sellbydate

lost me a tenner on a HT/FT then!

Fantastic save from an Ireland volley there from a Bent layoff!

how are you watching?

How did the moron ref decide that Gabby fouled Robinson in the first half?

how did blackburn not get any yellows during that game?

what a disgrace this hoof football McJoke has us playing, we'll never control a team like this.

wait a second...

Milner drops another place in the pecking order then.

McManaman making a good point - N'Zogbia is up against Riise who is fit, likes to get forward alot. he's doing the job of a RM well but we might have to put him on the left to see him attacking a bit more as a winger

I think it's a disgrace Petrov and Heskey are still with us. Any reasonable club would have had those 2 players sold by now without these ridiculous contracts and wages.

Gabby should never start. At best on the bench.

And Collins, **** hell....

The team is looking too static. We won't see many goals by this season. There's no way Bent will get 20 goals.

Its quite impressive that you always find something.

Give it a rest, new season new start.

For all you know Petrov and Heskey might be important for us this season.

It does no harm to back the team.

i was just about to quote this with just a laughing face. i sort of want to see what happens if we concede

good opening 20. look surprisingly composed and comfortable

for me, the best youth players go straight in, rooney, wilshire, rodwell etc. none of this waiting around till they're 24 before they finally show a little more than 'promise'. obviously the latter two are still incomplete, but they're good enough to start regular PL matches under the age of 20. if gary gardner is as good as it is suggested, and from the very limited view i've had of him he very well might be, he should be starting games for us in the middle of the park against top flight opposition. the absolute very best way to get the most out of him.

Uhh didn't we concede 3 with Young and Downing in January? - Didn't we concede 7 with Young, Downing and Milner? - Didn't we concede another 3 with Young, Downing and Milner.

An improvement.

didnt we score 3 in january and not lose? didnt we hold a 0-0 against them also last season?

getting worse

hilariously you've just proved his point.

They just mentioned then that Chelsea haven't conceded at all in pre-season. I don't understand why it's such a surprise that we're not as good as them.

Gary Gardener... very composed. to anyone who has seen him more, is his style of play similar to a young gerrard? also taller than i expected.

what we've established here is that we're better than blackburn and worse than chelsea.

SHOCKING NEWS RANDY OUT

How is what happening at the moment any different to the Ellis or MON days?

Doug Ellis - Sold players, tight at coughing up an extra small fee, going backwards.

MON - Hardly any activity in the transfer window at all until August.

The amount of stick they got was fair enough, but it's ridiculous how the current board/manager are getting a free pass now by some fans. How does that work? At least Doug had an excuse, he wasn't a billionaire and never made so much from selling two players. MON was rather annoying, but proved he could at least do well in the Premier League and didn't lose so many players in one season.

Agree, especially the bit about Randy getting a free pass.

every thread. give it a rest, i think everyone understands now how you feel. it would help if it wasn't such utter shite you were talking as well. free pass? bollocks, i don't think anyone was happy with the manager at first. i'm afraid to say that some of us can just see the bigger picture. when you accept where we are as a club, you'll understand why we can't go out and spend £50m and have players on stupid wages because it would make our club collapse and disappear like leeds did.

do we want to keep aston villa? do we? yes?

i'm not a pessimist, quite the opposite, and i think we'll sign nzogbia. i just don't know if that has any subtext to it.

Isn't Samba just saying:

"Off to Honk Kong with the Blackburn squad! in unrelated news, follow my friend and fellow Frenchman and North of England resident Charles N'Zogbia on twitter"

?

Good to see Makoun is rated by McLeish to get a start. Where is Gabby? I thought McLeish had said he sees Bent and him as our partnership, bit disconcerting seeing Heskey named in what looks to be our strongest squad.

the thing that pizzed me off was when eck got the job he had this meeting with some chosen fans that mystery man leaked on some of the message boards with stuff like "we're gonna play exciting football with wingers Gabby and Benty up front 4-4-****-2

Downing not for sale unless we get 50mil.

Then what happens? they let him got for 20m.

So Big Eck now looks like a bigger joker than he did to start with.

Agreed.

I dont think McLeish has had any input or was even being consulted about Ash and Downing going etc

http://www.villatalk.com/index.php?name=PNphpBB2&file=viewtopic&t=69395&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=105

i think you're both naive.

