rodigan

Had a great tournament.... Good shout to be next in a long line of villa player of the tournaments.....

Yep 12:15 hk time. 5:15am uk time.... Most likely Sunderland in the semi and Newcastle in the final who beat us last year, and looked bloody good yesterday winning al three, a lough they have man city in the semi.... The villa boys looked fine in their games, although they haven't really been tested yet.... Consensus in the pub afterwards was that jack grealish looks absolute class, and should get his chance in the first team this year.... Interesting to hear that from neutrals.....

Perhaps not the best phrasing on that one.... Bloody good player though!

Kevan, you can be very proud.... Your brother is well on his way to player of the tournament already.... Dominant player in the first game, hat trick and an assist in 4-0 win in the second.... Looks absolute class in the rain.... Two wins out if two and in the quarters already! UTV

indeed, no keeper travelled with the squad.... villa are going with a hong kong football club ringer.... i remember a couple of years ago they went with a ringer after nathan baker and a couple of others picked up injuries before the tournament started, but in this case, the lad is going to play every minute of the tournament.... boys own stuff for the lad in question.... pretty poor from the club, i reckon....

actually, having seen the pidgin english translation of his interview, i actually think much of what he said was positive - when asked if he would down tools if a big club came in for him (arsenal was the one suggested), like he did with genk this time last year, he said no.... he also went on to say he was very happy at villa and happy to spend another season here.... not sure what else we could hope for from a player who forced a move from genk to villa only one season ago.... simple fact is, if we offer him what is best for him right now, then he will stay until someone offers him better.... in my humble opinion, it will boil down to cash, and the ability to put himself in the shop window between now and the world cup.... the latter point is our biggest plus card for the next season - we have already built a team around him, and he sits in an uncontested position as the leader of our strike force.... that is not the case with any club that he is thinking of going to... provided that the cash we offer him in his new contract is competitive, then i think we have a good chance of keeping him until the world cup.... the aim would have to be to put him on a long and expensive contract, so that when he does leave at the end of next year, whoever buys him will have to pay through the nose to do so.... then we have to pray that he keeps developing as he has this year.... and i think we all need to remember that for all he has been a beast this season, he has had games (albeit less and less frequently) where he has been anything but... he's certainly great and has been fantastic for us, but he's not the finished article at the highest level yet...

shame that DJ isn't coming out - he was a man amongst boys last year.... fully deserved player of the tournament... would be very poor if we have actually come out without a keeper this year.... perhaps my 11 year old lad should offer to play - i think he's got a pair of benji siegrist's gloves on his villa shelf....

agree with you there, this is the weakest soccer sevens side i've ever seen.... will be good to see how the kids go, but they really are kids this year.... your brother should get a lot more playing time this year, and will be one that people are watching to light the tournament up.... will let you know how he's looking from the grandstand... (if he needs anything while he's in HK, get him to drop me an email... have looked after many of the kids out here over the years...) interesting look to the tournament - you will note that there is not nearly the depth of international teams as last year... i understand the tournament lost its government funding this year, which is why only man city, villa and sunderland are there from the premier league... people not there from last year include chelsea, newcastle, west ham, celtic, ajax, and a top japanese and australian team.... the downside for this is that the hong kong top domestic league has a lot more teams in there, which means that instead of exciting young up and coming players, you have older, physically stronger men playing, who may well be looking to kick chunks out of the premier league players.... lets wait and see....

first order of business: benteke lowton weimann westwood [delph] on hew improved longer term contracts..... second order of business - release / ship out the dross... imagine a summer where we look like we may be stronger at the end of it than we were at the start.... in the words of the great modern day philosopher, flo rida - let the good times roll....

great player and great first season - shame about the red card, but with no disrespect meant, he should have had one in the first half, and one the game before for grabbing whoever it was by the throat.... lets hope he learns from this... and lets hope he goes into the off-season feeling loved by the fans and with a new contract signed up.... would be a great statement of intent for PL to start the off-season with bentekkers, andi weimann, westwood and lowton signed up to new improved long term contracts....

