briny_ear

Quite right, Richard. If you go back to page 1 of this thread - only about 16 months ago - people were generally leaping up and down with excitement at the thought of him coming back from injury. The main dispute was whether he was the natural replacement for Petrov or Milner. So it's lazy thinking now just to add him to a list of "MON failures".

Eh? Most of his passes that night were first time passes. If you have time on the ball you tend to take more touches. Aint rocket science. So stop making shit up. One thing that rarely seems to get mentioned in relation to this Man U match is that we lost 1-3. So, whatever Makoun did or didn't do in the match, it was an utter failure in terms of the objective of winning it.

So would most of our opponents, I imagine!

No, this would happen at virtually every club in Britain. Its called having a scapegoat. BTW where does that expression come from? It's actually the Old Testament - Leviticus Ch 16 v8. This chapter involves doing a number if horrid things to animals to atone for man's sins. The goat gets off quite lightly - just gets sent off to wander in the desert. The ram and the bullock come to more grisly ends.

Hmmm. On page 1 you said Since your hatred for him is, supposedly, purely about football, can you explain exactly how his alleged "big nose" impacts on his ability?

I find it impossible to imagine how anyone could "hate" Marc Albrighton. He strikes me as a very decent, grounded sort of bloke, who loves Villa, works hard to improve his game and wouldn't say a cross word to anyone ever. He still has some flaws to his game but he has shown us enough this season to make it worth sticking with him and supporting him in his own ambition to play regularly for the Villa and improve his game. Hatred is such an ugly emotion. I urge you to desist.

where did i say or imply that at all? im saying that moyes isn't a particularly good manager i dont get this why is he held up in such high regard? everton fans are getting sick of him, they list plenty of major issues with him, which are fairly apparent. for all his alleged talents, he's a point ahead of a villa team that plenty on here reckon are relegation fodder with the worst manager in the league. how does that make moyes a good manager? 5 top 8 finishes in a row without a pot to piss in, also a 4th place finish and champions league qualifaction again wthout a pot to piss in and team that lacks a goalscorer but cant afford to buy one if moyes had been able to spend the amount of money we have spent in the last 10 years I think you would find Everton would be finishing higher than 8th every year I'm not disagreeing that Moyes has done a good job at Everton with the resources available to him (and, if our Board had half a clue about how to attract a decent manager to the club, I would have welcomed him here with open arms). But let's not get too carried away about how little he's had to spend. According to the Transfer League web site, Everton spent £106m between 2003 and 2011, £65m of that since 2007. That's a lot less than was spent at Villa - and a lot less net because they benefited from the sale of Rooney and Lescott - but we shouldn't get too hooked on this image of Moyes managing the club on a shoestring. Most other premier league managers would have killed for that sort of budget. It's not like we've seen him shuffling around singing "Buddy, can you spare a dime?"

If the club took the Liverpool stance their press release might sound a little odd... "Aston Villa Football Club are hugely disappointed with the news that Barry Bannan has received an 18-month driving ban following an incident in which he allegedly crashed into a barrier on the M1 near Watnall, Nottinghamshire on the 23rd of October while under the influence of alcohol. "The club finds it astonishing that the courts have completely dismissed Barry's testimony as fiction while simultaneously accepting as fact the unsupported claims of the barrier in question, especially when one considers the fact that said barrier has proven himself to be an unreliable witness in previous cases of this nature. The notion that Barry has some kind of problem with barriers is ridiculous; he has worked with barrier charities in the past and his own grandfather was a barrier. Incidentally, Barry himself suffered injury at the hands of Mr Barrier but declined to mention it in his hearing - he's cool like that. "Furthermore, the club is dumbfounded that the courts failed to take into account Barry's cultural background when passing judgment on his actions. If this incident occurred in his home country, Barry's behaviour would not be considered offensive or damaging in any way, shape or form. Barry grew up in Scotland where driving under the influence of alcohol is common practice. "We urge all Aston Villa supporters to rally around Barry at this difficult time." *Limited edition 'Give Baz his wheels back' t-shirts will be available in the club shop prior to our next home game. Free bottle of whiskey with each purchase. Brilliant!

You mean people! So Iwas the only person on Villatalk who wished him happy birthday yesterday!

Exactly. I think that was where my comment about scouting came in the first place. People were praising Newcastle's squad and manager and I said "don't forget the scouting!"

Houllier could have signed Cabaye for £4m. The board vetoed it. Even if this is true, it's not really relevant to the point I was making about Newcastle having a better scouting set up than Villa. They have recruited many more good young players as well as Cabaye. They don't rely just on the personal knowledge and contacts of a particular manager. (In any event, if Cabaye had come to Villa there is no guarantee he wouldn't have been as big a flop as Makoun and by now be out on loan somewhere in Southern Europe.)

Community punishment? Can't wait to see 'Awwy in a luminous orange overall sweeping excrement away with a broom....

This made me chuckle Happy Birthday, big man!

Whether life in London seems to be shit or otherwise to Villatalk posters is hardly the point. To a footballer it is going to be pretty much paradise with all the celebrity culture, clubbing, etc., happening all around you. I'm afraid Bham just can't compete (anyway, does Bent actually live in Bham?)

Nonsense. When it comes to football "rumours" The Guardian and Telegraph are usually spot on. They don't print random bollocks with no substance like The Mirror, Daily Star or The Sun. There were some stats on here a while ago comparing how true each paper's rumours were. The broadsheets performed slightly better than the tabloids IIRC but were still wrong most of the time. Can anyone link me to the stats? I think it may have been these

^^^Maybe we should get some t-shirts printed for the players...

The other thing that seems pretty clear is that there were differences between Lerner/Faulkner and O'Neill over transfer policy. These rumbled on all summer and it's a pity they were not brought to a head at the beginning of the summer rather than leaving it until the last minute.

So all the papers just happened to invent the same story using the same names at the same time? Remarkable coincidence...!

It's just what the papers are saying, e.g. Guardian Mirror Express Telegraph Someone has been briefing the press and I guess there must be some substance to it.

Hmmm. Hughes is interviewed for job. Hughes takes job having received assurances about money available. Briefing starts that Bent is a target for Hughes. It seems pretty certain he has the cash to buy Bent if we want to sell him.

They have a chequebook chairman.

Here we go...

Newcastle's success in finding players such as Cabye and Tiote is also due to the scouting network they set up in the wake of Dennis Wise's departure. Sensible Geordie fans value the work of Graham Carr and his team very highly and he himself says he has a longstanding and detailed knowledge of French football while other members of the team concentrate on Scandinavia and Eastern Europe. This is something we haven't really tackled in my view. We had a lot of noise from Houllier about how he would tackle scouting at Villa but he appointed Jeff Vetere, whose departure from Newcastle is actually seen as the start of their improved scouting operation, and who in any case buggered off to Crystal Palace very quickly. I have no idea what our scouting operation is like now but the purchases made since McLeish came in suggest we haven't achieved much international reach yet (or even much within the UK, some might say). It's essential that we tackle this if we are to survive as a lower wage club living within its means.

What they show of MON is very dull compared with the shots they catch of some other managers...

I fancy a quantity of Newkie Broon had passed Llambias's lips before he gave that interview!