rodigan

PL making the public statements he did, and then segregating both hutton and warnock from the first team squad were actions with the sole intent of getting them sold. it said to other clubs, these guys are now to be gotten rid of at any cost... the fact that noone was prepared to put a price on their worth, says everything about the players and the current state of premier league teams' finances... now that they haven't been sold, and if the club fails to loan them out, I suspect to see them being reintegrated back into a squad they've been named in...

bb seems to play very well with the young lads coming through... he has had a number of years pulling hte strings with them in the reserves, and you can see them working well together... ciaran's goal on sunday night was a prime example... the question is how to integrate that into the wider playing group of the seniors...

Cautiously optimistic for the season, although not really based ont he newcastle result... watched the newcastle game in a pub in Singapore that is the home of the Newcastle supporters club - only place i could find not showing the man u southhampton game... listening to their fans brought out how poor newcastle were on the game, whether due to us forcing the errors or not. I don't think anyone has seen anything from Newcastle this year, to suggest that they will continue to perform as they did last season, and their supporters seemed to agree with that view... not arguing that we weren't much better than the first two games, but needs to be put into context. Personally, I also feel that there is a big difference between drawing and winning games at premier league level. As dire as last season was, we were pretty good at drawing games (in fact, IIRC, better than anyone else)... What PL needs to do is get his first win under his belt, then his second and then I'll feel more comfortable that we are a club that has finally remembered how to win a game...

its a bit like a new years resolution to lose weight.... for the first month, you go out every day and run like a bastard, trying your damnedest to drop the pounds, only to find they're still going up, or certainly not coming off.... then slowly, things plateau, and then one day, after a couple of months out of the blue, you've dropped a pound... two weeks later, dropped two more... next thing you know, the weight is falling off, you're feeling great, and the whole thing has a bit of momentum.... we're in that shitty phase of working hard, and seeing no clear results... we need to be patient as we work through that... give it time, and we'll start to get results... then a bit of momentum, and then hey presto, we're off to the races....

What are you talking about? We've played completely opposite styles in our past 2 Premier League matches! not in the attacking third of the pitch we haven't...

just because you can, doesn't mean you have to... personally, i'd rather have the option if the style we are trying to play isn't working to be able to change it up... that utter lack of ability to play to another style is very frustrating...

i think our last trinidadian striker was pretty useful, so happy to take a punt again... have always been a fan of KJ whenever i've seen him... big lad, can be a handful, younger than holt and cheaper than carroll... think he'd be a useful player to have in the squad, and will create havoc whenever he's on the pitch... i can see having a big beacon to aim for, with bent able to play off his knockdowns being very productive...

to me its nothing more than lambert went to the us, and decided to focus on the squad he was there with. as a result no transfer business, whether vlaar or otherwise, has been done... vlaar mouthed off to the press before any deal had been agreed, and at that point, someone was going to end up with egg of his face. since villa don't play the press game, yet again it was us... much like ole-gate, we've been made to look poor simply because we have refused to participate in a trail by media...

wasn't there speculation that liverpool still owed us substantial amounts for downing that could be offset against a carroll transfer fee? if say it were 8m, why don't we agree to take downing back for 5, and then they would only owe us 3? that would really make my day, and not because i want downing back... overrated twot...

i'd rather bring back john carew and spend the money on a new lb and a winger... joking aside (the jc bit, not the getting rid of warnock part), with our squad and db9 in particular, i suspect moving to a big man strategy will be more of an alternative if things aren't working than our starting point. as such, throwing 15m at a big striker is simply a luxury we can't afford. particularly on someone who has shown that he can be bang out of form for long periods of time...

don't for a second think its sell to buy... i do however think its more of a case of avoiding having high salary players on the books that are unlikely to play regularly.... JC is on a salary that would mean he was a certain first team starter to justify it... If Vlaar were to come in, we would have dunne, clarke, vlaar, baker and lowton, as well as JC. as such, if PL is favouring dunne, I can see that JC would become a very expensive benchwarmer, if he made the bench...

most important thing for the captain is that he is a starter every week. with our squad at the moment, there are very few, if any, that we can say fall into that category. what we need to see is how PL develops the team and who that starting XI is going to be. Once we have a view on that, then the next question, is which of those players best leads the team. Stan was not the best player on the team, or the most expensive, or the most high profile, but he enbodied the spirit of the team and led by example. that is what you want in a captain. as such, i don't think its DB9, gabby, zoggy or shay. To me, if he is a regular starter, then richard dunne is the player on the pitch best suited to be captain. always putting his body on the line and giving 100%. its no coincidence that CBs or midfield enforcers are often captains in the team. Their role is such that they are going to be in the thick of things knocking other teams up in the air, which is the easiest way to inspire those around you. Ciaran will be a great captain, as he was in the reserves, but he is not yet sufficiently established in the team to take on that role. If he can make a position his own, whether CB or holding midfielder for a season, then he will be well placed as a captain in the future. GG is similar to ciaran, but a couple of years behind. Either would do the job well once they have established themselves in the team. As for stevie ireland, I think two things work against him: - he has not sufficiently established himself in the team yet. I can't hand on heart say he'll be with us next season, or that he will be in our starting midfield. - whether or not people believe they are relevant, SI's off-field press since joining villa has been plentiful and has not been, on balance, more positive for the club than negative. as such, i would preclude him as captain, unless he was the standout candidate on the pitch, which i don't think he is...

