rodigan

indeed it was.... http://www.birminghammail.net/birmingham-sport/aston-villa-fc/aston-villa-news/2011/05/11/aston-villa-stewart-downing-happy-to-stay-on-at-fantastic-club-97319-28677101/

tottenham achieved it for one season, failed to make champions league this year and are now looking at a fire sale... the whole premier league system is buggered.... top four clubs simply cannot afford to be out of the champions league if they are to sustain the cost base it takes to get there...

if it wasn't, it bloody well should have been.... outrageous claim...

you want more cylinders from DB??? tought crowd.... he's firing pretty well, i reckon....

dont think theres any chance of that at all we're playing much better football, if we get a new defence in who are comfortable with the ball at their feet we'll be a cracking team next season. definitely up there pushing for 5th spot on... if we can keep our players over the summer...

they'd probably prefer the shagging imogen west option, i reckon....

what will be interesting with spurs is what the impact of failing to qualify for the CL next year will do to their squad - does that make them a selling team now.... if so, i can see them falling right back into the pack next season... someone spoke about continuity a few posts back.... that is one thing i take my hat off to randy and team for... he seems to be crystal clear that building a successful team takes time and he has not made any knee jerk reactions with regards to either MON or Ged. IMHO, he has been proven right so far.... the team is moving in the right direction now, and I suspect by the start of the season, we will have a much deeper squad than we have had at any time in the last five years.... if only he could somehow figure out how to keep ash, all would be good in the world again...

perhaps all new players should go and shag imogen west, get a super injunction taken out and then we wouldn't be allowed to mention their name unless it was on twitter....

i think he was referring to marc, not jean II

I get the impression that the personnel that we have at the villa are more likely to respond to an English coach who will get them fired up, rather than wanting to go out and play cool, calm football - we have been very successful in recent seasons building results around a strong defensive record and then lightening fast counter-attacking football. that all seems to have gone out the window without any clear picture of what it is going to be replaced with...

interesting to see felix macgath threatening to quit schalke... http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5g_IZFCUPK0sU-ENDFYPyyHqPaTGQ would be good to see him back on the market...

i reckon that KMac looking at the entire squad and picking the best 18 for matchday is fantastic news.... having the balls to put people on the bench by virtue of their recent performance, even if raises a few eyebrows is exactly what the squad needs... gives hope to those who weren't getting a look in before and reminds those who were that they will need to be on their games... great to see the young lads playing as well... good to see andy W and big barry b getting a few minutes at the end, although it was a low risk strategy... would have been interesting to see what KMac's view would have been if we had been 2-1 down...

isn't bob bradley out of contract with the us national team in december regardless of what happens here - its hardly surprising that he's pushing for this as hard as he can...

interestingly, i played against a touring team of thai lads from bangkok last week, who considered peter withe a legend from his time with the thai national team...

the next appointment of manager, imho, must show enough ambition to retain the likes of ash, gabby etc... without which, we are going backwards at a rate of knots...

but i believe sven has also said that there has been no contact with the club, so there's no need to read anything other than that he wants to coach the villa... i want to coach the villa, but unfortunately i don't have sufficient reputation for that to be newsworthy...

General, Thank you for your response. Yet again, you provide access above and beyond what the fans of most clubs would reasonably expect. Regardless of how things pan out over the coming months - a unilateral decision coming out of left field of this magnitude represents a sad day for the club and communications between two key stakeholders.

General, As ever, patience is a virtue very rarely shown these days and it is a pleasure to see you continue to interact with us fans in a dignified and reasoned manner. wrt DDID's comment above, wigan found palacios, we found ashley y. - i don't think our track record of developing new signings is necessarily worse than any other club. to counteract that, i continue to think that our academy system and our development of young talent is exceptional and that we are about to see the next generation (nathan, marc albrighton, ciaran clark, barry bannan, gary gardner) coming through general, my question to you - we have tended to buy predominantly english during the tenure of messrs o'neill and lerner, and certainly more so than any other premier league club (we have bought 15 english players since the start of the 07-08 season and 16 out of the 25 in our first team squad are currently english). is this a coincidence and if not, what is the underlying rationale? better suited to the premier league? altruism for the sake of developing the national team? greater onsale value? cheaper? plays to the strengths of our scouting system? it seems to me that a small proportion of the english players that we have brought in have secured regular first team football at the villa and even fewer have set the premier league alight (the youngs and james milner, being the obvious exceptions), while the huge successes, and the unearthing of diamonds in the rough, so to speak, touted by other clubs are, almost invariably, not english. if developing english talent is indeed one of the club's objectives, has the club stepped back and considered whether that continues to represent the best strategy going forward?

General, Fantastic result for the boys and what better endorsement for the club than to see so many of our academy system coming through and cutting it at first team level against quality opposition. Regardless of the transfer situation, it must be gratifying to everyone involved in the club to know that sometimes you don't need to spend through the nose for talent, particularly when you've spent years developing it yourself... go villa!

General, Villa fan in the orient here. Just wanted to say a few words about the academy team that played out here in Hong Kong in May. Each year, Villa send a team to the Phillips (now IP-Global) Soccer Sevens and have won the tournament on many occasions. Unfortunately this year, the lads were knocked out in the semi-finals, but I would like to bring to your attention and to the attention of the club, their exemplary behaviour off the pitch, as much is said about their undoubted talent on it. While other teams stormed off in a sulk after losing their matches, the villa boys came back out and met their fans (all eight of us, admittedly), had a chat and thanked people for the support. They were more than happy to look after my seven year old and let him get involved as mascot and water boy for each of their matches. At the end, each of them came out, shook his hand and thanked him for his support. In particular, Barry Bannan, Marc Albrighton, Gary Gardner, Elliot Parish and Ciaran Clark all spent time with him - talk about the highlight of his year... Sid Cowans, BJ and Randy can rightly be proud of the lads they are developing in the club - they are fine representatives of the claret and blue both on and off the pitch. Please pass this on to the appropriate persons if you get a chance. Thanks and regards.