heystally!

I'm with you, and being an optimist and reading way too deep into this statement no doubt. Shame he never said "It wasn't Man City, Utd, or Chelsea's team, only Villa." We can but hope! Surely he was on the Villa team with Heskey and Warnock, against Stevie G, Carra and Johnson. Spurs would have had 4 players and still lost. But the big question is" Who's team was J. Cole on? No doubt he would have been on the Villa team. But he could have just said that. But he chose to say "Not on the Man City team". To me that is halting a rumour. But to others it'll just be a calming response to a stupid question from some journo trying to stir things up.

Don't know if this has been posted, but I read today in the Mirror's World Cup pullout that the England squad had an impromptu quiz in teams, as well as the backroom staff, to boost morale before the Slovenia game. Milner claimed the team made up of Liverpool players won thanks to Carra, but I found the last quote interesting. No doubt people will say "well that means nothing" but I'm gonna be the optimist: "With his own club future uncertain, Milner saw the funny side when asked which side he was on. "It wasn't the Man City team" he replied, smiling broadly."

Droitwich and proud.

Went to see Frank Turner on Monday in Wolverhampton. Awesome performance. Played a fair amount of stuff from all four of his albums, got the whole crowd singing along for most of the night, and finishing with Photosynthesis was just amazing, such a great singalong tune. Very very worth going to see, he's touring in March. Playing Brum I believe.

Hi General, Please thank everyone involved in the organisation of the free travel for fans for the Sunderland trip. I was already going to the game, and planning on driving it myself. As you can imagine, a four-hour drive on one of Britain's busiest roads, with another four-hour trip back in the early hours is not the most enjoyable experience, but I was willing to do it to cheer on the boys. But now I have booked the free travel and it is going to make the experience so much easier and therefore more enjoyable. So thank you very much for what is yet another great gesture from the Villa board. Best wishes.

Had already got a ticket and was planning to drive up. Saw this and got myself on the free travel now too. Fantastic gesture from the club. Hopefully it'll get more people going too.

Scrap the dugouts, have everyone standing around, on either side of the field, like in the NFL. No chance of the players getting comfy then, they'll be raring to get out there.

But which is which?

Awwww, is Petr Cech bitter at all? Poor boy. Sky Sports You'd have definitely caught it Petr? Like you caught that cross at Stoke which you completely **** up? I actually hope Carew did foul him. Would make the goal even sweeter.

Rio is going to be playing regularly for Man Utd bar injury. Of course he'll be a shoe-in for first team national football.

By the way, did no one else think that Cuellar had an absolutely **** awful first half? I thought he was going to be subbed off for Beye at halftime. Glad he stepped it up second half but still cannot wait for Luke Young to get back.

The penalty was absolutely stonewall. Gabby was about to hit a right foot volley, with Bosingwa on his left. Bosingwa had hold of his shirt, and tried to swing his right leg around Gabby to get the ball, completely missed it and dragged Gabby to the floor. The ref was blatantly starstruck by the occasion. It was his third Prem game (the others being Wolves v Fulham, and Burnley v Blues). He saw the big, beautiful boys of Chelsea, and thought "If I don't give them easy decisions, I'll get criticised, and I want to start refereeing bigger games". Gave them everything.

This is gonna be fun! Sleepers it'll be then as that seems to be the consensus on here so far. Will probably be there hours in advance to avoid the inevitable traffic on the East Coast.

Lovely to see people near me shouting "No Heskey!" before he came on. Please contract aids and go **** yourselves. He was wanted here by the manager, he wants to play football, what's wrong with that? Just because you don't think he's good enough, don't blame him. Surely it's the manager's fault for buying and playing him? And after missing a flick on and knocking the ball out trying to take on a player, he not only charged down a shot to give us that extra bit of comfort when Chelsea could have gone on and scored in that last minute, but he gave John Terry a knock in the head. Surely that deserves praise alone! Get behind the team you dickheads. We're beating Chelsea at home, the last thing we need is people singling out a player who is just trying to make a difference here. Support the players and maybe they'll perform. It's no coincidence that we were solid in shutting out Chelsea in the second half today when the crowd got louder, and starting cheering every good bit of play.

Just seen the stream is up on allsp.com. Looks like it's about something to do with Ike being haunted by poltergeists, those being dead celebrities as you say.

Ole ooollleee, Ole ooollleee, Richard Dunne Dunne Dunne, Richard Dunne Dunne Dunne!

Hey Stally, I agree with everything u say there. Check out my report on Pg6 (tommo) see if u agree. I'd say you've made a fair assessment. Work ethic and the Dunne/Collins partnership were key to our performance. I agree I liked having a three midfield, but I just felt if MON was asking Carew to drop deep, why wasn't NRC put in the starting line up in the middle? He looked so annoyed when he came on, almost like he didn't care, because MON was playing him on the right. I thought Petrov was good going forward tonight. Kind of put to bed the theory about him only passing backwards. We should have won though IMO. Yes they had chances, yes they looked dangerous, but Gabby never really got a clear cut chance. I think Carew playing not as well as he can didn't help Gab. But to his credit, Gabby was creating a lot tonight with all of his running. All in all, I'm satisfied with a point, but still felt we could get three. But I guess that's a good thing going into Chelsea.

Dunne MOTM by far. Collins was awesome as well. Gabby's pace is absolutely frightening. Carew was pretty poor again, but I'm clueless as to why he was part of a central midfield three. Reo-Coker must be pretty pissed off. Carew played in centre mid tonight, and then NRC brought on the right wing. He will want to go in January. Nice to see some maturity from many of our dickhead fans when Heskey came on. Didn't matter what he did, I heard discontent. He made some nice flick ons, and gets slagged off. He doesn't chase down a player, despite another of our team being closer, and he gets slagged off. Him and Milner don't communicate and lose the ball, and it's Heskey's fault. I guess it's to be expected now from some idiots. Great game though.

If we don't play 4-5-1 we're ****. Barry and Ireland/De Jong will sit deep, and play passes all game. They need to be closed down at all times. Tevez will play off Adebayor and drop into the gap between defence and midfield. Without the numbers in the middle to counter this they will tear us apart. I have faith, with the amount of goals being shipped by their defence, that Gabby, Ashley, and Jimmy can score goals past them. Come on MON, let's sure up the central midfield, and give NRC a starting place.

I am Sparticus.

Not in this thread it isn't