joey55

This Glory Glory post sums it up more or less I don't agree with that. I see his point but generally Greg is no different to Glaston. Glaston is mocked at Redcafe, but he recieves nothing like the treatment he gets here. In fact most of the shit he gets on Redcafe comes from a couple of Arsenal fans. Here is gets real vitriol and seems to evoke genuine anger alot the time. At Redcafe there will be the occassional time that he pisses people off, but the same happens with Greg at GloryGlory and it's not comparable with what happens in this thread.

Well given that we only have the Spurs fans who post on this forum to go by, it would appear as though Spurs fans have a very exaggerated sense of their club's size and importance. So you can thank your fellow fans for the attitude you get on here. You're only reaping what they've sewn in the past. It seems you are determined to blame it on Spurs fans and mostly Glaston. You seem to have a them and us attitude, instead of treating each pster as an individual. But he isn't that bad (I can't see the problem with him at all, but I don't get the hatred shown towards so mnay pundits in this country either, so maybe I'm just too tolerant) and his main fault is responding or taking the bait. He is no different to so many fans of all clubs and he really doesn't come here giving it the "bigun." More than anything this thread demonstrates the intolerance a few posters have towards a poster who supports another club. It's almost as you ar eblind to the fact that more often than not it is villa fans provoking Galston that casues him to respond in a way that annoys many of you. You must be able to see that most of the issue's anger shown in this thread is started by certain posters posting in a provocative way aimed at annoying Spurs fans (mainly Glaston.) Why would you base your opinions on the fans of a club on the posters in this thread? Surely you are wise enough to realise that what club a person supports says little about them as a person and you can't define a fanbase with ignorant stereotyping. Though I honeslty don't think the Spurs fans in this thread have shown themselves in a particuarly bad light. At the very least you must acknowledge we don't come here with intention of winding you all up, as is often the case when supporters of another club post on a teams forum. Seriously, if Spurs fans based their opinions of Villa fans based on this thread what do you think they would be?

But it doesn't. This is why i and probably the other Spurs fans who post here, are so surprised at the attitudes in this thread. Spurs fans in general have no idea that there is bad blood between our fans and Villa. In fact i can confidently say that from Spurs point of view there isn't. Arsenal, Chelsea and Wham are our traditional enemies (and to be honest the Wham thing is only because they are so determined to be our enemies.) The average Spurs fan wont have a clue what Villa have won over the years and wont care really either. In fact evertyime Villa wins something it means a year went by that one of our rivals didn't, so it would generally be seen as a good thing. I genuinely don't get the anamosity from Villa fans and from I can see in this thread it largelly seems to be of your own making. To be honest I have no clue if it's just members of this site or Villa fans in general that have a problem with Spurs, but I know for sure, that Villa are well down the pecking order in when it comes to vitriol.

You all taunt Glaston and they have real pop at him when he hits back. I genuinely don't think you can claim you intentionally wind him up just to get a reaction or otherwise you wouldn't get so pissed of at how he responds. Surely those who get angry at Glaston should be equally pissed off at the Villa fans in this thread that continually post bollocks they must know will get a response. If certain posters were more accomodating to Glaston and accept that it is perfectly normal for a fan to be biased towards his own club, then I'm sure this thread would be alot better. Because the Glaston is outnumbered you convince yourselves that he is to blame, when he's only guilty of taking the bait. Admittedly he does it time and time again, but I can't see how there can be so much seemingly genuine anamosity towards him, when poster go out of their way to get a rise from him. I post on a few non Spurs forums and never get into any arguments, but here it's hard not to and it's genuinley becasue of the antagonistic posting style of some of your members. Even the mods seem to take sides. If you are going to allow non Villa fans to join they should be given the same rights in terms of moderation etc. Personally I'm happy to read the views of non Spurs fans on Spurs forums. In fact, at times, i find it more interesting than reading the opinions of other Spurs fans. The key is not to take everything they say as an attack on your club.

I don't want to get into this particualr argumetn, but can someone clarify my undersatndig of things. Wasn't the football league effectively just the name given to a northern league and there were no southern sides in for practical reasons? How were teams supposed to travel to away games back in the 19th century? Surely it just wasn't practical to have a proper nationwide football league?

