rjshare

Carew is a special case, he even gets his song sung when he's not playing. The rest of them played in a different era for the Villa. Booing was no endemic like it is now. I remember the time when we used to cheer and sing consistently through a game, now it is sporadic at best ... but as soon as a player does something we don't like the catcalls start from the crowd. We boo all the time now and have a reputation for it. you are having a case of selective memory there. not since the holte end was standing have we sung all the way through games, and even back then people moaned about it being too quiet. i have never noticed any single player being singled out for 'booing'. (the only time it has happened is with gabby last season, and it wasnt directed at him - we all know the story and how it was mis-reported in the press.) normally if it happens its the whole team that gets booed off for playing bloody awfully like on saturday, and they fully deserved it. villa park is one of the oldest and proudest grounds in the country. it has a good capacity and is often close to being full, and yet unbelievably wigan are yet to be beaten there. for a hundred years coventry hadnt ever won there, gary lineker never scored there, it was a place that had an aura and was our own fortrtess. these days teams like wigan and middlesboro find it an easy touch. and fans boo the players?

and it will be the fans fault that we have one fit centre back to go to anfield with on monday? people like angel, mellberg, laursen, merson and even carew all praise the support they recieved from villa fans and most of those players were in pretty rubbish sides. fans tend to boo teams when they play badly, its not a new thing. if everyone cheered and applauded them for playing crap and losing there wouldnt be much incentive to play well would there? maybe the league prize money should be shared out equally amongst all twenty teams too so we dont upset the players by imposing a performance related structure onto their fragile non-competitively oriented minds...

we get seriously outplayed at home by a team who then go and get turned over at home by wolves... i cant see where any points are going to come from right now and i fear that our season already looks like spurs last year. i really really hope mon can turn this round, but i'm not convinced. it is all going to come down to how much rope lerner is prepared to give him i think.

i totally agree with that - his heading ability was brilliant and if only we had two wingers back then he would have been breaking 20 a season, every season.

i dont give a stuff about the result so i'm not going to get all p'd off about it - but that was wa nk from friedel for the goal!! he went down in slow motion and pushed it straight out into the middle of the goal - the one place you always try to avoid putting it - especially as there was a striker standing on the penalty spot!

keep him away from your missus then mate

stop getting so wound up guys - this is a practice matcb to get the players fit - we dont qualify for the chapions league by winning here!! we are playing these games purely for practice instead of going to lincoln or tamworth like last year.

does any of our team know that this is a friendly? petrov could have easily done that fellas ankle then and/or got sent off. i think that we should stick to playing walsall to get the players ready rather than playing half serious tournaments when they arent yet fully fit.

does that mean he made the shot for a score or not? should have gone for a head ball perhaps...

dont ever sell james milner, he doesnt like that. being sold makes him angry. any club that ever sells him gets immediately cursed and falls from the footballing hierarchy into financial meltdown, relegation and finally oblivion

the way it is looking right now he wont have much choice!!!

Absolute nonsense. Barry's been excellent yet again this season. Familiarity breeds contempt, so they say. Only when Barry eventually leaves will the philistines realise how important he was to the Villa. Hopefully we won't be seeing that day for a few seasons yet. if barry had been SO excellent this season then i think that this discussion would be less evenly split, and maybe he might have got the player of the year. most people forgave barry early in the season because he got back into the team, got his head down and worked hard, which ultimately got most of the fans back on his side. you can not, however, escape the fact that the second half of the season has been dreadful - yes, i know that we had key players out, and some others who played badly, but the one single player for me who stood out as being exceptionally poor was barry. he showed no fight, no desire to motivate those around him and has repeatedly disappeared in games when we needed him to stand up and be counted - and HE IS THE CAPTAIN. he has serious flaws to his game - mobility, tackling, shooting, lack of right foot etc, and has shown no signs of trying to sort them out - in any case none of his weaknessess seem to shown any signs of improving. we have had many important players over the years, but we have got over the departure of every single one of them, and we will do the same with barry

barry might score lots of brownie points for his tackiling according to opta, but petrov put more heart into that one tackle on ronaldo than barry has put in all season. statistics can prove anything - ray wilkins used to make about 400 completed passes per game, but they were never forwards or further than 5 yards. we can argue the point for ever, but i think it boils down to whether or not you want a talented but inconsistent player playing at 80% or one with less natural ability busting a gut week in week out. there is no right or wrong answer - man city have robinho who is amazingly talented but doesnt give a toss, yet middlesboro have wheater who tries his heart out for the club but is ultimately part of a defence that has got them relegated. as a fan, i know how much it would mean to be playing for the villa so i expect all of the players to give that much effort. i am possibly cutting my own nose off by wanting a good player out of the team, but barry needs to make his position clear and stop all of the disruption, therefore its petrov for me as things stand.

