dogbonus

will be renewing today. Managerial speculation is fun/'interesting'/infuriating but if I wasn't down the match on a saturday (sunday/monday/whenever sky decide) I would be bear-with-a-sore-head-sore-throat-and-a-sore-arse miserable. Mind you I am the same down the game!

I heard Whelan yesterday, can't remember if it was on Sky or Radio 5, but he was saying he thought Martinez was talking to liverpool but Whelan felt Martinez would want assurances from plop. Particularly, martinez would want control of all playing aspects, from 16 year olds upwards. This gives me a bit of a problem because I think our reserve set up and the kids coming through dont really need buggering about with. I can see we want the reserves playing the same style as the first team, so they can slot in and this may have been a problem last season, trying to get the likes of Bannan and Gardner, who struggled IMO, to play Eck's 'style'. But our kids seem overall a promising bunch. Having said that, not that many of the kids make it at Villa. At the moment, this is making me lean away slightly from Martinez

I bought a vampire motorcycle starring Neil Morrissey and Michael Elphick!! How could I forget??? And 'Boon' which was filmed in the city starring, erm, Neil Morrissey and Michael Elphick. and Take Me High http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0070194/ Cliff Richard inventing the Brumburger. On topic, I'd like Poyet if we want young and untested

To those complaining that doug didnt do it like this... we didnt have internet forums back in the day. you might discuss it with your mates but you didnt have hundreds of people all deciding they knew best who should be manager. doug went out and got who he wanted, but it didnt turn out well for most of them

I like Rogers. Not sure he would come. Always felt if we were going for a less experienced man, then Poyet is a better shout than OGS. At least he has done some managing! Lambert, Martinez would be ok. Anyone who isnt McCleish basically. Though the curbishleys of this world are similarly uninspiring

pretty unfairly treated by the media when sacked by england. been running a school of sorts where kids that have been released get a second chance. Might have some cheap OK players he could bring in. Good football style. wouldnt be the worst choice but not the best

just logged on to call him a w*nker. you beat me to it!

this is what currently is getting on my tits. keep seeing 12M and we're holding out for 15M yet i see fellaini at everton rated at 25M in the NOTW johnson at 10M dann at 15M and liverpool just paid 20M for henderson when he looked pretty ordinary to me in the U21's. so downing, cost 12M injured. is better player now is back in england squad now and english prices are through the roof at the moment. 25M is realistic, he's not in the last year of his contract like ash. but personally i think he owes us another year

good to see you back general you are no doubt right in what you say. the backing of the board for AM is essential. but whatever you say will not be accepted by some and swallowed without criticism by others. myself, i dont understand how this appointment came about. don't think it will work, these things rarely do but i will be desperate to have to eat a large slice of humble pie when the season kicks off i have my season ticket (well i'm waiting for it to physically come) and cant wait for august

clark looked a very accomplished player and depending on how much we spend could find himself an integral part of the team. not sure that will be good for his development though! i also think he can do a good job as a defensive midfielder. tackles well and comfortable on the ball

Yeah ...... you should have left us without a manager for the entire summer just to keep the fans happy and then watch the team get relegated for certain. Fans know best Randy - let them run the club ! Pathetic ! yeah cos McCleish is the only manager in the world so we had to get him maybe youre not disappointed with how things have turned out but if not i dont know why you support the villa you presumably do it without passion or perhaps you are a 'fan' of all midlands clubs

oh, and to the idiots on here saying they wish doug was still in charge.... you do know doug was chairman at the blues as well

massively disappointed in the board cant believe randy has gambled all the goodwill he has built up on a manager who would have been sacked if the blues could afford to pay him off. that said, i have already renewed my season ticket and a blue nose and the board will not force me out of the club. doug ellis didnt, even with some of the sorry excuses for managers he brought in and some of the poor football ive seen from the old 3rd division days on and of course theres the chance it could work (though i cant see it) maybe randy and the board could be vindicated to some degree and the blues fans would have to accept that its not a crap manager thats their problem, its that their whole club is shit. VTID SOTC

if you put lewis hamilton in a morris minor he wont win a F1 race put him in a proper car and he might have a chance. no i dont believe it either

and give them time to get a new manager before the europa league kicks off i thought his quitting was fine. he didnt buy 4 players then decide he couldnt work under those conditions

season ticket holder. will still be going because ive seen crap managers come and go before and its the team i support very very disappointed with the board on this though and presumably we will now get involved in an unnecessary legal situation fighting for a manager not worth fighting for. I could understand it if he was the best manager but he so evidently isnt. randy might want to curb his spending at the club. i can understand that. owning a football club is expensive and getting more so. pissing previous investment up the wall to actively seek relegation is not understandable. the board will do what it wants. i get this. it certainly isnt good business to have the board look as if they are held to ransom by fans. but we are also customers and customers who dont get the goods they want go elsewhere for a football fan that doesnt mean changing team. it means finding sonmething else to do and once that happens fans dont come back. im a villa fan because my dad was. the reason there are so many man u, arsenal and liverpool fans around the midlands is because their dads gave up on football alienating the fans could cost you a generation of fans i trust when you say you want the best man for the job you will consider such issues

