briny_ear

You laugh now, but I'm hedging my bets and keeping a dinghy under my bed just in case. Unlike s&c however, mine will have a lesbian-inclusive policy. 8)

They got twatted at the Albion and Ewood Park whcih would lend support to your arguments. I think we'll give pube heads side a good schillacking myself. It will certainly be the pits if MON brings a rubbish Sunderland side, that a few weeks ago was heading for relegation, to Villa Park and beats us. It would be a poignant comment on our recent history. A few weeks ago? Think you mean months. As for the Sunderland side, they're not actually that bad. Some decent players in there. Bruce is just a crap manager.OK, let's stop trading colloquial phrases. To be precise, 14 weeks ago. I can't think MON's success compared with our relative failure is made any better by the number of weeks he's been there Sunderland's 1st choice XI is decent enough but there's not much depth in the squad to cover for key injuries, as they seem to be finding at the moment. If we can't beat them at VP it will be the pits.

They got twatted at the Albion and Ewood Park whcih would lend support to your arguments. I think we'll give pube heads side a good schillacking myself. It will certainly be the pits if MON brings a rubbish Sunderland side, that a few weeks ago was heading for relegation, to Villa Park and beats us. It would be a poignant comment on our recent history.

Presumably Bannan had also been having a "harmless" beer or three when he crashed a car, under the influence of drink, at high speed, with no licence, on the M1 and ran away? I really hope the club have made clear to him he is on notice to clean up the drinking act. If not I can see this ending badly.

I doubt he does believe this but what else he could have come out and say "Nzogbia hasnt really played as well as I'd hoped." Theres no doubt had he said that someone would have picked up on his negativity or putting of someone down in public. Indeed. N'Zogbia for one would immediately be off tweeting about how unhappy he is... :winkold:

@MMFy. Just before we get too carried away, a point of information is that Gary Gardner, one of the three subs who combined for our goal against Fulham, is not as far as I know implicated in these tales of drunkeness. I hope you will withdraw that allegation. Secondly, if the behaviour described above is your idea of having an "occasional beer", I really really would not like to bump into you on a night when you were really on the lash. :winkold: (Oh, and to those explaining this as natural St Patrick's day celebrations by lads brought up in Ireland, have a thnk about the nationality of Bannan and Weimann...)

This discussion has taken an odd sort of direction now but what this shows is how MON managed to lick the squad into shape and make it more effective in his first season. That match 28 squad went on to achieve W4 D5 L1 for the rest of the season. Sure, MON had money to spend to strengthen the squad (don't recall any complaints about that at the time) but he had also brought on previously underperforming players and had found a better mix. McLeish has had a decent amount of money to spend- £3.5m on Given, £9.5m on N'Zogbia - as well as starting off with a much stronger squad, and arguably he hasn't made as much of the resources available to him as MON did. Maybe I'm wrong and maybe McLeish will end the season as strongly as MON did, in which case I will be the first to change my judgement. But as things stand, it looks as if McLeish started off with a stronger 1st XI than MON in 2006/7 (after a pre-season that MON didn't have), has been able to spend to strengthen the squad, and hasn't taken the team as far as MON did in his first season.

I think we'll beat Sunderland. The initial MON-inspired euphoria seems to have worn off a bit and they have a few injuries affecting a squad that is quite poor in the first place.

The fact that they are a tight knit group is only a positive if we see the benefits in the football they play. If they express their closeness by going out and getting pissed a lot, I regard that as a bad thing. I'm more worried at the suggestion that Weimann and Clark are part of the drinking club as I've half written Bannan off as a future Villa star but have more hopes for the other two.

"scenario". It's a nasty foreign word.

This is the bit of the argument I never can get. I don't see how we are getting into decent financial shape. We have sold off all our top stars, haven't replaced them adequately, and are changing into a mid table club with little ambition,unadventurous football, lower crowds and probably less attraction for players looking to move to premier league clubs. That may be shaping us to survive at the levels Lerner is now prepared to invest in the club but how is making our finances decent?

Not the topic of the thread, I know, but the most interesting thing about that is what you think will happen at the top. Man U to win it by 6 points? :shock: I don't think so.

