sellbydate

People talking about Gardner against City as brainless, how is this any less brainless than playing Clark?

Experience? Meh. Give me talent against those guys any day. We need all the hope we can muster.

i think Clark is talented, but as a CB, not a CM, so i agree with you.

ps, i'm slightly warming to macron now only because they seem to hold us in very high regard so might not churn out the shit that have done previously.

A quote from John Greenfield

"I think our fans will be thrilled with the home kit. We have obviously held meetings with fans about what they wanted - and they have most-certainly got what they asked for, in my opinion.

Having made all the mock ups I have I know it is hard to get a design everyone will like

Bearing in mind a lot of people seem to think it doesn't matter I assume we will be getting a brown paper kit.

it's hilarious. if you're worried, for good reason as has been made evident via pictures, about the quality of the kit because you'd quite like to wear one for football training but don't want your bellybutton showing and to be drenched in sweat as the thing clings to your every surface, you're suddenly showing yourself up as some sort of fashionista?

"it doesn't matter what we wear as long as it's claret and blue"

well you **** off and play football in this then

My flippant point isn't exactly the linchpin of my argument, but whatever, I don't actually care about nations, as my argument my dictate how pointless they are. Noone ever agrees

haha, true. but there has to be some lines else there wouldn't be a tournament, and i don't really have any issues with the rules now

any possiblity this was a little lost in translation? wasn't happy losing to his former club, getting a fair bit of abuse?

He can't even be arsed to attend so **** him if it happens.

I take it this line of thought doesnt extend to the fans?

No because the majority of us didn't even McLeish.

i thought you talked a fair bit of nonsense, but i'm not even sure what this one means

Houllier had Young and Downing though. swings and round abouts.

i should point out that i don't think mcleish is the right man, but houllier was awful and i wish people would shut the **** up about him

Anyone got Houllier's number?

Absloutely this.

I'm missing the excitement of last season'e relegation scare.

Funny you should say that. If I'm correct we've played 24 games this season and got 28 points. Last season we had the exact same number of points after the same number of games.

The only reason why we're not in a relegation battle (yet) is because the teams below us are poorer this season.

points/games is not comparable because the strength of teams can differ a lot between seasons. as for the teams below is being poorer, that is purely subjective. you can only judge success in this league in comparison the other 19 teams and McLeish is currently doing better this season than Houllier was, as his league positions have been higher.

put it this way, if we were 13th with 42 points under one manager in a season, and 18th with 42 points under another, i know which one has done the better job.

Ireland has been okay so far, some nice touches.

N Zog, does well until he decided to shoot every time rather than pass. His first cross = goal.

Petrov been playing well

Clark' first touch has been poor

Cuellar has been very good apart from that awful header

Hutton, well first game he has been able to do his job. one of the best performers so far. OMG

Warnock, as usual a bit of a joker.

Bent lazy

Keane, done okay and the goal has obviously ensured he has added further value to his loan deal.

Dunne unfortunate to get booked, for doing fack all.

too harsh on Warnock and Bent but mostly agree. Warnock has been putting himself on the line and is doing a great job, he was unlucky for their goal because that was a stunning last ditch challenge (regardless of what they might be trying to suggest on sky). Bent has been moving a lot and doing much better picking up the lose balls and pressuring for me, although that one time he should have been getting back in the middle, it was his first pass that he overhit which was the reason, he intended to put keane in on goal so didn't need to be on the 6 yard box.

the rest of the team have done very well, but one word for Clark, he is definitely a centre back and if we want to reward his efforts then we should be playing him there, for me. get Gardner in the middle and have Clark ready to replace whichever centre back **** up next.

i think the guys just been settling in, seems like he's got more friends at the villa now and he's starting to enjoy playing with these players

The problem is we all know the actual version is going to be nowhere near as good as lmarsha's mockups.

exactly, they have no bearing on what the actual shirts will be like because they're all on the same template, completely ignoring the cut and material, the two main attributes to the quality of a piece of clothing.

Klose's father was German, Poldolski has lived in Germany since he was 2 and had right of return status because of the part of Poland he was born in. Cacau is perfectly entitled to play for Germany after living there for 8 years and having a German passport.

You seem to have missed my point somewhat (I've never been that bothered by Klose, incidentally). Cacau, is a German citizen, indeed, and thus under current rules he would be allowed to play for Germany.

But that undermines calling it 'international'. Citizen =/= nationality, state does not necessarily mean nation... Cacau would not, under the proper consideration of what a nation really is, be a member of the German nation (although Germany itself suffers when you start to consider 'nationality' properly, because a great number of German nationals don't identify with 'Germany', they identify as Bavarian, Saxon, etc etc. But put that by the by for a moment). Nations are imagined communities, united by common myths and legends, 'ethnosymbolism', some hint of primordial connections (which is rubbish, but appeals to the ideology regardless). Cacau has none of that - he's of the Brazilian nation, but a German citizen.

