El-Reacho

I wonder does he even speak english? Hopefully this will be good news for us. Hard to say what way it will go but hopefully there'll be some bad feeling toward the club by the players which will take its toll on results.

Southampton news is great for us. Why on earth would they sack Adkins - he's the man behind their success to date. I fully expected them to pull away from the relegation zone but they've taken a huge gamble now. Don't no much about Pochettino - he'd a good couple of seasons as a CB with Heinze at PSG.

“I think Darren came in and the lad Makoun didn’t he? No, absolutely not a chance. “We’re trying to do something within the structure of the club, but we won’t be able to do that.” Lambert spent £20 million on signings last summer and asked if he knew about the financial conditions he would be working with, he replied: “I get on really well with Randy. “He really has been great with me. “I understand where he’s coming from on a lot of things and it is what it is. “I’ll work with it, and if I’ve got to go with the group I’ve got then I’ll go with it. I don’t have a problem, I’ve got nothing but prauise for these lads. “They give me everything they’ve got. Yes, I’d like one or two more results to get us out that bottom end. I’d like to get to a cup final and those sort of fans like every Villa fan would. ”Lambert was reluctant to divulge any details of his confidential conversations with Lerner. He added: Randy’s been great with me, I can’t ask for any more from him. We’ll wait and see. “I think the conversation between me and him is private, I’m not going to tell you what happened and that’s no disrespect to you, but it’s a privatre thing.” Why would he come out this morning and say this if RL has moved the goal posts on him. He knows rightly we need players to stay up I'm sure he's said as much in the last few weeks. Now Lerner is happy to roll the dice on our premier league status? Why would he cover for him? Think the club are feeding the press, clubs, agents, and players a story here.

Given our current predicament in the league, and the fact that two of our highest earners (Dunne and Warnock) are gone in June don't you think the club would bend the rules slightly this time?

One reason? Could an alternative reason be that RL and PF are haggling? There's still 12 days left of the window. The story so far is that PL has given RL the list of players that he wants. Firstly why would Lerner even accept this list if there was no money? Then Lerner has gone and tried to negotiate with these players' agents. Again why would he do this if there was no money. After hearing their terms he was withdrawn the funding? Perhaps he is now waiting for them to come back to him with revised terms after seeing his reaction. Playing hard ball and all that? Perhaps he's spreading the rumours that there's no money so that clubs won't think we're desperate to get anyone in to save the club from relegation and bend us over a barrel. Also nearly all of the players PL has signed so far have been 'privileged' to sign for Villa rather than vice versa (I know this sounds quite arrogant as fan when we've currently don't have a big pile to be arrogant about), as in it was by far and away the best move the could possibly have imagined at this stage in their careers. Therefore the players on PL's list are more likely to be very keen to come here which again puts RL in a position of strength, allowing him to play the waiting game. I see where you are coming from , but do you honestly think it's the only reason this could have happened?

Enda would have been perfect for the left wing back role in the 532 we played before Christmas. He has a good cross - much better than Lichaj.

Jeez you can't win: When they don't come out and back the manager it's cos all the players hate him. When they do come out and back him they're just towing the party line....

Class.

Probably already been suggested but this guy's available on a free? http://goo.gl/mF5Ll

He's no athlete - so shouldn't take him too long to get up to his level of match fitness ;-) Back for WBA game?

http://goo.gl/DAVSE Interesting article about how leaderless we are in a footballing sense. I know people on here have raised issues as to how reliable this guy is (the journalist). Quite interesting that he says O'Neill spent £20m more than was agreed with Randy. Did he actually give O'Neill his account details? Seems incredible - especially when the last £20m O'Neill spent at Villa would have been Dunne, Warnock, and Collins. He clearly blew his budget before he even looked at replacing the back 4 - hence the overspend.

The wind will change. The one blessing is that it's still only January. We can rebuild our confidence with a goal or two and an addition or two and we'll slowly drag ourselves out of this.

Begs the question - Is Lambert here because he knows what the future holds? Just like O'Neill joined the club under Ellis when he knew what was on the cards. I love a good conspiracy theory.

Suede released their new single on Monday - not a great day to do it admittedly; they obviously didn't realise Bowie was releasing his. It's on thier website. It's no Wild Ones.

^ Saw them support Suede way back when. Must be more than 10 years ago now? Great singer.

Boeing 737 - Low Anthem. Brilliant.

Giro to start in Belfast (my back garden) in 2014 - heads to Dublin (Pat McQuaid's son's back garden coincidentally) on stage one. My favourite race - should be fun! I'm sure Contador, Hesjedal, Wiggo et al will be delighted about this when they see the current news.

Thank. ****.

FIFA 2013.

Perhaps PL wanted Dale Stephens plus a defensive midfielder with premier league experience and has now been forced to choose one or the other due to RL's turning off of the taps.

Why have four successive Villa managers (including the one who scouted him and subsequently bought him) played him in that position then? He also played there when he returned to Leeds on loan IIRC. Surely he's bound to have mentioned to someone along the way that he's an attacking winger if that's were he's at his best. That could solve a problem area for us in itself.

Hendrie scored a few screamers in his time IIRC.

Any estimates as to what the proposed fee and wages might be?

Am hoping Vlaar and Dunne will suddenly be fit in the same way as Zog, Bent , and Gabby were last week. Those two are probably more important to us now than anyone we're likely to sign. Zog showed glimpses in his last two games that he can offer something - hopefully he can give us a strong finish to the season.

Wow - that's all we need? Hope somebody mentions this to PL. Maybe Lerner's of this belief too - hence no money for players. Just get a defensive coach instead.