brummybloke

does the mystery man know too much?

is this why there is no ITK thread this year?

did MM pm the mods and tell them not to bother as there wont be anyone?

i eagerly await MM's posts as it does provide some hope although for some reason, i keep thinking MM is ian taylor? i know it cant be unless ian now works at the villa?

instead i will second guess that it is Mon.

I do not think we are interested in player exchanges, certainly not three for one anyway (how does that help the wages budget?) No it's the money we want

That implies we don't want to spend it then!?

exactley.

there is little point having £25 million in the bank and it not being used or other teams increasing their prices knowing we have an extra £25 million.

i think we will sell a few and off load some players on free transfers to reduce the bills, but it makes far more sense to have players who would be activley involved in the first team getting paid rather than players like beye, young, shorey, heskey, Nrc,davis, milner.. bouma already gone.

i would guess each is on £25k plus per week.

so not paying any cash out and recieving 3 players we need ( ok MON may not want them) 8 out, 3 in. i cant see the wages being any more for the 3 in than the 8 out either.

i would take ireland, hart and richards off their hands for milner.

we need to replace milner, we need a good keeper and its obvious, mon doesnt rate young, so we need a new right back.

we have some good young players in Delfonz and delph and hopefully in albrighton, all we really need to add is a natural goal scorer.

Apparently we still are aren't we? Wouldn't be suprised if he was signed.

Warnock, Luke Young....I think once he likes a player, if he can't get him one year, he doesn't mind going back in for him.

there was no evidence to suggest we went for Young before we signed him

there is also no evidence that MON likes him judging by the way he put him at left back for one season then dropped him the next and played a centre half in his position and then says he is available to be sold.

If Milner goes, I want MON to go in quick for Ireland and Bellamy. Both top notch and probably the best within the league we could attract.

Id also try to break the bank and go all out for joe cole. If you dont try you dont get, theres a slight chace if mon worked his magic, we could tease him away. I cant see chelsea wanting to sell to the other top 4 other than arsenal (they are owed a favour for the gallas-cole swop) so it could be between us and spurs. Suppose the London factor will scupper it most likely.

Still want to take a gamble abroad, just tidy little players for not ridiculous fees....

i thought joe cole was on a free? so chelsea have no say where he goes.

it is betwen arsenal and man ure, i predict man ure although he is a cockerneeee so it would be no suprise to see him at arse or even spurzzz.

a few man city players will be shown the door this summer although no doubt they are on silly wages.

im still after a swap of heskey plus £10 million for darren bent. he has worked with potatoe face before and if he has a good world cup then he my have some sort of value to someone.

we only really need a right back who MON will play, a new young top keeper, a proper goal scorer and a younger fitter version of stylian petrov and keep most of what we have and we should do fine next season.

Yakubu would just be a worse version of Carew!

Strange how Carew gets a huge amount of stick on here, when last season was his best goals return in his whole career.

In fact in the last 3 seasons he's hit 13, 15 then 17.

I'm with you Rob! Although I don't know whether the original comment was intended to be a compliment to the big man???

and as for the Yak - no thanks!!!! (he's reportedly 27 - which according to my Nigerian calculator makes him 38!)

made me chuckle

i like milner, mind you there are other players i think could do well for us but unless some one goes then there wouldnt be room in the middle for them.

£30 million is a lot of money, if it could get us darren bent, micah richards and stephen ireland i would be interested as we need to strengthen in a few positions.

downing keeps coming inside so he could be a possible replacement in the middle for milner.

ideally though we keep milner, get in bent, richards and ireland and then wipe the slate clean with some of our players who seem to be touched with the shitty stick.

im still sure players like NRC, shorey, curtis davies, luke young can come up trumps in the squad

Ireland and £30m will do it

You've got the 6 counties. No more

that made me chuckle

man city want milner? well players like carrick went for £18 million and that was some time ago, bebatov for £28 million..

milner should be a £30 million plus bracket going on the prices man utd have been paying.

if it is man city then even more, they signed de jong who was 4 months away from being a free transfer for going on £16 million, lescott £22 million, robinho £33 million and so on.. then you can add another £10 million onto that whgich would make milner an incredible £30 to 40 million.

those sort of prices you have to have a look at, we **** dwight yorke off and managed to get half a new team, we did the same with david platt.