personally, i would never bet against the villa.... if i were to come up with an analogy of how i see it, it would be like the girlfriend training for her first marathon, and me betting against her finishing it in her targeted time... would it be prudent to soften the blow if she failed? perhaps... would she make the distinction between supporting her and making bets? not in a million years... would i be sleeping on the couch for a month, having been kicked in the nuts for betting against her? almost certainly... as far as us staying up - i hope it resolves itself this evening, but even if it doesn't... i suspect benty will give us a nice farewell present with a couple of goals on sunday to immortalize him in the eyes of the fans.... and i will be watching this evening at 3am, a nervous wreck....

i really hope so. i'm hungry.

wigan's issue is that they have five games in very quick succession, and they really can't afford to settle for a draw in any of them. two of those games are against arsenal away and man city at wembley - both of which they will be massive underdogs, but neither of which they can afford to treat as games they will concede... its going to be relentless for a very small squad and i'm just not sure that roberto martinez will be able to coax the required effort out of very tired legs over and over again... a win against norwich this weekend will be a huge result for us, and its certainly a game that we should go into with confidence. i am however nervous that this will be a flat performance like fulham was after the huge effort against stoke and good feeling after pulling ahead at the end to beat stoke.... for us to take the next step, we need to show that we can string together results, and win the ones that are slightly less 'do or die'....

lots still to do, but the players must believe that they can do it... and i must say, PL has always been very careful to emphasize that not getting unduly upset with big defeats goes hand in hand with not getting carried away with our wins... roll on saturday, but lets not have it be like fulham - one that we should have won after a good previous performance, but one that we came out really flat for, and ended up throwing away two points....

we may have conceded less goals last season, but now our back line costs less than half of last years, and has an average age of less than 25 - this year's defence will also get better in the coming seasons, whereas there's only one direction for cuellar, collins, warnock, dunne to go... we also should now have the budget to build on this year's defence, adding some competition in key positions... PL has trodden a very fine line protecting the fragile confidence of this team, but for night's like last night, it was worth it... hats off to the boys and to PL.... now we need to go and finish the job in the next three games...

agree with most of the recent posts. has gone up in my estimation of late, and last night showed me that we could have a good player here if he plays with a bit of confidence... was glad to see that confidence did not mean thinking he was brazilian and trying to beat people that he never should even attempt... great game last night...

and don't forget the importance of the 12th man.... i'd rather be playing in front of our fans than any of the fans in the teams around us.... the support sounded amazing last night!!!

brilliant brilliant result, watched with my 11 year old son at 4am in Hong Kong this morning.... now, to draw breath and see where we actually are... three to go for all of us bar wigan.... we need to end up ahead of one team out of wigan, newcastle, sunderland, norwich, southampton and perhaps stoke and fulham five ahead of wigan who have a game in hand..., but have to play five games between 4th and 18th may, when everyone else has three to play... level on points with sunderland and newcastle, both of whom have been tonked at the weekend.... sunderland's remaining games are stoke, southampton and spurs on the last day... all of these teams are still playing for something... sessegnon, their best player in the last three games is banned... newcastles last three games are west ham (at upton park - where wet spam are considerably stronger than away), QPR and arsenal on the last day, who will almost certainly still be competing for a champions league spot... the team appears to be in open revolt, and the frenchies are living up to the surender monkey reputations... one behind norwich, who have a six pointer against us at the weekend... norwich have us, west brom and a final day trip to man city.... they have been shocking since the start of the year, and bar a 2-1 win over reading a couple of weeks ago, have only won one other game this year... plenty of draws have kept their survival hopes alive... in my opinion, its simple, a win on saturday, and we'll be fine.... a draw or loss on saturday, and it'll squeaky bum time for all... playing a team like norwich on saturday is the perfect game for us, and gives a chance to get the result and go into the chelsea game relaxed and able to turn on the class in front of the holte end without the crippling pressure that the team seems to have been performing under for much of the season.... and to the perception that there has been no improvement under lambert, my opinion is that the improvement is clear to see.... turning the villa performances around has been like turning an ocean liner around - you can't just turn it instantly, its a gradual process, but once its turned and a losing mentality becomes one that believes it can win against anyone that we face, i think we're off to the races.... look at the players that have come of age this season - lowton, benteke, guzan, westwood, weimann, baker, delph.... even those i've doubted (being polite here) have looked better playing with a bit of confidence - vlaar, KEA, bennett (who i thought was excellent last night), sylla gabby's been great of late... squad players have all done a job at some point this season - zoggy, bent, holman, bannan, clark, bowery i think we are in a good position right now, and i think that the 15 - 20m that randy has made available in each off-season is going to be very well spent to strengthen a credible squad....