Unless you want to say that Cacau can choose what nation he is part of, without being what would traditionally be considered that nation. In which case, I'm now Spanish thanks, and really proud of that World Cup . Which in turn in my opinion just points out how pointless the whole idea is - It's dumb.

Hopefully that reveals what I mean when I say that nationality in football is an absurdity, perhaps more so than in any other capacity.

this just undermines your entire argument - we're aware that that is a lie and you don't really feel spanish. if you actually did, then fair enough, celebrate as you wish. but you don't, so it doesn't point out how pointless the whole idea is at all, as these players are not claiming nationality on a whim for sake of an argument, but for the purpose of doing their best for the country they feel they belong.

Ireland has been class recently long may it continue. Glad he's proving some people who didn't give him a chance wrong.

including me, he's shoving my words right back down my throat. fair play to stephen for sorting his game out, and fair play to mcleish for allowing him to get on with it. he's already done more than houllier was ever going to achieve with him.

no one is upset, and that's fine if you don't think there's any difference but a large portion of people do and just won't buy the kit. it's not a case of 'getting a grip', some people wanted to buy a nice kit (in their, opinion, remember) and aren't going to get the chance to so are a little disappointed.

i could quite easily say that you should stop being so upset and get a grip because there was an accident one year and the kits didn't get released early - stop holding a grudge with nike - they have produced some very lovely kits for us with personal touches (lion on the neck, pride of birmingham, avfc banner, checks) and also had us among the best and most famous clubs in the world.

also, if getting the best deal is the primary concern, being marketed along side Barcelona, Man Utd and Inter, and also appealing the the fashion conscious (it doesn't matter if you're happy wearing a claret bin bag) is the best way to promote aston villa as a brand and increase revenue.

Rmber when Birmingham had an open top bus for finishing 2nd in championship?

Do you know who actually won it that season?

Ah yes it was Mick McCarthy.

How many times did Mcleish get Scotland to a world cup ?

Oh thats right he never did.

As Mick got Ireland qualified and only knocked out by Spain in the second round on penalties in 2002.

Mick McCarthy does also factually have more "Premiership experience" than McLeish.

Last season alone proved he was better manager as kept Wolves up with far far far less resources than McLeish had at Birmingham and never has sides playing McLeishs antifootball.

I hope McLeish does well but he is an awful manager lets not kid ourselves or least has an awful record and is on par with likes of Gary Megson.

That is how stupid the decision was to appoint him.

if you like gary megson so much why don't you just marry him?

sigh.

when does the deal run out?

McLeish is really holding this team back. You could tell yesterday they were instructed just to sit back and not try to let in a goal. It's obvious he fears of us being behind first. But it's impossible with this defence. When we were 0-2 down, there was no other choice other than attack and it worked. Obviously the hostile reactions from the crowd got the team trying harder as well.

The best form of defence is attack. The players have shown how good they are going forward once the shackles are off. If we played that from the start we would have won comfortably and I'm sure we would have won alot more games at home in the past if we were free from the start.

The people who give credit to McLeish for yesterday haven't got a clue and in fact are disgraceful for not giving the players full credit because they are the ones who have shown what they could do once they're free to play attacking football. We have talented players in our side. We don't even need the defence that much cos we can be good on the ball if we're allowed to. We don't really need the defence for most of the game and a good job as well because we can't depend on those idiots.

If it had stayed 0-0 throughout, we wouldn't have seen us playing this way. No way.

if only we had vision and managerial nous, right?

few things that made me laugh;

at 2-0 everyone suggesting The_Steve was insane for saying we were still in the game, laughing at him and claiming he was 'on a wind up'.

CI saying "predictable draw" at the end of the match thread. you had better have been joking.

anyway

sort out the defence and we're a good side. and i can't believe some of the referees decisions, i feel like we've been mugged.

See, still going forward fine. I'm with you the-Steve, as log as we don't **** up anymore in defence

We could easily score a few but I don't trust us not concede more either

We must have the worst defence in the league?

What is wrong with the red and black Mallorca one? It´s nice.

it looks like a crop top

a selection of my favourite macron kits

yes these are different teams

look at the shine on that! :firefox: **** off nike!

beauty

that's how football shirts should be shaped, no longer than the bellybutton please!

classy collar

this would be handy in night matches if the floodlights fail

nike not doing us a goalkeeper kit this year is unforgivable, especially when we could have been wearing this down villa park!

if it meant more fans in the stands, many of which buying refreshments, i'd think they would be cheaper. if tickets were £1 how many could we attract to villa park? i'd make the trip every week. if we could make villa park 55,000 weekly with cheaper tickets and maintaining revenue i have no doubt the board would be happy. they must be aware that introducing standing when our average attendance is about 75% capacity and NOT reducing prices would have no real effect on attendance at all? and although we know the board have occasionally done great things that would not be financially beneficial, i would have thought this would have been an idea that is a win/win situation.