PauloBarnesi

Ridge for me.

Things are better in some ways this season, worse in others, though the general feeling is that we have more cause for optimism than pessimism. Generally I think we are a harder team to beat, and in some ways a more consistent team. This isn’t a fantastic thing as we seem to draw alot, we should have won three or four more games at home.

I ve seen the team more times than last year; I ve seen an impressive display; West Ham (A). Some ok displays; Charlton (H). Some typically medicore Villa performances; Watford (H), Fulham (A) and some god damm awful performances; Charlton (A). But nothing compares to the nadir of Arsenal (A) last year. That is the worse I have ever seen Villa. Much much worse than the so called worse Villa manager of the last ten years (Yes GTII) ever put out.

Moore clearly has pissed off MON big time.

I thought Lita did well in the second half. R-C passed me by.

We were infront of Gary Cahill’s mates/family in one of the boxes who kept on cheering him on!

I think everyone on this forum has lost it...the ongoing excitement about getting more and more strikers..........i'm not saying we might not need improvement in that area..but that is the least of our worries at the moment...spend the money on the mid field.........Right Back....maybe centre back.....how many stikers do u all need......we could have drogba as our striker now and we would be in the same predicament..are u all blind?????

Everyone? I think saying everyone has lost it and saying everyone is blind is a bit strange myself.

Tottenham put in an offer for 10.5 million in the transfer window which was rejected; I just can’t see Villa paying more than that even with all of Randy’s cash. I see other priorities

--------------Sorenson--------------

M. Richards --- Mellberg - Curtis Davies --- Bouma

------ Sidwell ------ Reo Coker-----Barry-----

Shaun WP----------------------------------Young

-----------------------Carew --------------------

That's all fine except Micah. Forget about him. He's going up, not sideways (we've had the Man City debate before, they wouldn't come here).

People may already know this but I only just found out that Micah Richards is a Villa fan. With the right level of investment and demonstration of ambition it is not wholly unthinkable.

Haven’t we found out that despite being born in Birmingham he’s not a Villa fan?

Its actually the fictional character...

Awesome

Green? No thanks

You know it's funny, i remember a young French lad who came to the premiership and was written off as "not good enough", then he joined a championship side and scored 30 odd goals and was the main man in his teams title win, then he came back to the prem and set it on fire and earned a transfer to the team who is top of the league right now, what's his name?, oh yeah that's right it's LUISE SAHA ,

Quite a similar thing happening to Michael Chopra right now too after being let go by the same Prem team.

People seem not to be follow; Saha was not let go by Newcastle. He was on loan. They couldn’t afford the fee at the time. He latterly joined Fulham. Newcastle would have signed him if they could have

The preserve paint work on cars charity? The Golf Buggy preservation league?

No. I would rather go to a Bosko Balaban testimonial. Give the guy a break? He’s had more breaks than anyone; he’s the only one to blame for his career ‘failing’

You know it's funny, i remember a young French lad who came to the premiership and was written off as "not good enough", then he joined a championship side and scored 30 odd goals and was the main man in his teams title win, then he came back to the prem and set it on fire and earned a transfer to the team who is top of the league right now, what's his name?, oh yeah that's right it's LUISE SAHA ,

Newcastle wanted to sign him; they didn’t have the money.

Born and bred Boro

I just feel if we want to be competiting with the top four then we need to be getting better forwards than Robbie Keane. At club level in nearly eight years playing at the top level he just doesn’t seem to score that many goals, and few against the top teams; I think twice against Arsenal and once against Chelsea (pre-Roman). Maybe I am expecting too much, but I want to see a player who can do more? I am hoping with I S-M going abroad we will turn up some world class player?!?

Excellent piece Peter. I ve heard a rumour that there might be a compendium of your pieces to be published by VT publishing for Christmas 2007 with a foreward by John Cresswell and the working title is ‘Blandy’s Best Bits’?

