Amsterdam_Neil_D

Even I, a big optimist, am getting a bit stressed now

I am in the same boat, it's all getting a bit silly now.

I feel like I have been promised a PS3 for xmas but I have a sneaky feeling that the box been wrapped with a nice big bow is Ker-plunk or buckaroo and not the home entertainment system previously promised and agreed.

We will not rest until the Mirror is banned from VT! Power to the people!

Set up a Facebook group

Another way, there are 30 k + members of VT. We should all set up fake accounts on Gmail and email them 2 or 3 (or 30) times a day to the "sports desk", just make the stories up and flood their system.

In fact all footie fans should do it so a Facebook page could help, they deserve punishment for the BS.

So how long before the Mirror links us with recently released Marlon King

About a week after he caves some birds face in again. :cry:

Oh come on, is it really that bad!?!?! Did you really have that bad a time last season watching us get to Wembley, beating Utd, Chelsea, Liverpool.....good god man! Things could be alot worse....surely the O'Leary days, finishing 16th aren't that far in the past to forget?

I'm just worried. I can't help it. I know what you are saying is correct but there is also another side to it, to progress we need to improve faster than at least 1 of the top 4 and all of the rest, that's the bottom line. For all the great wins we had we had some proper shockers, I flew over to watch the Chelsea game at VP and yes it's nice to beat them but look at the away fixture result.

Getting to Wembley is good as you say but the squad as a whole is fundamentally not strong enough to do it for the whole season, if it was we would have had to get the open topped bus out of retirement but we were inevitability tired and devoid of ideas.

I, as many others know what we need to do what we desire but we are nowhere near currently. Chelsea midfielders score more than our strikers and no one seems to think this is a problem. I just want a scrap of good news, that's all. Selling our best players every year is driving me mad, once that's sorted i suppose I will cheer up.

His overall skills arent that good so that he is interesting for european football. I only meant his achievement on the World Cup.

could you please clarify what you mean? Do you want us to sign him or what

No I dont want Villa to sign him. Villa need to spend money on much better skilled players..which wont happen with MON in charge but that is another story.

Only I said was that I think he was quite good in the World cup consider he played for a very weak international team. And he was better than many of the so called superstars from England and France during the World cup.

Oh bugger off, MON has signed plenty of players better skilled than Tsabalalala. And I'd wager that come the end of the window he will of signed a few more!

Sorry..I wasnt clear on what I meant. My intention was to say that MON wouldnt spend money on much better skilled FOREIGN players.

I am tired of the old british players because MON is an absolute joke on the transfer market. He sign british players for over the top fees and then give them over the top wages...plays it safe and boring..we end up with "kick n´run" team and tactics. It has given us three sixth places yes...but we have had a good chance to improve on that before yet it has been missed out as I see it because MONs reluctance to look abroad for great bargains to lift the squad.

id rather we signed good players and don't care where they're from. Signing players because they're foreign is as bad as MON signing players because they're British.

That is the usual defence from MON fans..."doesnt matter where they come from"...I dont believe it for a second!

Yes..we all want great quality players to the club. And where do you find them? In every corner in GB or abroad? I think that it all are proved when you look at the World Cup and when you look at all the top clubs in Europe or in England. Clubs like Chelsea and Manchester City struggle to find players good enough for their teams that comes from England. They need to be exceptional because the foreign players they have are highly skilled on many levels.

I think that Villa needs influences from abroad to make our team get another dimension to the gameplay. We are dull to watch. I am a Villa fan to the bone, but last season when I looked the team most of the games got me to yawn after 20 minutes...and I honestly couldnt look the whole games through.They show glimpse of good plays but usually Villa are boring and very predictable. We have a great weapon in our defence and also in our speedy attackers Young/Agbonlahor.

Lux, agree with everything you have written. It's like watching one of them old Hamlet adverts at the moment, this is the team that bought British just when everyone else didn't, this is the team that waits in the market for value when there is no value in the market, this is the team that goes for 4th and buys Hesky, this is the team that plays 442 when everyone else is changing, this is the team that put 20 M on Red and the ball bounced into the road, this is the team that buys players and never plays them....and so on.

God i'm fed up. Looking at the people we are linked to is enough to make me feel ill. If these players are the answer I am scared to death what the actual question is.

Going 4-2-3-1 could be an option. Give me 2 physically strong and mobile Defensive Central Mids and a front 4 of Young, Ireland, Gabby and Downing if he could get out of the shithouse, would be an attractive proposition.

The way forward or at least have this in place as an option when the need arises.

It's all about the 2 in midfield, get these right and it allows the attack to breath a bit so to speak. We don't currently have the personnel to do this justice but you never know. We need to change something next season in our setup, opposition managers don't really need to say anything becasue we are kind of predictable.

I would love to do what James May did in the Veron, I had goose pimples and hairs standy uppy just watching it.

I can't imagine what it feels like, 140 mph feels quite fast so god knows what it's like doing 250 +. All I know is I want to do it.

Fantastic.

No problem wiggy, If we sign Ireland great. But i do belive city will be much better off, and we will be much worse off should these two players swap clubs.

nt: by better off, i obviously dont mean financially.