This is such BS. This constant air of superiority that some of the Villa posters have on here is just getting boring. I'm not sure a Spurs fan has even put forward a suggestion for a joint team in this thread. And I don't see any evidence of our fans being stubborn or deluded when it comes to comparing Villa and Spurs players. Where is the evidence that shows certain Villa players are better than Spurs players, which we have refused to accept? And if you can point this out, I bet I can find more examples of the Villa fans in this thread refusing to accept similar evidence that Spurs players are better. The Actim index was brought up by Villa fans in this thread and though I think it's nonsense, once Villa fans realise it's done on cumulative data, I think they'll be shocked by the results. For example, using the Actim Index, compare Gomes and Friedal based on time played (a much fairer comparison) and I think it will suggest that Gomes is better. I don't think Actim has much value, but for some reason, some posters here do. Yet the Actim Index contradicts what they are saying. It's the same with the Castrol Index, which is done on averages, rather than cumulutive and in general Spurs players fair much better. Based on these types of rating systems and other stats such as goals against, goals scored, chances created, chances conceded, tackles and passes etc, it's hard to find an objective agrument for the inclusion of more than 3 or 4 Villa players. It's even harder when you consider that Surs fans see less of them, as I pointed out earlier. You claim Spurs fans ignore evidence that Villa players are better, yet most Villa fans in this thread have put more Villa players in their team than Spurs players. I'm not criticising Villa fans in general for this and it's perfectly normal to have a bias towards your own players and fans of all clubs will be the same, but i don't see why you have this delusional idea in your head that Villa fans are more objective and Spurs fans more biased towards their own players. The evidence intnis thread

double post

Do you not understand that Actim use a cumulative points system? It's already been pointed out that your best players have missed comparitively few games, compared with those of other clubs. Hence the fact Gabby is ahead of Torres. None of the current team of the season players have played under 2200 mins. But aside from that, the Actim Index is hardly a good way of judging players and as i said earlier i can't imagine the reaction would have been very positive if a Spurs fan had used it to demonstarte our players superiority.

Be interesting to see what the Spurs fans think of this. Seeing as they've used stats to backup why Gomes is better than Friedel, surely the official Premier League stats hold more validity and are therefore more reliable. Somehow I think they'll dismiss it. Anyways, Joey, you seem to be ignoring the fact that we have had alot of injuries. We had to play an academy player at CB against Fulham, I don't think you've been forced to do such a thing to your starting XI have you? Like TWI said, L.Young, Downing, NRC have all missed an awful lot of playing time, while players like Carew and Milnerhave been playing with injuries, not at 100%. But like you said yourself, you don't seem to watch much football besides Spurs, so you wouldn't really know. Admittedly I only see your games on Football First, unless they're live, but that's still a decent amount of Spurs that I see and I feel I have a decent enough opinion of your players based on this. I'm not ignoring the fact you've had a lot of injuries. I'm simply making the point you've been lucky with injuries to your best players. The trouble is because i'm a Spurs fan it seems that this is seen as some attack on Villa and thus you have to counter with some sort of argument. The point about the academy kid playing at CB, is kind of what i was getting at. If you'd had the injuries to the key players that we have had, how do you thin you'd have handled that and would it not have had an effect on your current league placing? Also I said I'd only seen Milner play CM for 90 mins a few times. I too watch MOTD and Football First etc, so still see plenty of football, but don't consider this enough to suggest i'd be as aware as Villa fans about their own players, who they see play every week.

No it isn't a typical Spurs fan argument. It's my personal argument and i'm sure many Spurs fans wouldn't agree with it. This whole anti Spurs thing is getting a bit silly, as it prevetns any decent debate. I think i've made some decent poitns that I thought might be of interest to Villa fans, but not for the first time in this thread, so many of you take it as an attack on Villa. Discussing the quality of your squad or lack of quality, doesn't always need to be taken as an attack. I only come her to discuss football from the perspective of a different group of fans. I'm sure you've had less changes in your back 4 than us over the course of the season, but that wasn't the poitn. i was asking where you'd think you'd be ahd you suffered injuries to your best players, as we have. You may see it as picking and choosing, but I think it's a perfectly decent question and something I'd be interested in if I was a Villa fan. Could your squad have coped as well with injuries as ours?

I'd love to see the reaction if a Spurs fan posted in this thread claiming Actim stats as some sort of decent way to judge players.

I think my statment stands up, as it just poitns out that perhaps the gap in quality is bigger thanthe table suggests. And if this is the case, then it's understandbale why Spurs fan would have trouble selecting many Villa players. Regarding your injuries, I could say the same about Spurs less important players, but i'm really talking about your key players. The Milners, Young's, Dunne's and Freidal's. Liverpool for example have had lots on injures, but the one that has surely made the real difference is Torres. He's only played 1600 mins and if he played more like 2400, I'm fairly sure they'd be the team in 4th right now. It seems from reading the forum that Milner is seen as your best player currently, how do you think you've have managed had he missed half of your games?