i don't think that 38 is going to be enough this season for us. we are currently on 34. presuming QPR and reading are gone, we need to beat one other team to stay up. wigan are on 31 with two games in hand, which means that they need 7 points from 7 games.... those games are man city, west ham, tottenham, west brom, swansea, arsenal and villa everyone else has significantly better goal difference than us, and are at least equal on points with us or have banked more. if you take wigan out of the equation, the other teams still in the mix are sunderland, stoke, norwich and newcastle. that would mean that for each of those teams to be safe, they would need, four, four, three and two points respectively out of the remaining 15 points available to each of them. even if they are struggling, i can see them each being fairly confident of achieving those numbers.... contrary to popular belief, i think that this is going to be one of those seasons where all of the bottom clubs pick up points between now and the end of the season and therefore the safety number is likely to be higher than the historical average...

the thing i like about chelsea at the moment is that they do not have a manager playing for his job!!! watched the sunderland game and am still baffled as to how they managed to win it as comfortably as they did.... sessegnon was very good, but other than that, neither team had much to strike fear in the heart of other teams.... having said that, fascist or not, appointing di canio to see sunderland through to the end of the season was an absolute masterstroke.... watching him running around like a lunatic on the sideline, you got the sense that he would take all 11 players and carry them ove the finishing line... as far as someone who can fire his squad up and make them want to sweat blood for the cause, i'd have to say he's your man.... however looking at their squad, i'm not sure that adrenaline is going to be enough for them.... newcastle on the other hand were absolutely shocking.... they look like a bunch of players who have no affinity for each other - i got no sense of passion or team spirit, and this in their derby match.... not really exciting with so many new players and none of them with any understanding of the history between the two teams.... skill is good, but only when tempered with passion.... they must be wondering what on earth inspired them to give alan pardew an 8 year contract, and then do buy a team of slick frenchmen who play continental style football.... stoke seem lost as a team, and i'm glad they started with adam on and that he was inconsequential for them, because he turned the game against us before our two late goals.... remove the belief that he can continue to do that, and i think they're deep in trouble.... with wigan, they're playing well, but as sessegnon is talismanic for sunderland, so arouna kone is carrying much of the burden for wigan.... if either of those two players get injured, their repsective teams will struggle.... they have a lot of games coming up in a very short time, with a very small squad.... i would hope that they're going to get a couple of slip-ups that we aren't expecting.... norwich are another of those team that seem to have neither the start players to lift them, or the passion to grind out results without them.... i think they are in trouble unless they get a result in the next two weeks.... I think QPR and reading are both gone, but I think they have a very important part still to play.... while i don't want them catching us, i would love to mathematically have something to play for as late into the season as possible.... and then us - i've just got the feeling that we'll be ok, even if its by the skin of our teeth.... i think as a team we played poorly on saturday and yet managed a draw.... i think zoggy was fantastic, and i think lambert bottled it pulling him off and trying to shut up shop for the draw.... bring gaby back into the line up and we have a front four as good as most in our division and i certainly wouldn't swap them for their counterparts at qpr, reading, wigan, sunderland, stoke, newcastle or norwich... with ciaran fit again, are we likely to see baker reverting back to left back? am i right in thinking that lowton not getting booked on saturday avoided him getting a two match ban for 10 yellow cards, if so, thats a great result for us, and could be key in the next month...

its going to be close, no question about that.... our form is good, but at the end of the day, before that, our form was very, very poor.... what i interpret from that is that we are on a run of decent form, but we are not a team that is going to win every game - in other words. we haven't become a top team overnight, but we are definitely showing progress, and are not folding, where earlier in the season we were.... our losses of points are narrow, and for the most part, self inflicted of late - delph against fulham, baker own goal, baker penalty, ciaran against man city... teams are now concerned about playing us, and not presuming we are a walkover three points.... and by and large we are right to do so.... i thought that overall, saturday was an off day for us, compared to the standard that we have been playing of late and we still came away with a point.... we missed gabby, benteke was ineffective, westwood had more missed passes in the first 20 minutes that i've seen from him all season... and yet, we got a point, and could / should have had all three.... we have no easy games left this season, but don't see why we should fear any of those remaining games.... having said that, we really really need to keep our players fit - we need our front three back and firing.... other critical players are westwood, guzan, lowton, zoggy, vlaar and probably delph.... baker has been great for me the last couple of games, brave to the point of lunacy.... and zoggy was great on saturday.... i'd slot him behind bentekkers, gabby and andi weimann in place of jordan bowery, if i was in charge, and think there's goals in that four against anyone including manure...