Some paper said he was on holiday in Italy. although french, corsica is actually closer to italy :-(

I really dont want the McCleish stuff to be true buy SSN saying McCleish returning from holiday in Corsica. Isnt that where Randys jet went... oh shit is it too late to say i want McClaren now? not that i do, but surely even he would be better

General it will be helpful if the ticketmaster system can allow individual seat selection, although you may well find the problem experienced by theatres that have similar systems, namely people select seats in 2's or 3's and leave a gap between themselves and the next occupied seat. you end up with lots of single seats, which are normally harder to sell. At the moment however, i can't buy a ticket for the cup game against burnley online. the game just isnt showing as available. its inconvenient for me as i usually work nights so going to the ticket office takes up my sleep time!

General with regard to the kit. I understand the club has to maintain a financially viable price, so I imagine you are putting pressure on Nike to do the honourable thing and reduce cost price on a product they are so late in producing. Similarly if the contract is for a new shirt every year, I would guess pressure is also being applied to forego next years shirt. However if neither of these options are acceptable to the club or Nike and with people on this forum obviously unhappy with the discount promised so far, can I suggest that the club guarantees a discount for next years shirt for anyone who purchases this years kit. I would hope from a marketing point of view this would increase sales in both this and next years shirts

Like it. Although to mention Alexandra Burke and not Jeff Buckley in reference to that song is just a little bit criminal! I was thinking the same thing. many apologies then Personally I prefer the original Leonard Cohen, but thought people would know it more for the x factor crap

really very glad that big nosed prat isnt coming. i would have found it hard to accept him involved with the club when he has such contempt for it im ok with houlier coming. experienced and should know what hes doing. he deserves a chance at least. leonard cohen/ alexandra burke 'halelujah' gerard houllier gerard houllier gerard houllier gerard hooooooullier if that makes sense to anyone!

agree entirely, but thats what this forum gets like with every transfer link as well

This internets a bit of a bugger innit? In the old days, we'd just have to wait and find out. All the frustrations would be shouted out down the pub and quickly forgotten. Now theres a record of it all and a vastly larger number of people criticising everything. I'll be waiting to see who comes and giving him a chance. Supporting him until it starts to go wrong. And it nearly always goes wrong at some point. All those shouting "we dont want manager A, he got the sack at club B" really arent thinkng. How many managers have never got the sack? As for those who state things like, " I'll stop following Villa if they havent got a chance of winning something" Frankly this is ludicrous. I want Villa to win things, but if we were to be relegated I wouldnt stop supporting them. Perhaps we should scrap the football league, teams like walsall can't win anything, so they shouldnt have any fans. I despair sometimes of how the premier league has distorted peoples ability to support a club. No wonder there are so many glory hunters in shirts of clubs they couldnt say where their ground is. General. i'm sure you are doing your best, as is randy. please ignore those where emotion has overtaken reason and be prepared for worse over the weekend as some of these add alcohol to their befuddled thought process. How's your health holding up following your recent illness? Is mrs K proving to be a tower of strength and support? Or is she, like most partners where football is concerned, dropping little nuggets like, "I don't know why you waste your time with that, its only 22 men kicking a ball"?

Have to agree with villabromsgrove, particularly about polarised opinion. it is a fact that those who are least happy about something, shout the loudest. people who are happy with things tend not to say anything and just accept it as expected. General, you do realise that there isnt a RIGHT manager? whoever is appointed will be criticised by some on here. In the same way some idolised (and still do) martin o'neill and others hated everything about him. some of us, (like villabromsgrove and myself, I guess, probably the older fans), have seen many managers come and go and realise thats the nature of football. someone will come in and do a job. only time will tell if that job is good enough, if they get the right players, if they can motivate different sorts of people, if they have luck on ther side. some seem to think time is the one thing we dont have, but all must agree that any manager must be given time. good luck with the search. I'm sure you will do your best and that is all we can ask. semper fidelis? more like semper bitchelis on here sometimes