briny_ear

Watching this match on Sky Go on an iPhone. Quite early on I lost the picture and got a message: "Quality not good enough. Please try again later."

Though it would mean we couldn't return him under the Trades Descriptions Act.

This is the way the Board spun his departure. But surely the fact that they subsequently had to pay him compensation suggests it's not that black and white?

Also, we bought him for £3.5m (not £4m as claimed) and sold him on for £4m so it was pretty good business all round.

TBF Randy has always been very quiet, no real change there. We used to hear the sound of his pen on the chequebook from time to time, though. That's the new silence that is troubling me.

I'll bet the Swiss FA are over the moon that Sion are pressing on with their action!

If I recall this right, we had Mellberg who put in a very effective shift at Right Back that season. Not sure Young was needed but was maybe the best choice available when Mellberg moved on.

This is the bit that I am not sure is so true. I have seen people on here go on an on about Faulkner, normally coupled with some pretty derogatory remarks. I have also seen people go on about how we need someone like Daniel Levy. Levy is a decent bloke, but he is Joe Lewis's man just like Paul Faulkner is Mr Lerner's man. If Randy Lerner is a crap businessman who lets things run away with themselves, and the free rein handed to O'Neill lends weight to that theory, then he made a good decision in hiring a hands on Chief Exec in Faulkner. Looking at the timing it appears that Faulkner realised that the club was being run in a kamikaze fashion, which is when the ultimately unsuccessful reining in of O'Neill started. History will never record it, but Faulkner may just be the man who saved Aston Villa from a much more serious fate. As regards Mr Lerner, he has backed his managers in the transfer market, all 3 of them. That is normally what a football supporter requires of their Chairman/Owner before anything else. Despite all of that backing, none of two previous managers have given him anything like the return that he probably deserves, and as everyone keeps bleating on, the current one probably won't either. Great post, nice to see something sensible on this thread for once. Something sensible? Really? We are supposed to believe that Lerner let MON have a free hand to spend money unchecked, then appointed a CEO who seemingly spotted this - phew, just in time! - and effectively forced MON out, Thus "saving" the club. No mention that he then appointed an out of touch manager who took us hurtling towards relegation, followed by one whose appointment has knocked about 5,000 off home gates and who has settled us in lower-mid table at best. Hmmm...forgive me for believing there are more plausible versions of events than that "sensible" one.

Except that's not completely right. Stevens's last manager was Michael O'Neill who has just left Shamrock Rovers and taken over as Northern Ireland manager. Maybe people just got the name wrong? :winkold:

Wow, I had no idea that Darlo were on the brink of bankruptcy. They have been part of the football scene for ever and it will be a loss to the North East if they go under - although atm it very much looks as if they will.

bannan albrighton clark wouldnt be at Villa if he was still here Speculation not fact. All of them got their first senior games under MON and Bannan was given a lot of chances with loans. Why have the "persistent bashers of the ghost of MON" invaded this particular thread? It must be one of the most unlikely platforms to launch a new assault on his legacy...

Well at least that brings us a little nearer reality. We already know from posts immemorial that you don't rate MON and I doubt whether anything he could ever achieve would change that. The sudden enthusiasm for Pulis did come as a bit of a shock.

People have been flooding the past few pages with facts and figures demonstrating there is a big difference in class and you still haven't explained what you base your judgement on.

Does he fook. If i remember correctly he sold most of our promising ones I think you remember falsely in that case. The young players MON sold were: Peter Whittingham Paul Green Jlloyd Samuel Stephen Henderson Steve Davis Liam Ridgewell Gary Cahill Luke Moore Sam Williams Craig Gardner Stephen O'Halloran Precisely which of those were our "most promising"? It looks like a good clear out to me. The only one who has really prospered since leaving is Cahill but he left because we couldn't/wouldn't guarantee him first team football week in, week out. I would still say he is only half decent and ready to be found out.

Aversion therapy. Stick Bent in a Liverpool shirt whilst repeatedly electrocuting him (non-lethal voltage, of course). Play "You'll Never Walk Alone" whilst his eyes are strapped open and he's forced to watch footage of World War II. Of course, this might mean he'll never be able to play against Liverpool for us again, but it'd at least be worth the entertainment to see the OS list Bent as "out with a funny gulliver-related injury".

agree but sadly thousands of morons/liverpool fans will buy this hook line and sinker Indeed. I heard some clown of a Liverpool fan arguing long and hard on 606 on New Year's Eve that the FA had disrespected the entire body of Liverpool supporters by refusing to accept Suarez's story.

See, I don't believe for a minute that the term "negro" isn't offensive in Uruguay. BUT, if Suarez is actually right here, someone SERIOUSLY needs to explain to him - and anyone else from Uruguay who intends ever to travel outside their own country - that using the term "negro" to a black person ANYWHERE ELSE IN THE WORLD, in any other country or culture, is very likely to be deeply offensive and inflammatory. I can't believe no-one from Uruguay has discovered this and passed the word back home. Is Suarez the first one they've ever let out?

Why do people think that 6th (3 times on the trot) was such a terrible failure? David Moyes probably would have done, as he looked down each year. But then he was probably wondering what he could have achieved with the incredible backing that the bloke who could never get past him had. 3 consecutive 5th place finishes with incredibly low resources was the true achievement of that period. Maybe it would have been if he'd achieved it but he never has had three consecutive 5th placed finishes with Everton! Everton finished below us in 2009-10, the season of our third consecutive 6th place. As did Liverpool. In that season, only Chelsea, Man U, Arsenal, Spurs and Man C were better than Villa. I don't really feel the need to apologise for that performance. EDIT (None of that of course is to deny view that we should have gone for Moyes as manager after MON left. We don't really seem to have tried too hard. Shame.)

Also the defensive lapses...Aaaargh!

So if you have a different opinion you must have "an agenda"? Grow up. I'll thank you to not resort to insults No people can have a different opinion as much as they like, and expect to demonstrate that opinion without being insulted. However, there is clearly an anti MON stance on here which is trying to be defended in the faceof facts. A defence which is also reverting to saying Pullis is a better manager, clearly not taking into account the factsof the case That for me is an agenda, not a difference of opinion. I think there is also a pro-MON stance on here, depending who you talk to. I don't rate MON. That isn't a fact it's just my opinion. I didn't "revert" to saying Pulis is better, I just rate Pulis more. Please explain how rating one manager over another counts as having an agenda? Pulis has a far worse track record as a manager than MON, so the puzzle about exactly on what basis you rate him higher is still there.

McLeish has had all the time in the world to get the team right and yet he's still messing about. An example is Clark was sitting on the bench for the majority of the season so far and now he's starting. Same with Ireland. What was using Heskey in midfield exactly about? This should have been all addressed in the beginning. Think you forgot to mention that Houllier was a clueless manager who variously confused, alienated and demotivated a lot of the squad. But that's by the by really as we are not much better off this season.

Eck is short for Alex. It's no more a "shit" word than, say, "Bill" is as a short version of William.

I suppose it would be churlish to point out that Villa were doing worse than SHA at this stage last season with a much better squad than we have now. So another way of putting this is to say he has got Villa performing better with a worse squad...

Is he the type to know 'stuff'? No never, but he is also one of these guys who isnt into all this gossip stuff usually and dont even go online. Deacy, yeh bizzare post I know. So he got all serious but didn't actually tell you anything? Not quite sure what we're supposed to make of this.

Why do people think that 6th (3 times on the trot) was such a terrible failure?