If we get over the fact that we're going to lose one of our best players, then we'll surely realise that we will come out of this a stronger team?

Even if we buy a player that, like Milner, takes one season to become a better player. Surely that's still a good deal?

- Milner was bought for £12m.

- A couple of years later and he's a £20m player (going for more than £20m).

- We could buy Ireland (or another "£10m player").

- A few seasons later and that player could also be worth £20m.

All we're doing is increasing the value of our assests and gradually increasing the quality of the team.

This is not the way to do things but what choice do we have other than invest to keep them. I am not sure I 100 % agree that we are gradually improving the team, losing your best players does overall long term harm IMO.

If we are gradually improving the team then the replacement of Milner will be of similar age and ability when we bought him with a little extra to continue the improvement of the squad. It´s the only way the Villa will convince me now. The talk of Ireland/SWP is great but it does not in any way improve on Milner or our chances of moving up the league. If it did they wouldn't sell them to us.

according to the metro city are going to offer us cash + shaun wright phillips.

if this is true what is it with city making these derisory offers id rather have aiden mcgreedy than SWP he's shite. just stump up the cash and ireland or pure cash otherwise **** off and stop wasting our time.

It's just business, takes time. As it's Man City it takes a bit longer I suppose as everyone who deals with them knows that they are been tossers because they are just that, not because they need to save money or they have a budget of some sort to keep to. It's all about not looking like either side has give in at the moment. Won't be long now I suspect.

Top 4, Fa cup win is hardly going to attract better players the following season is it.

Nah... we had the best years out of him...& methinks Man City know this!

Spot on. Dunno if it's just me but he looks a bit crap these days to be honest. He is so slow it's joke, he looked good playing for us but terrible for anyone else, especially England lol. Be great if he gets pushed to the bench for the season and hardly plays.

So how come no-one at all has plumped for 3rd?

Because we are going to win it!

You never know That's the fun.

The problem in my view is, if we do finish 7th which isn't a bad achievement. It'll be seen as backwards by alot of fans, which I don't think it is.

:?

how can finishing below what we did last season be seen as moving forward/progress?

I have to agree, we can mess about in 6th / 7th / 8th for decades to come and some will be happy with that, I won't..not at all. Unless we get in the CL pretty sharpish we will never get there as the gap just gets bigger and bigger. The position where you finish is the best overall indicator because it takes into account the whole squad / club performance over the season as far as I am concerned.

It's all about moving forward and up. If you start been happy with 7 th then it's a short jump to been happy about finishing 12th.

If we finish lower than last season I will find it totally unacceptable, yes other clubs have come into money but that would have been factored in in the original plan, if it wasn't then it was not much of a plan in my eyes. If it happened to the Villa with Lerner then they must have realised it could and did happen to someone else so that's no excuse, same as the we can't attract the players without CL, not a valid excuse either as Man City are doing fine getting who they want.

getting top known players to come down to vp is not gonna be easy

I would say it's as hard as you make it. Maybe we don't even ask ?

It's wages that are the main problem I suppose but get the right players in and a full extended VP will be full every week thus paying the wages, don't and it won't be full and this gives a nice excuse to why we can't have the signings we need and around and round we go.

Maybe we are leaving it late so we get a shock and awe job with 4 or 5 mega signings but in reality I will be left shaking my head again I fear.

With no news coming out of VP it's hard to stay happy as larry at the moment.

well we averaged about 38k per week at VP last season didnt we, are the extra 4k going to raise enough in wages to play these top players?

I see what your getting at but it must make some sort of difference or man utd would have stayed at 40 k in the late 80's. They are at nearly 80 k now. I was thinking more along the lines of 55-60 k with the appropriate players to fill that size stadium. This is the big shame of it all, we get 38k with players like Sidwell and Heskey in the squad !

getting top known players to come down to vp is not gonna be easy

I would say it's as hard as you make it. Maybe we don't even ask ?

It's wages that are the main problem I suppose but get the right players in and a full extended VP will be full every week thus paying the wages, don't and it won't be full and this gives a nice excuse to why we can't have the signings we need and around and round we go.

Maybe we are leaving it late so we get a shock and awe job with 4 or 5 mega signings but in reality I will be left shaking my head again I fear.

With no news coming out of VP it's hard to stay happy as larry at the moment.

It could be argued of course that many of Mon's "Bad buys" were actually good buys that we have since moved on from... I mean the squad was very weak when he 1st arrived & players like Sidwell (arguably) Nrc, C Davies & several others did actually improve us at the time but as we have continued to evolve as a side they are no longer getting a game & are therefore tagged as these bad buys... In fact they served a purpose but we are now aiming higher .... That surely was a process we had to go through?

Having said all that i have to say that for me Davies, NRC & L Young could still do a good job for us but then i'm not the manager for a reason

I see what you are saying but there has to be a better way than this, that's 20-25 M + wages. You are correct, they did improve us at the time but virtually any player with a set of boots would have. Expensive stop gaps IMO and the aiming higher comment will have to wait, if we sign R Keane as THE big signing this summer then it blows it all out of the water and we might as well keep players like Sidwell.

i predict 2 chairs maximum.

and a bean bag to confuse us all.

