Villarocker

What this needs is a Poll. Who is going to take the plunge and create a poll asking who thinks we should take £30m or more for Milner, and who thinks we should turn down full stop?

Personally, I wouldn't get Bent for all the money in the world!! What if we throw in Beye and Heskey as part of the deal?? :winkold:

Outs would be: Harewood (free) - doesn't need replacing as The Fonz is 4th choice. Bouma (free) - doesn't need replacing as O'Halloran is back from injury. Beye (£2m) - doesn't need replacing as L Young can cover both ful back positions. Davies (£8m) - doesn't need replacing as we can promote Ciaran Clark to 4th choice CB. Sidwell (£4m) - needs replacing NRC (£4m) - needs replacing Heskey (£2.5m) - needs replacing That lot brings in around £20.5m I would then hope for us to try and get Bent (£18m) - replacement for Heskey but will start. Van Der Vaart (£9m) - replacement for Sidwell but would start Parker (£8m) - replacement for NRC but would start more in rotation with Petrov as holding CM. Play a 4-3-3 formation with The usual suspects in defence with a midfield of Parker, Milner & VDV. The 3 up top would be Gabby, Ash & Bent. Alternatively, I can see MON going for Robbie Keane or Carlton Cole and offloading Carew. This might be ok with some but I am not too sure that Cole or Keane would score as many goals for us as Carew has this season. Maybe they would get more, who knows?

I thought we allowed them too much time on the ball yesterday. They got stuck into our players, which they obviously have to do due to lack of quality, and made us realise we were in a game. We definitely had the better of the first half but I think they tried to grow some balls after the break and thought they could actually win it, which, to be honest, meant that they had more of the game second half. Friedel was awesome and so were our back four. I thought that we could and should have got Ash and Jimmy in the game more. Having said all of that, we showed that we have the bottle and the grit and determination to grind out results, which was really pleasing and fills me with hope for the future. I just watched the pen back and the ref definitely got it right. Gabby would have been onto the loose ball, with a shooting opportunity, had he not been brought down by Johnson. He clearly got some of the ball but not enought to have cleared the danger and therefore it had to be a pen as Gabby had no chance of getting to the ball after the challenge.

Hi General, Thanks for your reply to my questions regarding Jimmy Milner. I had the feeling you would say something along those lines but to say you would probably have worked under his command is big praise for the man indeed. I hope Jimmy leads us to a big win over the local "enemy" tomorrow! :winkold: Can I just second what Shortie said. I think it would be great if the men and women of the armed forces were able to purchase tickets for big games, without having to meet certain requirements, whilst they are in service. Like Shortie says, they are often moved around and find it difficult to get to games via usual regulations, being a STH or having been to "x" amount of game etc. It's a small gesture from our club for a very big service that these brave folks give to all of us. I would be surprised if people moaned about this as it is such a special circumstance and one that many of us wouldn't want to have to experience ourselves. Keep up the good work General and enjoy the game tomorrow. I have a feeling it's going to be a glorious day for AVFC

Hi General, I like the way you say "let's just beat the Blues and take on the next challenge" A couple of questions for you, Would you like to have had Jimmy Milner as a serviceman under your command in the Marines? And, what rank do you think Jimmy could have made, if he was indeed a Marine? I know those questions are hypothetical but the guy seems to be brave as a lion on the football field. Enjoy the weekend and turn the volume up General, it's going to be loud on Sunday! Up The Villa

I sincerely hope that Sidwell is one of those players departing in the summer. I just don't think he has produced anything for us since he has been here. And please don't say he has been sub most of the time because the fact he is only a sub is because the guy just is not good enough. I reckon we should pack him off to West ham with a few mill and get Scott Parker in.

Right now we are just strolling through the game. maybe it's a case of holding something in reserve for Sunday but let's not take our eye of tonight's game and make sure we get this won.

The usual after we have scored, for some reason... its called a game of football. its what happens. especially when one team are fighting for their lives. deary me It happens quite often actually, even when we aren't playing a team fighting for their lives. Deary me. Is it that or is it the fact that we take our foot off the pedal and concede easy ground for teams to play in?

What a sitter that was. Why do we still manage to give such easy chances to such shit teams? Villa should kill these off 'cos they are shockingly poor. Let's not make it a nail biting finish yet again lads - PLEASE!! :shock:

Gabby's up for it 'cos he wants to get some shooting practise in before he plays the scum on Sunday

Some decent players there who would definetly improve our squad but none would actually replace Young and Milner so IMO would put us in a worse position. Yeah, good point, but we have Albrighton comin through and Downing could play on the left. Thats my thinkin anyway. So a team of.. Freidal Richards Dunne Cuellar Warnock Albrighton Boateng(Portsmouth) Ireland Downing Berbatov Gabby with Petrov and Big John to come on as first change with also Fonzy and Delph(when fit) behind them would give us good options. Can't see the likes of Coker, Luke Young, Heskey, Beye and Sidwell stayin if they aren't gettin a game, so we'll probably need one or two more signings in the summer as well. I suppose it really depends on if we are playin in Europe next season, which might make a difference to those players stayin or not. Sorry but there is no F+$%*ng way I want to see Berbatov down Villa Park in place of Young, Milner or even Gabby. He would be taking a big step down (for him) from man Utd and if he can't play like he is arsed for them, how much effort would he put in for us?