i cant remember one single player in the history of professional football going into the last year of his contract at a club where he wants to stay, who hasnt come out in the press and said how much he hopes he will get a new deal there as soon as possible because he loves the place and the fans, and how they have stuck by him through think and thin etc etc blah blah.... he might not want to go, but he isnt doing a great deal to give the impression he desperately wants to stay either is he? i wish we had qualified for the champs league and then sold him this summer anyway to be honest just to prove to him that he cant hold the club to ransom and the decision about whether or not he plays for villa is not his to make.

i totally agree with that thats why we have drawn more games than any other team since the premier league started and our average finish is 9th - in a word - AVERAGE

it'll cost a bit to replace him, but its not like we are planning on giving him away for nothing is it? you honestly think that mon would sell him for less than 8-10m? i think you will find that most people have given a reasoned argument based on how they see his performances ON THE PITCH - the proof being that hardly anyone has mentioned last summer in their opinions, instead they have drawn attention to the fact that barry is slow, not very good at defending, not very good at attacking, cant shoot, has no right foot and is totally devoid of any of the leadership qualities that you would expect to see in a premiership standard team captain. barry = ray wilkins for the new millenium

Opinions eh ? I don't agree with most of what you say BCV, hes a quality player and has the respect from managers in our game including Capello, O'Nell and Benetiez. If he s starting for England on a regular basis, he can't be as bad as you make out? But you are entitled to your opinion, BOF corrected your statement to a more accurate description of Gareth Barry, IMO of course. He does have a right foot, he showed this against Hull. err - in respect of getting respect from capello, o'neill and benitez, and starting a lot for england - that was the argument for signing heskey wasnt it - and just about everyody except perhaps his mum would agree that he has been wa nk for us so far. remeber - lee dixon played a lot for england, but it didnt mean he was a great player. oh yeah - and that shot against hull - well that makes two right footed shots on target from him in 10 years by my reckoning...

sorry - barry is anything BUT an offensive midfielder. his shot tonight was the first time i have seen him hit the target with his right foot in his entire villa career, and one of only about half a dozen times he has ever hit the target full stop, (except from the penalty spot). compare how many goals barry scores per season compared to other offensive midfielders ie lampard, gerard etc. gerard is the king of last minute face saving goals for liverpool, barry is the king of the "disappearing midfield when under pressure for the last ten minutes of a game" for us. i'm sorry - if i had mascherano covering my ar se, gerard winning the ball for me and torres running after every pass i played i'd look like a fookin world class central midfielder too!!!!

...and if barry was top four quality maybe the rest of the top four would be trying a bit harder to sign him...

chindie for president!! i have been saying what you wrote for ages - and i'm talking about all they way back to when he was playing on the left wing. barry is quite good at everything, but excellent at nothing at all. he has no outstanding attribute although he can do everything fairly well (except shoot or use his right foot). barry has got into the england team and is competing for a place in it against the likes of gerard, lampard and carrick. you can say what you like about those players but the undeniable fact is that they influence games in a way that barry doesnt. take tonights usual "final fifteen panic" - where was the leadership, calmness and control that barry is supposed to give us???? for me, the biggest problem facing us this summer wont be replacing barry (if he leaves) but replacing laursen - a player who really does have an influence on the rest of the team. one last point - i still believe that barry's best position is at centre half. he was great there when he was younger (in the southgate mould) and with experience, his good reading of the game would have made him a far better player than the one he has become by playing in midfield imo.

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mr t : hey jimmy i need your help, i'm going to be in a tv series where i play a hard man - but i really need a catchphrase or something jimmy m : shut up, fool

they might have laughed before the last england match, but most of the footballing world suddenly seemed to be saying that heskey is a vital piece of the machine. i think they may laugh louder if we sign crouch - we already had him once and managed to lose a stack of money on him!

That's pan-splatter material! ...and what a wonderful splatter it will be! i hope for your sakes it don't get too nervy at the end of the game...