have met the lad a few times in hong kong.... very nice, albeit very quiet.... just gets on with his thing - have never got the sense that he was in any way arrogant, just that he sits and watches everything going on around him.... however, when it comes to game time, he was always there to play... after the game was always polite to my lad and had a friendly word, even if it didn't come as naturally to him as some of the other youngsters... at the end of the day, he's a footballer, and he should be judged by that.... the fact is you have natural leaders like ciaran in that group, lads that will always come and spend time with the fans, like wee barry and sharky, and the cheeky chappies who you know are always ready to put their bodies on the line like andi weimannn... some will make it and some won't, but you always hope that its their performance on the pitch that they're judged for...

its a shame, because we've shown that we are perfectly capable of scoring 3 or 4...

the way i see it is very simple, QPR and reading are not going to end up above us - to do so they would need to score 6 more points out of 24 more than us, and I just don't see that happening with our respective forms and run ins. In which case, over the remaining eight games we need to score one (and only one of the following): one more point than wigan two points more than sunderland or southampton four points more than norwich, west ham, newcastle, stoke or fulham. Our run in is reasonable - we have two games that are difficult, but not impossible on current form to get at least a point from in Man U and Chelsea the remaining six games are all games that we can get points from norwich, wigan, stoke, sunderland, fulham, liverpool Our form is good - in our last six games, we have beaten west ham, QPR, reading, drawn with everton, and lost by a single goal to arsenal and man city. in other words, lost 2, drawn 1, won 3, 10 points interestingly, over the last six games, the only one of those ten teams with better form than us is fulham. reading - lost 6, 0 points QPR - lost 3, drawn 1, won 2, 7 points wigan - lost 2, drawn 2, won 2, 8 points sunderland - lost 4, drawn 2, 2 points southampton - lost 2, drawn 2, won 2, 8 points norwich - lost 1, drawn 4, won 1, 7 points west ham - lost 4, won 2, 6 points newcastle - lost 4, won 2, 6 points stoke - lost 4, drawn 1, won 1, 4 points fulham - lost 1, drawn 2, won 3, 11 points our defence is actually doing OK and if we cut out the stupid mistakes, we'd be doing much better - Ciaran against man city, bennett on saturday for the first goal we are scoring goals and the strikers are sharing them around.... Our starting line up has settled down - Lambert is only tinkering with one or two players now that he has had more time to get to know the players and vice versa. guzan, lowton, clark, vlaar, baker, westwood, weimann, benteke, agbonlahor are all now regular starters, with delph, nzogbia, banna, sylla, KEA, holman fighting for the other two spots.... we have pretty much a full squad of starters to choose from. delph's suspension is over, we have two weeks to get bent, KEA and baker back to fitness. we have relatively few people away on international duty (and therefore open to getting injured in the next week) - benteke, vlaar, clark, weimann, guzan - and i'm not sure how many of them will get a start or any game time at all (really hoping the answer is exactly none)... i'm actually feeling OK - lots still to do, and there are no easy points, but as I have done all season, I'm feeling ok about us just about staying up... finally, as hard as its been to see for much of the season, if we stay up (i know that's still an if).... at the end of the season, we may just look back on this, and say, you know what, it looks like we've seen some strategy for the first time in several years and the club's future may actually looking ok....

our last two games have involved us coming from behind to win.... getting ahead and shutting out teams who desperately needed the win.... our last five games have us scoring more goals than we're conceding... saturday's fans were so vocal roaring the team on, i could hear it in hong kong.... could it be that we're starting to see some confidence pour into the team??? some feelgood factor back at villa park??? i'm actually feeling pretty good about where we are right now - i would love to put a few teams between us and the drop zone, because at the moment, we're still in it if wigan win their game in hand.... long way to go, but everything feels like we're heading in the right direction, and you can't say that for a lot of the other teams around us...