40 million as long as we have proper targets who we can sign and i would be doing a deal.

friedel - 7 - seems to have lost his dependable tag, i fear its downhill from here for him

What? He was his typical reliable self today, particularly in the last 10 minutes or so.

agree made a couple of good catches and IIRC a good punch from a corner, also had the chance to role / throw it out to get a break on but killed it instead of rushing, the last minute shot might have been straight at him but it was still a strong hand and he was straight on it

today he was ok, however his performances of late have been lacklustre to say the least, earlier on in the season i was confident of his abilities, however as time has gone on he seems rooted to his feet or flapping where as previous he was confident.

friedel - 7 - seems to have lost his dependable tag, i fear its downhill from here for him

cuellar - 7 - i still dont like him at right back, we have a right back for that but he shows glimses of skill and is a better defender than collins

warnock -7 - did some crap like passing straight to their players a few times but was also involved in our attacks and was a little unlucky for their goal as he had actually made the tackle, the ball just bounced nicely for their player

collins - 5 - error prone, he looked awesome in the first half of the season but since being out and coming back has not looked the same since, should be dropped for cuellar and young brought in.

dunne - 7 - a few fcks ups but normally makes amends with a covering tackle , he needs cuellar next to him

a young - 7 - saw a lot of the ball today, shame he has forgotten how to go aound his player, some decent work but he really does need to work on his crossing

downing - 5 - he doesnt look fit, no confidence and his skill looks poor at the moment

petrov - 6 - looks good for the first 65 minutes then ....boom or rather pffffff, goes to a very average tired player

milner - 8 - neat play but i think he is getting tired, looking for long balls far too often almost like he is out on his feat

gabby - 6 - another penalty not given, works hard and is a great threat but the stats show he is pretty much toothless after january each season

carew - 7 - great goal and had to come short quite alot, dont know whether he had an injury ? some good saves from james other wise it would have been a carew hatrick today

subs

heskey - 6 - actually ran around when he came on, something he hasnt done in **** knows how long, header for the winner

fonz - 7 - scored the winner, he has a habit of scoring, a nice habit that. lets see him get 25 minutes each game for the rest of the season

having seen terrys challenge in slo mo it should have been a straight red

deco was a very lucky little dirty shit to stay on

the ref not giving a penalty is making this sort of thing a joke

all or any of these things wouold obviously have altered the game

that said

ashley young was **** wank yet again in a big game, it really and i mean **** REALLY is NOT difficult to cross the **** ball into the box yet every important game, he goes hiding away pulling that **** annoying moaning face.

i could understand it if he were getting wrong decisions against him all the time but it is his ineptitued at crossing a **** ball which gets right on my tits.

always has to keep it too long by which time either the forward is off side, has finished his run, there are too many defenders back, a defender walks over to him and takes it off him and if nne of the above happen he just kicks it against their player and they get a throwin.

im **** annoyed at the moment.

friedel seems in slow motion for each of their goals

warnock played very well today

collins was ok

dunn was ok

cuellar was played at right back again, he played well but when young is not crossing the ball, you want the player behind to be able to hit it in, he cant.

downing i thought played better than his recent form, put some good balls in and tracked back well

petrov, was a big player until the 58th minute when ..... and this will shock you..... he started to run out of steam.

milner, was targetted by deco, mikelle and another i cant remember, each time he made a run or got the ball he was blocked, tripped, shirt pulled or something. he should have gone down far more like the dirty cheating deco does.

carew, thought he had a sitter but for the feintest of flicks from terry, was a handful but he got more and more isolate, he would win the flick but too much distance between him and gabby

gabby, did what he should do, turned his player leaving him through on goal only to have his legs taken illegally, but of course as it is a big game and there is a chance one of the top 3 wont get the trophy, the ref makes one of those decisions which leaves everyone thinking " another paid off ref?". he was burned out after 60 minutes, very rarely threatened after then.

so there we are, beaten yet again, another shit ref decision against us and for one of the top 3 when at 0-0 it would have had a big impact on the game but again, we will never know and it will all be forgotton and all that is remembered is aston villa 0 - chelsea 3

we will finished 7th or 8th this year, a choice of and either or

darren bent

terry henry

michael owen

may help us improve next season, and joe cole.

**** miss of the season from gabby **** sake

Hi General

Just wondering what sort of promotion work is going on in the US for villa?

Are we still linked with the browns? do we have any kind of on going presence in the US?

I know for certain that 32Red wanted to talk to Villa about extending their deal when it was coming up to expire, Villa for whatever reason were not even willing to talk.

It might have been because we wanted to do the Acorns thing I don't know but it certainly suggests Randy might not be keen on a betting company name on our shirts.

didnt 32red get the kit deal for peanuts? maybe thats why they wanted to carry on?

there goes 4th and 5th , lets hope we keep our nerve in the fa cup other wise another season which promised so much falling apart having failed to secure players in january

We're gonna win the FA cup and finish 4th

Oh and Martin if you're not sure what the fans want let me tell you what this fan wants

I want us to win football games

this

winning games is everything

poor display today, ashley young should not be allowed to take another corner until he learns how to hit it into the 6 yard box at decent pace and decent height.

im baffled that gabby was left on the bench? when we are that 1 dimentional up front we need someone who can make a half chance due to his speed.

i thought carew was better than heskey but heskey stayed on?

we could have played them for another 90 minutes and we would still be waiting for a goal.

why not change formation or tactics or personel?

i can see our season starting to slip down the bog again.

next game gabby and carew for goodness sake, you dont owe heskey anything so stop bloody playing him.