Hmm. Barry on for Balotelli.

Have you ever glanced down at his sig.?What's that got to do with anything?Oh, sorry, nothing. The fact that Mark is pointing out in his sig that McLeish is as useless Houliier was obviously has nothing at all to do with a question about why he doesn't criticise McLeish the way he does Houllier! I take it you don't read Mark's post. Even he himself admits he criticised Houllier a lot more.You may not have read his post. He's saying they are equally poor but he's realised there's a deeper problem with the board of which they both Houllier and McLeish are symptoms. However, this discussion really really really should close.

Have you ever glanced down at his sig.?What's that got to do with anything?Oh, sorry, nothing. The fact that Mark is pointing out in his sig that McLeish is as useless Houliier was obviously has nothing at all to do with a question about why he doesn't criticise McLeish the way he does Houllier!

Have you ever glanced down at his sig.?

Spurs dont have a top four wage bill. Are you sure ? Even Man C want to get Adebeyor off their wage bill and players like G.Bale cant be cheap I am sure the main thing at spurs is that they have a wage cap and have done for a long time. the best thing about spurs is that their wage bill is only 46% of their revenue unlike ourselves who stupidly managed to let wages become 83% of revenue. Round and round it goes. Spurs have significantly higher income than us so that helps significantly to keep their wages to revenue ratio lower than ours as well as the wage cap. I do agree however that it was foolish bordering on reckless for Lerner to let wages get up to 83% of revenue before realising he couldn't sustain the position. Just wondering what all this has to do with McLeish? There is a separate thread on finances.

I expect that's MON's fault as well. Every other bad thing in the world is, it seems from this thread... :winkold: Hardly, all I've read is that people stating he spent a shitload of money on average players. Also, that he didnt take the Europa cup seriously. Both to which are true. Not really sure what you're on about really. Apparently he is also responsible for our performance last season and this season, a remarkable achievement considering he wasn't managing the club. :winkold:

you missed one important fact, we arent allowed to spend buckets of money because we dont have buckets of income and thats not AMC, GH, MON or randys fault... Well, I think I might blame randy just a teensy weensy bit for not spotting that as the fundamental flaw in his plan to blast us into the top 4. :winkold:

I expect that's MON's fault as well. Every other bad thing in the world is, it seems from this thread... :winkold:

Yes. He also scored one against Ghana - luckier.

I hope he can hit the ground running - very fast, because it's looking like he will be pelted with rotten eggs as soon as he takes the field. "Boo, go home you Eredivisie-winning, goal creator and scorer for the Australian national side. We don't want your scum at the mighty Villa." :winkold:

Yeh, I bet Steve Morgan is really pleased he sacked McCartthy now.

Most of those were pre war, especially with regards to the FA Cup and league. Pre-WW1 for most of them! How many do you consider to be most of them pre-WW1 then? Total league wins = 7 Pre WW1 = 6 Total F.A. Cup wins = 7 Pre WW1 = 5 Actually, 5 of the league wins and 3 cup wins were before the end of BOER WARS - the pre-First World War record looks like modern history by comparison!

Since you may not have read the full thread, let me help. The main discussion here has been about the introduction of Weimann in the 71st minute for N'Zogbia and whether Agbonlahor or Albrighton should have come off instead because they weren't playing well. I was suggesting the sub was tactical, to change the shape of the attack, so it was a question of taking off a player who wouldn't fit in with the new shape, and that was N'Zogbia. Barry's Boots didn't agree because he can't accept on principle that Alex Mcleish could possibly think tactically (at least that's what I think he was arguing). Now, as to the later substitutions, they were both tactical, i.e. not forced by injury. Bannan came on in the 82nd minute, Gardner in the 90th minute. In the 92nd minute, Bannan slotted an excellent pass through to Gardner, who shot at goal; Schwarzer fumbled it and Weimann bundled in after two attempts. If you're saying in some way the substitutes DIDN'T make a difference to this game, I am mightily puzzled, since they combined to create the only goal. I am waiting with wonderment to hear from you how the substitutes didn't make a difference...