I said 4 also but the question should be what do we need to get 4th spot. That is a lot more difficult to answer as 4 players means nothing if they never play or are not pushing the 1st team for a place. We have kids coming through and have also invested in youth so what we buy must be of the quality to be considered straight away for the 1st 11 on the first day of the Prem. Difficult task but achievable I believe if we do a bit of clever trading, players + cash or even swaps should be considered.

A guy walks into a bar, sits down next to another fellow and immediately notices that the guy has a very large disposable Bic cigarette lighter. The first guy says: "Wow, cool lighter. Where did you get it?"

The second guy replies: "A genie from a bottle granted me one wish."

"Great, can I try it?" the first guy asks.

"Sure," the second guy replies.

The first guy rubs the bottle and the genie appears. "You are granted one wish," says the genie.

The first guy says: "I want a million bucks!"

"Done," says the genie and disappears.

A few minutes go by, and suddenly the bar door swings open and thousands and thousands of ducks start pouring in.

"I can't believe this," says the first guy: "I asked for a million bucks, not a million ducks!"

The second guy turns to him and says: "Do you really think I wished for a 12-inch Bic?

It works better with a 12 inch pianist with a little piano, geezer puts him on the bar and he plays a tune....then same as above. Lighters are common so it needs the diversion imho.

If we're taking an American on potential I really think Altidore is worth it. He's still young and improving quickly. And despite some profligacy @ the WC he was a big handful. In a poor Hull City side last season in half a season he managed more assists than all bar a few strikers managed in the entire season. Yes I know we need goals but I think he would get goals in a better side than Hull. He's no Heskey if that's what people are afraid of.

I was impressed with him also, always seems to be involved a lot in the action. Could do as job for us me thinks....

James Milner, Emile Heskey, Stephen Warnock and Brad Guzan have been allowed extra time off following their World Cup exertions for their countries and will be absent when the rest of the squad reconvene to begin their preparations for the new campaign.

Among those due back at Bodymoor Heath will be up-for-sale six Steve Sidwell, Nigel Reo-Coker, Habib Beye, Nicky Shorey, Luke Young and Curtis Davies, who are all available for the right price after finding themselves on the first-team periphery last season.

But all of the players are under contract for at least another year and O’Neill is ready to keep an open mind – pointing to the way Gareth Bale re-established himself as a first-choice at Tottenham last season.

Don't think we will sign many this summer, maybe one or two

we clearly have no money

We will have when we sell the crown jewels for the 2nd time in a row. We could just learn that if you surround them by equally talented players they tend not to leave but it's a difficult lesson to learn.

Don't forget a lot of people promise year on year improvement so 5th as a minimum.

(Sorry just fed up with it all today, it's like the Villa is a good news black hole currently)

I really hope this area of the team is sorted out. Id like to think MON isnt stupid, but at times, i do wonder.

I know imagine how stupid a manager must be to play a defence that was hard to score against and which helped a team become very hard to beat. Stupid Mon!!!

As the 7th goal went in at Chelsea and as we went out of Europe were you thinking that ? We are easy to beat when it really matters IMO, the lack of silver or CL proves that.

Hard to beat does not equal 3 points unfortunately, hard to beat is a basic requirement we should have had sorted a long time ago.

The thing is MON went out and paid good money for Warnock so he must be a fan of attacking fullbacks up to a point. I expect there was more to Cuellar being used in favour of Young than simply thinking Cuellar was a better right back.

I suspect you are right about Young, something was going on as it's just illogical otherwise not to play him.

We need a settled back 4 with no squares in round holes to start with next season, that is a must. Without this we really are not going to compete. Cuellar is never going to be the answer long term as we need 2 attacking full backs.

To be honest about Joe Cole, he looked far more creative than any of the other England players when he was brought on. Maybe it was just a change in team mentality but when Cole came on England looked more dangerous offensively.

He also played very well in the last few weeks of the league season in my opinion; he looked like he was coming back into form from his injury.

I dont remember England having a chance whenever Joe cole came on.

To be honest Jesus and the holy ghost could have come on, we never had a chance or clue. Chances need someone to score it and we had no control shrek ffs.

Its a programme that is looking very tired and predictable now. Clarkson tries to be a cock and succeeds, the "features" are 6th form school revue type. Maybe they should stick the "specials" like the Vietnam or the African ones

Spot on, needs a re-vamp. I will always watch it I suppose as a lot of people but it needs something else, not sure what though.

Maybe something on technology, how engines are designed or how F1 use wind tunnels or similar as the cocking about gets on my nerves after a while. Obviously this would not be a laugh a minute but I would like it anyway or enter a Top Gear team into the touring cars or something and have a regular 15 minute slot.

The challenges are just bolox now, like last nights. I did not care who won or the fact they were in Germany, I don't care who's car would pass a MOT and everyone has done 150 + on the autbahn so big wows to that, I just want to see them race them around Brands Hatch, until the cars die.