Muddled thinking my arse. Smells of corruption or fear of Fergie.

i think its both.

to me there is no way it is just sheer stupidity, no one is THAT stupid, that only leaves corruption.

1 mistake? nope, he gave united 40 minutes 'grace' to do what ever they wanted in the first half and in the second he tried to disguise his intentions slightly better.

losing in a fair game is hard to take but losing when there is blatant cheating and corruption going on is taking the piss.

Jobsworth

/end

but that would imply he was correct and sticking to the letter of the law.

he wasnt, he was clearly paid off because you cant give the penalty and not send him off in those circs so how else can you account for they way he behaved today?

yeah, were well in the race for champos, and fa cup still on the cards.. im notsaying hes invincible but for what hes done for us so far i think its crazy to be condeming him at this stage

especially when you consider that had dunnes header in the last minute gone in and we subsequently went on to nick it on penalties then he would have been hailed a genius and the best manager in living memory...

i doubt it, most fans have enough common sense to know see when something needs changing. they dont have a reputation to keep or need to be stubborn or have to keep certain players happy, they just see it how it is.

if dunnes header had gone in and we had won then people ( apart from dwod who would probably have lost lots of bung money)would be happy with the result but i very much doubt he would be hailed a genius , the errors and weaknesses are still there, a win doesnt disguise the fact things can be better.

The ref had little to do with this. The simple fact is that we were not good enough, MON has taken us as far as he can.

for todays game it was the be all and end all of game changing moments.

10 players for 85 minutes and a goal down.

it effects everything man utd had planned including subs, formation and tactics.

to say the ref was little to do with the defeat is just as bizarre as the decisions 'red phil' was making.

cuellar messing up for their first goal

It was Dunne who lost the ball to Berbatov. Dunne did the unusual mistake that cost a goal.

nope cuellar is the one who while under no pressure on the right with the ball at his feat under total control with no utd player anywhere near him decided to turn back and pass it to a utd player, the ball then went to the other side of the pitch where the dunne mistake happened. cuellar was the one for me who made the mess up.

from a villa players perspective rather than getting even more pissed off with corrupt refs

downing was very poor today, wouldnt tackle ( led to their 2nd goal by not even putting in a challenge) and tried to come into the middle of the park all game making the play too narrow and giving their wide players far too much room.

ashley young was also very poor, falling over all the time, bad passing poor decision making, a horrid game from him.

cuellar? well it was him that messed up for their first, bbc keeps saying dunne was at fault but if cuellar hadnt played the ball to a man utd player then it wouldnt have happened, had several chances to bang the ball into the box but failed every time, misplace passes and poor decision making. he should have been in the middle with dunne, the burnely game showed how much better we play with a decent right back.

i thought the rest of the team played well although collins was not at his best either.

i thought gabby was the mom from a villa point of view, he held the ball well and did some vey good work up front, he was let down by the 2 supporting midfielders young and downing.

milner was solid as was petrov and for once, heskey also put it about a bit although i still fell we shouldnt have started with him.

warnock had a decent game but again, was let down by the lack of support from downing and young

dunne was good for most of the game, he played a hand in their first goal by trying to be too clever, the goal was a total defensive **** up bearing in mind we had the ball with time and space on the right and within 5 seconds cuellar passes it in field to a man utd player it falls to dunne who then miscontrols it, gets control of it, miscontrols it and lays it to berb dunne then puts in a great tackle but collins doesnt react and owne scores.

downing and young should have been taken off after 60 minutes, both were having poor games and provided nothing defensively and slightly less going forwards ( until the 85th minute when downing decided to remember how to pass a ball).

for me we played great for the first 5 minutes, then once the 12th utd play phil " i accept back handers, it is the only excuse i can give for being so biase" dowd got stuck in, we lost the momentum.

im disapointed, not really too much in the team, but in lack of changing things around and not starting with cuellar in the middle and luke young at right back, that affected how we played today

a big thanks to phil dowd, obviously he will have had a large amount of money on Man utd to win, that is the only reason i can possibly think of for todays performance.

it didnt help that downing was crap, young was crap, we didnt play luke young at right back , cuellar messing up for their first goal and then no villa player wanting to pass him the ball making our options limited.

but as the title says, the person who won the cup today was the ref, a total disgrace which shows how bad or corrupt he was when ALL the bbc pundits agree that vidic should have gone AND they should have had bookings.

the only good thing i can say is we have witnessed quite possibly the most biase reffing ever on a live tv game, hopefully there will be some come back although no doubt al the refs will now close rank sucking alex fergie off.

there are not many games where we should have got 10 goals, this though is one of them.

how many chances did young put wide?

we played very well in large spells, keeping the ball and passing it around, that is what happens having a left back at left back and a right back at right back.

over all most of the team played well, we just missed far far too many chances on goal, gabby finished the hardest one and muffed up i think about 6 1 on 1s.

thats why we need a proper finisher to go along with his pace.

well done though, i was swearing at my lap top for large parts with the amount of misses