largelugs

No, wasn't just after James had punched out Barry's cross and they broke and scored, commentators went on about the way the game changed so quickly!

Agree about Barry, was a case of i#ve just chased back and now i'll just stand here like a prat.

Doesn't sound like sarcasam to me, could think of a few other words for it though!

I think we all agree he is playing well below what he should be. Its just some people seem to think it is because he is not good enough and others because he is not trying hard enough. And then the wonderful statement that he is trying to stay injury free so that he can move! I know that next saturday he will get a great reaction from the Holte end because any fan who has watched him regularly over the past few years will know he is class and that he always tries his best. He just needs a little support now, who knows he might just hit one of his goal trails over December.

Of course, he spends months negotiating a new contract and commits himself to the club. He has moved his family half the way around the world, settled in after a hard start. Thats just the sort of player who is about to leave.

Denis_B I don't disagree that Angel was poor today, although i still think he was 10 x better than his strike partner. It just pissed me off the way some people are all ready to jump on the bandwagon and start saying he is not good enough. The guy has had injuries in the summer and is struggling. Mainly Norway's comments: Whats he got to apologise for? He has given us many moments of joy and always tried his best. As for apologising to the rest of the players, what crap. Only 2 or 3 of them were any better than him! To me he is a class player who is just out of form. He is easily the best striker we have and one of the best in the time i have been watching villa. Comments about wanting a striker who do it in season after season is just like the crap we hear off the national press, who obviously never seen Angel pre Taylor! And then Ahammad's comments,basically saying that now he is on more money he is not interested Out of all the players at Villa he is one who has never seemed to be one of the money grabbing playboys. He went through v.hard times at villa but stuck it out. If money was his only interest he wouldn't be at Villa.

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Yes, Mellberg is ONE of the best, but McGrath was definatly the best, a class above any other defender around at that time, he had something special that you don't usually have in a defender. As for what he is doing now, the last i heard he was a director at Waterford Utd in Ireland.

McGrath is the one player that will always be special to me. The fans loved him purely because of his playing style. He didn't do interviews, he didn't try and gee the crowd up, he didn't shout at other player, he just defended. He defended with style. I often used to spend most of teh game just watching him, your eyes were just drawn to him. The already mentioned back flicks oozed class. To say Mellberg is better becasue McGrath went missing is crap. I remember the Exeter game but apart from that his appearance record was incredible for someone with his knees. Everyone had written him off, he only trained one day a week but he was still the best player in the premiership. Not only Villa fans loved him, the Irish fans did. He is absolutly idolised over there. When he came back from a world cup all the fans were at the airport. Nelson Mandela arrived about 30min before him and all the waiting football fans started sing "oh ah Paul McGrath's da!" I really rate Mellberg and him and Angel are a lot better than the rest of the team but in comparison are they better than anything else in the Premier league, i'd like to say they are but being realistic they're not. When we had McGrath every Villa fan knew we had the best defender in the country, if not the world.