we cant!

very pleased with the win. sheff utd has never been a place where we travel well. i think the game highlights we need a new spine under houllier and some of the young players may be integral to that - clark, albrighton and bannan....

i agree downing in the middle with delph then young and albrighton on the wings with aggy/hesks up front or bannan playing just behind. would love wor jimmy back. need to remove the MON faves like ptrov i think by the end of the season if we are to regroup and improve. petrov been good but think this will be his last season at villa

do a swap with lpool for hodgson

if only he put that much effort in when little signed him...

agbonlahor to turn our season around if he plays...fingers crossed for this one. cant see it being a draw.

Ireland has the 'flu. Great.

Does'nt matter....GH would'nt have played him anyway probably!

Had us down for a draw last night and don't feel any different today, but this is Villa we're talking about. Struggle against sides we should be beating out of sight and stepping it up for the big boys. Lets hope that particular pattern repeats itself today.

i've plumped for a 4-2 villa slightly crazy but it could be one of those days. would be great if bannan can replay his reserve hattrick against utd!

bannan bannan do do do do do do dodo do banan banan do do do....