Come on guy's, give the General a break for god's sake! Villa have a way of doing things and let's just leave them to get on with running the club instead of giving the press something to talk about. If MON goes then he goes. I am sure that Randy would do everything to keep him here if he thought he was STILL the right man for the job. If he couldn't then surely we trust Randy enough to bring in the next RIGHT man for the Villa! Now for my question to keep in line with the rules General. Are we going to be selling our best players in the summer? ONLY KIDDING General!! Seriously, do you think that all of this malarkey regarding MON is because the fans of the "sky 4" in the press are worried about how close we are getting to upsetting their annual success story? I mean, do you think they are showing signs of accepting the fact that Villa are getting closer than ever and are worried that, if not this season, MON will get us there next season for sure? I am sick of all of the negativity about our team in the press and all of the bad refereeing decisions that we seem to have been getting lately. I seriously think we could have a lot of folks running scared and this is another step in trying to stop the Villa bandwagon rolling on. I worry about our players maybe getting cherry-picked by the likes of Utd or Chelsea in the summer. I also worry about MOn and whether he can learn from the things we think he does wrong. But, we have a great chairman and he can't be blind to what goes on so let's stick behind Randy and his gang and back them to make sure that everything is rosey for the Villa future. Whatever this season brings, I believe next season will be better.

Sorry if someone else has mentioned what i am about to say, I couldn't be arsed to trawl through the 14 or 15 pages prior to typing this! I like MON and there is no doubt we have improved on what he inherited 4 years ago. However, as mentioned already, he has spent quite a considerable amount of money to move us up the table. We got there having spent a lot and then he maintained that position having spent another lot of money. If, we fail to finish above 6th then surely you have to wonder how long Randy Lerner will continue to throw £30m into the transfer kitty, season after season, just to stay in the same place, without winning anything. With the above in mind, it may be fair to assume that Randy would tell MON that there isn't going to be as much money to spend this summer, as there has been in the previous three summer's. Now it's time to put yourself in MON's position. Would you really want to start dismantling a side you built, to raise funds for further transfers and having to start afresh, in a bid to try and break into that elusive top 4? I am not saying that he will walk or that the cash won't be there for MON in the summer. I am merely saying that it is possible that these things could happen given the fact we could finish in a position that may only be equal, or even lower, than we have finished in the previous two seasons.

Just wear your trousers low and a hat backwards and you'll be sweeeeeet And start shottin crack Now, I have no idea at all what you mean lol Thats racist :shock:

Black people call each other nigger's all of the time to sell records but that isn't classed as racist is it? I hate the word personally but it seems that whenever a non-white person says it, it is classed as ok, but whenever a white person says it they are classed as a racist and that doesn't seem fair to me.

I like MON but, are you telling me that David Moyes wouldn't have us in at least the same position we are today if he managed us from the day Randy Lerner took charge?

I think it is totally disrespectful of you to call Big Ron a "racist pensioner". The guy played a lot of black players during his time at Villa and shouldn't be judged by remarks made off-air during another team's game!

7 **** 1 says it all Mantis! As much as I enjoyed beating them 2-1 at Villa Park, i would rather have drawn that game 1-1 and lost 3-0 today than to suffer such a humiliation today! Can you seriously see us finishing in the top 7 after today's performance?

hear hear...this thread is utter bollocks....in fact its so much bollocks its double bollocks... .....he will walk away....then after two months all the moaners will be saying ''what a top manager Martin was'' ....love him or lose him....... I love him but I also love my club and it's been a long time since I saw us lose 7-1 to a team made out of half a dozen reserves! The facts tell the full story and if Villa finish outside of the top 7 then MON has a lot to answer for! If we finish outside of 7th then we have gone backwards and MON surely has to face the music for such a poor finish, yet again?

I would imagine that there is only one other manager that we would approach and that is David Moyes. He has over-achieved season after season and is by far the best out there to make Villa top four contenders.

Apart from the fact I love Villa and want us to win the semi final because I am going; I want us to get to the final because i can't stand the thought of it being an all-London wankfest for the papers and the sports channels. I hope, for the good of the game, that Villa and Pompey contest the final.

Watching the Wolves game too. How the hell was that not a penalty in the first half? Dowd was looking straight at it with a perfect view but still managed to keep his composure and remain clearing in the woods enough not to give a pen.

I totally agree with this post. Bent has proven he can score goals in the Premier League and for teams who possibly haven't had as many quality attacking players as Villa have at the moment. I know he was at a decent Spurs side but he never really got a consistent run of games there. I would offer them £12-15m plus Heskey for him, unless we play European footie next season, in which case I would keep Heskey as 4th choice striker. Going for an unproven foreign player would too big a risk at the moment, especially with the wages that a player like that would demand.

I think it's pretty **** obvious that all premiership refs want the top 4 to finish the same as it usually does and they doing their best not to give us anything. It makes you wonder just what kind of "favours" the sky 4 players do for these refs. Or, do the refs gamble their £1000 per game fee on the top 4 being the same each **** year!