Naive for believing what McLeish said and the clubs reported position on Downing?

Yes i guess i was.

For thinking that McLeish and Lerner didn't discuss the possibility of him and Young leaving in the job interview. For thinking that saying £50m wasn't anything more than 'come and give me a lot of money'. He always wanted out, they (as in, the board and alex) knew and didn't want to keep an ungrateful rocket polisher, so bled the shit out of Liverpool. And now we have £20m. good.

the thing that pizzed me off was when eck got the job he had this meeting with some chosen fans that mystery man leaked on some of the message boards with stuff like "we're gonna play exciting football with wingers Gabby and Benty up front 4-4-****-2

Downing not for sale unless we get 50mil.

Then what happens? they let him got for 20m.

So Big Eck now looks like a bigger joker than he did to start with.

Agreed.

I dont think McLeish has had any input or was even being consulted about Ash and Downing going etc

http://www.villatalk.com/index.php?name=PNphpBB2&file=viewtopic&t=69395&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=105

i think you're both naive.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ar6YhENN6Og

looking forward to it!

i meant from Sunderland.

anybody else concerned by that sunderlands next target is suppose to be n'zogbia.

if you was him would you rather go to a club who have signed a good mix of young and expierenced players or a club who are letting there best players go and dont like there manager

like Darren Bent?

He was outstanding in 08-09. He was OK in 09-10. He had a disaster in 10-11 although he did miss over half of it thorugh injury.

Any way sick of repeating the same thing. Can’t wait until he bangs in a few in pre season and the usual fickle Villa fans will be licking his balls.

Trouble is they will then be claiming he’s Zidane and will go back to moaning when he doesn’t secure us champions league qualification!!

Have you considered that people might have reasons to say those things other than because they're 'fickle'? I dislike him regardless of what he does for Villa. I'm sure many of the others saying get rid are also level headed people like me who don't want disruptive players in the squad. I'll say it now, Ireland will never fulfil this potential that everyone is so adamant that he has.

I'd say that it would be stupidity to the extreme not to try and turn SI to the player we know he can be. There's a very good player in there, let's try and get him out.

THIS - end off discussion.

The idea of letting him go is silly at best. He has the talent, lets give it another shot.

End of discussion? I might start saying that after everything I say if it suddenly turns it into gospel.

Stephen Ireland is a borderline mentally unstable petulant child at best. The biggest problem about satisfying every need of a player like Stephen Ireland is that it will affect the rest of the team tactically when we try to shoe horn him into every starting line-up, and it will affect the team moral when he throws his toys out the pram if you don't. Get rid. End of discussion.

where is all that from TRS-T? a lot of that needs to be set straight.

This one especially, so much idiocy and incorrect statements.

So, let me ge this straight. Way, way back in the annals of time, Rafa Benitez tried to buy Gareth Barry. Gareth Barry wanted to move to Liverpool. Everything was going swimmingly until Villa decided that because it was Liverpool and not Tranmere they could arbitrarily hike up the fee to nearly double what Liverpool were willing to offer and were insulted when Liverpool refused to pay it. This was followed by some seriously bitchy carry on by both sides and ended with Gareth Barry going to Man City for less than Liverpool were willing to pay the year before. This, apparently, was Liverpool's fault and not in the least bit hubris.

And here we are in 2011, a player in the final year of his contract who has been seen posing with a Liverpool scarf (faked, clearly), an offer of £15m has gone in and how do Villa respond? By suggesting £20 million is closer to the mark. Now, I was disappointed when I heard the amounts of money being bandied about for Downing, it seemed a lot of money for a player in his final year and within whom no other side had so far expressed an interest. However, at this point its gone beyond mind-boggling. Are Villa just going to piss their owners money away to spite Liverpool for a second time? No doubt when Downing heads off to Man City next year for £8 million, that will be Liverpool's fault for unsettling their player as well.

two years left you stupid scouse ****. two.

Gareth Barry went for less than Liverpool were willing to pay because Liverpool were only willing to pay it when there was 2 years left on his contract, not one.

And if they want to talk about pissing money away, how about £55m on two entirely average, young and unproven English players?

Pay what we want or **** off.