briny_ear

N'Zogbia is such a waste of space.

Unfortunately, as we now know, Houllier turned out to be a crap manager, however much he apparently wanted the job. It's not a good guide. No-one could love Peter Withe more than me for what he did as a player but as a manager he has a mediocre record at best and we can't afford to be taking any more gambles on our next manager. So it's from me.

Stop looking at the table would be my advice. Look at the fixtures instead. Like Norwich with nothing to play for, away to Arsenal??? Um, that's not actually a fixture, it's a result. And it had no impact on relegation. I was thinking more of of Blackburn v Wigan so both can't get maximum points and Man C v QPR on the final day of the season where come what may Man C will be absolutely looking for a win to maintain their chance of the title.

Stop looking at the table would be my advice. Look at the fixtures instead.

Crikey. Remember when Gabby used to care?

Some good memories here. My ranking: 1. Dennis M lifting the European Cup 1981 2. Johnny Dixon lifting the FA Cup 1957 3. 1972 - achieving promotion from Div 3 to Div 2 and setting us on the road to win the European Cup 4.

can I suggest that anyone who genuinely wants to defend these guys goes back and looks at the video again and then answers honestly the following questions: yes/no. 1. Are they making complete fools of themselves? 2. Is their behaviour tacky and demeaning to themselves? 3. Is what they are doing in any way enhancing the reputation of Aston Villa Football Club 4. If you had been caught on video doing that, would you be proud of it? If anyone genuinely can answer anything other than: 1. Yes; 2. Yes; 3. No; 4. No, please do explain your reasoning.

I do hope you won't be kicking doors in or behaving like a complete wally, Herd-sytyle And will there be loads of people ready to film you on their smartphiones, post clips of you behaving drunkenly on Youtube and thus bring disrepute on your employers? And are there loads of young people who look up to you as a role model who you wil be letting down? I think the analogies people are drawing with their own working situations are a bit flawed.

The first one of thiose is the only one that gives me hope, actually. As soon as a chairman backs his manager, the sack can't be far away.

Strictly speaking, I don't think we "bought" the main door-kicker-in. Didn't we just sign him on trainee terms? And it was always held authoritatively on this site that MON had no involvement or interest in the Academy.

AW, come on, CPF, we've had Kiwivillan telling us this is just a regular night out for a red-blooded Aussie lad...:winkold: (Not wishing to stir up antiopdean disharmony or anything.)

The idea that Martin O'Neill is responsible for Herd, Delph and Collins getting pissed on Tuesday morning in the small hours and kicking a nightclub door in is, I think, one of the most ludicrous claims ever made on this site, which has created its own art form of ludicrous claims about MON!

But the person who is apparently the main culprit has been brought on in the past couple of years, as have other young players who are now the subject of stories about regular heavy drinking. True, MON bought Delph and Collins but he didn't create the situation in which his squad has been effectively dismantled and the players seemingly don't give a **** any more. You have to look to his clueless managerial successors and the board to take responsibilty for all that.

Demitri. I'm not sure where you've been for the past couple of years so you may not have noticed that the squad we have now is not the one MON built.

Fixed.

There has been a theme running through this thread since the first page, in which people identify a remote possibility (Villa getting very few if any points from their remaining matches, while three out of five of our relegation rivals suddenly start picking up loads of points, including against the top 6 sides who are scrapping amongst each other for top 4 places) and leap to the assumption that it is almost certain to happen. Sorry Gabby0878, but your post just happened to demonstrate that tendency very clearly, so I highlighted it. I've been clear from the start that, although the possibilty of relegation is very unlikely, McLeish is so awful a manager that he will take us damned close to it. And so he has. And indeed, he still might get us there. But it will still require an extraordinary turn of events, probably including QPR beating Man C on the last day of the season. Stranger things have happened but that isn't any justification for saying it could easily happen. The shame is that with a little more positive football earlier in the season, we could have scraped an extra 3 or 4 points from the 36 matches we have played so far and we would be clear of relegation worries.

Oh dear.

I think you'll find. On a quick survey. That all Mail sports articles are written like that. I suppose. Its what they call their house style.

If there were clear conditions in my contract about drinking and general behaviour during the playing season, yes, I would expect disciplinary action. The fact that they all appear to have lawyers or advisers on hand ready to concoct a public apology at the drop of a hat suggests they do, too.

When an apology is that half-baked I think it's better to issue no apology at all. It seems clear from the wording that none of them really believe they did anything wrong. There's the suggestion of some incident occurring inside the club. The apologies should either be unreserved and not reference this at all, or there should be no apology issued (from Delph and Collins at least) in an attempt to silently communicate the fact that the players were provoked. This kind of mealy-mouthed half-apology from all of them just makes them look stroppy on all fronts. Waste of words. Delph's apology basically says "I apologise for having done nothing wrong at all"

I would like that. Anyway, didnt Martinez sign a three year contract with Wigan (after snubbing us) last summer? I think he just agreed to see out the last year of his contact with Wigan if my memory serves. Could be wrong though. No prob, Randy would no doubt be happy to buy him out.

Sorry, no idea what happened there. x2 post.

It's no more than I would expect from Ginge. What worries me is that the younger players were involved. I link this in my mind with recent stories about heavy public drinking sessions involving other young players. I worry that a drinking culture is developing amongst these lads and this really needs to be stamped on hard. Anyone saying this is just normal behaviour on a night out, I hope I never bump into you when you are innocently enjoying kicking in a nightclub door as part of your regular evening entertainment.:winkold:

It's disgraceful and tacky. It shames the club and the fans to have their players behaving like this in public. It's that sort of "non-story".

Make your mind up about the probability! I think the "unlikely" judgment is the right one. You are wrong to argue that Man C could go into the QPR game with no chance of winning the title. Oh I’m sorry briny_ear if you couldn’t understand! Yes, while I did say easily and then unlikely, what I meant was that it is still possible that we could go down, and wouldn’t be a complete freak set of results. Yes, it is unlikely but much stranger things have happen in the Premiership. I personally don’t think its nailed on certainty. If you want me to make it any more basic for you I can try and write it phonetically. Leaving aside your rather heavy-handed attempts at sarcasm, will you at least acknowledge that a key assumption in your "unlikely but easily possible" scenario - that Man C could go into the QPR game with no chance of winning the title - is simply wrong?