General

I presume that Randy and your goodself are friends with a large number of great American sportsmen; will we be getting any more sports stars down Villa Park?

Archie Hunter

I guess Cov fans hate Villa because its a general thing of the city of Coventry. They feel in the shadow of the larger metropolis.

come on who clicked Warsaw?

Someone who doesn’t like Joy Division

The Walsall was a joke...

I was reading this the morning:

The Guardian

The only certainty is Wolves hate us more than anyone

Adrian Chiles explains the complexities of the very bitter rivalry between West Brom and Wolves.

Guardian Unlimited

January 27, 2007 12:00 AM

I'm not sure how you measure the hatred between clubs but, put it like this, I'm not going to Molineux tomorrow. I'm not saying that my life would be in danger - I know a lot of Wolves fans and every single one of them is a decent person - but I'm recognisably an Albion fan in what will be a hostile environment. I couldn't face the stick if we lost when walking away from the ground and I wouldn't feel particularly comfortable there.

What makes local derbies like this more intense is when they become rare, which is what has happened with Wolves and Albion in recent times. Five years ago we were playing league games year in year out so, inevitably, there's no novelty value. Until this autumn (3-0 to us, since you ask) we had not met for four years so, although we've still hated each other throughout that period, we haven't had the chance to vent that hate in a derby. It's for the same reason that Birmingham v Villa was so apocalyptic when the Blues first got promoted.

West Midlands rivalries are quite complex. The only certainties are that Wolves hate us more than anyone and Blues hate the Villa more than anyone. We hate the Wolves but we also hate Villa. And there are Villa fans who hate us more than they hate the Blues. As for Blues and Albion, while we have had our dust-ups, you get the sense that we're rather fond of each other; perhaps united in hatred for a common foe. On survival Sunday in May 2005, when they announced at St Andrew's that Albion stayed up, a ripple of applause went round the ground. If they had announced Villa had been relegated there would have been street parties.

Derby County, Nottingham Forest and Leicester City are off the radar because we're so busy with our own enmities in the West Midlands that we don't really have time to worry about those clubs out east.

When Wolves were really struggling in the 1980s, when they were relegated to the old Fourth Division, I enjoyed their misery for a while but then it just got too serious. Schadenfreude is schadenfreude but I recall thinking: "This is getting a bit ridiculous, they're going to go out of business if we are not careful."

I'm not one of those people that will stand up when they sing "Stand up if you hate the Wolves" because I just don't care enough, although I've got to say that the 2001-02 season lives long in the memory. Many Wolves fans will go to their graves still traumatised by that season. They were 11 points ahead with two months to go and somehow we overtook them and went up at their expense. There's a lot of hurt festering there.

Then again we could argue that winning promotion that season was just repayment for us for 1954 when we won the FA Cup and finished runners-up in the league to Wolves. That hurt my dad and my grandad a lot but I still believe we are going to be made to suffer for what happened five years ago. It might be this season. Wolves owe us one - they haven't beaten us for ages - and they can have this one as long as they let us win in the league.

I've asked a few fans this and I haven't got a straight answer but I would swap a win against Wolves for three points against Plymouth on Wednesday. For some fans beating Wolves is more important than where we finish in the table but it's all about promotion for me.

Perhaps they'll beat us in the play-off final in May which, unlike losing tomorrow, doesn't bear thinking about.

So who do you most dislike? I can’t honestly say I know that many Villa fans who dislike any one more intensely than SHA

Sidwell said

Royals midfielder Steve Sidwell said: "Ulises impressed everyone with his goal and the build-up.

"We have sent a copy of the goal to Villa because that is why they signed him. But he never really did it there.

"We have a lot of banter with him about that but he is a great lad."

http://www.tribalfootball.com/article.php?id=26233

I am not sure why he said it.

Sidwell. He’s been baiting Villa today hasn’t he; saying he was going to send us a video of UDLC goal, because he never did that thing for us...