Lerner's Driver

Spot on, sir! This season has also been disappointing, frustrating and on occasions even upsetting, but 'content' (for now, with all things considered), is the only reasonable conclusion. By contrast with the preceding 5 years, I no longer feel embarrassed, humiliated or depressed because there clearly is a plan and some real hope that we can achieve something again. That's is what was missing and was why we were so desperately bad. No amount of denial, or wishful thinking was ever going to help us recover from the cancer that had taken root... instead, it was always going to take time, care and attention. In many ways, the recovery has been remarkable, but most of all, I'm just bloody relieved we didn't die because we were most definitely on our last legs. Short memories indeed.

My hope for next season is that all our players and the manager perfectly match his expectations and then we won't have to scroll through his whole page campaigns to oust this one or that one. If we start badly, I may even offer to pay for him to go on a thought editing course of some description.

Hey, do you remember a while back when we were in the bad run and you first clogged up the board with your incessant repetition and then you held off a bit cos you got the message that reading your posts had probably become hard work? You're entering that territory again.

He's one of those lads who is naturally talented, handsome and very well paid... and it's all happened in a flash, before he can work out what is going on... None of which would be a problem if he also had the self awareness to realise that 'promise' only gets you so far, but unfortunately, he's just not very bright, so his talent will most probably go to waste. Happy to be proved wrong.

He doesn't even have to move, been commuting to every other club he's played for from the Belfry for the last 15 million years, unable to cope with the pain of not joining us during the Ice Age.

Normally 1 hour before kick off squire.

Don't you mean hilariously?

Come on you Villa boys! 2-1

I didn't label you (the person) as pathetic, the comment was something directly attributed to your actions when, you chose to hurl abuse at Bjarnason by calling him shit. If thereafter, you choose to extrapolate a connection between your actions, my comment on them and some wider opinion of you, then that is entirely up to you. Seeing as you say you are fond of reasoned debate (and not mere abuse?), then how do you reasonably argue that Bjarnason is shit and calling him shit is a constructive, balanced analysis of his attributes? Answer? You can't defend it because it wasn't reasoned and it certainly contributes little of value to intelligent discussion.

Given your inside edge, no doubt you are right Trent, but Bruce said in his most recent interview it would only be 'one or two who could add a little quality', whilst implying there had already been too much change in the last couple of windows. I know he said exactly the same thing in January before signing half a new team, but why keep saying it if he thinks we still need plenty of new faces? 5 or 6 seems a lot to integrate don't you think?

Kod Hog for me, primarily thanks to the cigar toutin' Dukes of Hazard reference.

Question: is giving 100% every game enough to make you 'a good footballer', or do you need some footballing skill as well? And if a mix of effort and skill are the key ingredients, how much skill do you need to avoid being called shite? For the sake of argument, Gareth Bale busts a gut most games and is also pretty skilfull, hence obviously, 'a good footballer'. Hutton obviously doesn't have anything remotely close to Bale's skill, but maybe has 15% of his ability? Clearly all guesswork and subjective opinion of course, but in a simplistic, Top Trumps stylee, I'm curious as to what skill level Hutton would have to reach before he and others like him were considered a card worth having when it came to break time in the playground. The point being, not every card is the Prince of Darkness in a pack of Top Trumps and sometimes even Creature from the Black Lagoon could beat The Ghoul, so surely there's a place for our Al somewhere in the Villa team? Personally, I think he's closest to The Living Skull from the second edition of Horror Top Trumps and therefore a welcome squad player by anyone's standards.

I demand to know what you think of Steve Bruce after each match whether we win or lose, but especially if we lose and I expect your thoughts to be submitted in a long list. No excuses.

Terry, I think this is an excellent summary of what is and has been going on. I certainly don't think Bruce is perfect, but he is genuinely aware of the privilege he has been afforded, which perversely is probably also one of the main reasons he's been scared to f*** it up - in fact, I think he himself used these words. Such an admission could be fuel for criticism because we are Villa we expect the best, blah, blah, but I think he is still prepared to learn primarily because this is such a big opportunity. I also particularly liked your description of the Villa way, which I agree at its best has always been more about free flowing effective football, rather than pretty passing. I think fluent is what we all want, including Bruce and I think he will deliver eventually.

I know it's the million dollar question Dave, but in your opinion, what might bring about the eventual shift to 'attractive', as well as successful? Do you think that matters to Bruce and that he wants that too? I do.

Gotta love these wins... Delighted for Hogan. Still not fluent, but I still think we are slowly improving. Well done Steve Bruce.

Steve Bruce may not agree

The tinkering makes me nervous, especially against a poor team, but still think we'll do 'em 2-0.

The Bruce baiting thing on here has got a weird habit of vomiting up its bile randomly out of the blue, irrespective of current results and its always the same kind of irrational ranting, 'I demand this now because we are Aston Villa'. Makes you wonder if some people are just spouting the same tripe under different usernames.

If the beach pic from few pages back is anything to go by, then yes, he most certainly will.

I remember randomly seeing him in a televised Rangers Champions League match when he tore his opposite number a new one marauding down the wing and thinking he is superb. Spurs signed him shortly afterwards, but he never quite reproduced his Rangers form for them, which is why we ended up with him. He's been with us whilst we've been in decline, so has obviously been asked to defend more, which he's clearly decent at, given his physicality, but it's also meant he hasn't felt as comfortable venturing forward, which is the main reason why he has also looked woeful at times when asked to attack. His confidence and ambition are clearly both growing in line with the team's and that in itself is a pleasing barometer of the progress being made.

Yawn

2-1 Villa

His expertise as a football fan

Thing is, to some the subjective element is not at all obvious. For them it's dogma all the way and things are either absolutely right or absolutely wrong. Steve Bruce or Wagner's Third.