big fan, and hope he does well this season.... also hope he's fit when he gets his chances... needs to hit the ground running and kick on from there...

was down in melbourne for the last couple of weeks, and spent an hour on sunday nights watching a docco called sporting nation, hosted by John Clarke, which examines the premise whether aussies outperform at sport, or simply believe they do. very interesting, but I certainly believe that Australians are brought up with a winning mentality in sports, far more than their counterparts in say, england, and it is best seen in their athletes in national colours. their rugby teams (both disciplines), hockey teams (men and women), footie team, rowers, swimmers, netballers, cadel etc all punch well above their weight in terms of the talent pool from which they have to select and the funding that those teams receive. if you've ever played in aussie teams, they always play (and expect) to win, regardless of the odds. One way I look at it is this -how confident am I ever in a match between england and australia (rugby, footie, cricket, tiddlywinks) that england will win and the answer is never quite sure, regardless of how it looks on paper... aussie mentality in sport - absolutely... and bretty holman has it in spades.... (i'm not australian in case anyone is wondering)

was never a choice really.... great grandad was apparently on the villa books, although whether or not that is family folklore has never been determined... now take great joy in taking my son through my carefully saved (and complete) panini 81, 82 and 83 albums, and showing him what the last truly great team looked like... its a real shame that the only people he recognises in the whole album are those that are now managers, and sid, of course... at 10, he's always been villa through and through, despite having been born in hk and only having been to villa park twice...

we must be in for messi....

if we're going to pay 7m and substantial wages for him, in my humble opinion, he needs to be a nailed on starter next season. if he's one with potential that we need to nurture, we have plenty of those already... don't know the lad and never seen him play, but not sure how he's going to get into the starting line up next season, and if he's not, then i don't think we need another young striker with potential at the moment...

but he's on somewhere between 10k and 15k per week if you believe the press... the point is that we should be able to buy him for wages that are sensible and eminently within the pay structure that we are trying to keep. very few of the names being bandied around would even sniff at any club for a wage of somewhere between 20 and 30k, particularly if they are on bosmans. i think he would do a great job for the next couple of years - won't start every game, but will be a genuine goal threat when he's on the pitch. something we sorely missed over the second half of the season. if holt is looking for financial security, a three year contract at 20k earns as much as a 2 year contract at 30k... if he scored 15 goals a season for us over the next two seasons, at 30k, he'd be a bargain...

weren't we playing with an average age of about 23 towards the end of last season? i think the squad is screaming out for a fewer older and more experienced players. at the prices and the wages that he will be earning, i'd have him in a flash. good alternative to have if its not working for bent, and could be vital if bent is out for a prolonged period of time. not having a proven scorer in the latter stages of the season nearly killed us... i genuinely could not see where our next goal was going to come from in some games... we can't run that risk again this season... and i don't think buying kids with more potential is what we need at all... thing with holt is - even if he has the best years of his career with the villa, he'll only have two or three, which means it won't necesarily destroy the development of younger players like andi or the fonz... bring in another 22 year old, and one or both of them has to go...

do we have any u19s left that are not playing in the first team? joking aside, this would be a great platform for daniel johnson... lets hope he takes the tournament by storm...

MM, in line with the time's i met eck last summer - seemed a very genuine man, who was always open and transparent. not right for the club, but certainly tried to execute what he thought was the best strategy. as far as him not knowing that he was going to get fired, i'm sure he was under no illusions whatsoever. what he didn't want to do was make it simple be sounding resigned to the fact before it actually happened. his view on randy being willing to spend sounds spot on as well... he's always been prepared to buy what he considers the right sort of player, even when it hasn't been particularly clear to all, including myself, that we have been spending.

i believe the wages and turnover costs were for the 2010 / 11 season ie the season before the one just finished. since then, we have gotten rid of more than 20 players, including big earners such as reo-coker, carew, a young, l young, downing, heskey, cuellar, beye, guzan and gotten in nzogbia, hutton and given... i think our wage position must be significantly improved as a result. on the other hand, average gates were also down as a result of the abortion of a season we've just been through... it would be really helpful for the club to give us a snapshot of where we currently are, so that we, as fans can at least judge whether the pain of getting the wage bill under control is showing some tangible results.

they really are wearing the fans down, if that's the best that we can dream of...

we may be 19th in terms of overall value, but to put in context, the value of the man u brand is almost 10 times that of the villa brand. the value of the villa brand is $87m -a good number, although to put it into context, if RL sold the brand, it would cover our wage bill for a year... man u would cover there's for 5.6 years, tottenham for 2.5 years, newcastle, who are below us, would cover their wage bill for 1.6 years. actually, compared to our wage bill, the value of our brand is the worst of all premier league clubs ranked in the top 50.

wipe your ass, flush and move on then... and don't forget to wash your hands...