It's tough from a Spurs fans perspective to find room for Villa players. We don't watch all of Villa's games so much of our opinion will be based on the games against us and a few others we've seen. For example, most Villa fans would play Milner in CM, but other than the draw against us, I've only seen him play 90 mins against Stoke and Arsenal. He was shit in all 3 games. There is a 7 point gap between us currently in the league table and I think by the end of the season it will be closer. But that doesn't mean we have similar strength first 11's. Our 5 best players have all missed far more playing time than yours. If Milner had missed as much football as Modric, A Young as much as Lennon, Dunne as much as Dawson, Friedal as much as Gomes or Gabby as much as Defoe, the gap between the 2 sides would most likely be be pretty big by now. So whilst looking at the table it suggests we are pretty evenly matched, I'm not sure that is the case when it comes down to our strongest XI's. Btw, the stuff about injuries might be an interesting thing for one of you to bring up on the Villa chat forum. There are alot of threads discussing your progress and how MON is doing etc, but I haven't seen much on this topic. Surey it has to be taken into account when talking baout your progress. Compared to the teams around you, you have been incredibly lucky with injuries. Where do you think you'd be in the table if Milner had played only half the time he has?

Something needs to quickly be addressed here. Gomes hasn't made the most saves, he saved the highest percentage of shots faced by any GK. Villa have faced 437 shots and Spurs 364. So it isn't a case of us relying on Gomes because our defence isn't very good. As a team we have so far been harder to break down than you. But this could all change by the end of the season as it's very close and both teams have very good defenders, which is reflected it impressive goals against records. It can all change after just one game, as we saw last weekend. It clearly isn't mad to opt for Gomes over Friedel. Gomes has saved a higher percentage of his shots and on average concedes 0.77 per game, compared with Friedals 1.04. At the end of the day it should come down to which keeper is better at preventing goals, but it is close and Friedal has more experience in the Prem, so I understand your prefference for him, but you should at least admit that it's far from mad to prefer Gomes and based on the season to date, it's a fair shout. He should be currently leading the race to be named in the PFA Team of the Year. He can't do much more than save a higher perecentage of shots than any other GK and have the lowest average goals against in the Prem.

Interesting that you opt for Friedel over Gomes. I can understand why given the terrible first 6 months he had, but since then hasn't he done enough to convince non Spurs fans yet? What does he have to do to be considered the best in the Prem? Other than making more saves and conceding less goals than other keepers, what can he do to convince people that he's world class? Hiddink says he's the best in the world and his record in Holland and for us this season suggests he isn't far away from that, yet the average non Spurs fan still tends to think he's pretty average. I think this is because everythime he makes a mistake the commentators go and about how he's done it again due to awful start with us. But ultimately a GK is there to prevent goals and it's hard to argue that any GK in the Prem has done a better job than Gomes this season. Friedel makes great saves, but the only GK in the Prem with a better save percentage is Gomes. And ultimately Gomes has only conceded an average of 0.72 goals per game, which is comfortably ahead of the rest of the Prems keepers. For the rest of his career commentators are sure to highlight any mistakes he makes, but this shouldn't take away from the fact he prevents more goals being scored than any other GK in the league and thus surely he should be recognised as one of the best.

listen dont come on a villa site and start preaching that im " making shit up". do you know me? no. do you know my spurs mates no? so dont accuse me of making things up when clearly you have no idea what your talking about i know alot of spurs fans and they think they will finish 4th snd they are gloating already. dont start telling me what to do on a villa fan site, if you ahve a problem with what i say leave You didn't say specific fans you knew, but generalised that Spurs fans were gloating. This isn't represenative of Spurs fans in general. The fact it is a Villa site is irrelevant. I don't think there is a stipulation that only Villa fans are allowed to join this forum. And also the Spurs fans that are members here and post in this thread all behave well. If the mods decide we are causing trouble and deliberately trying to shit stir and ask us to leave then fair enough, but I don't think it's upto you to tell me to leave if i don't agree with something you say, simply because you are a Villa fan and this is a Villa forum. I'm sure there are plenty of Villa fans that disagree with you on a number of topics concerning Villa, so i can't see why i shouldn't feel free to post if a I disagree with what you've said about the club i support.

Do you think if you post that it make is true? Spurs fans are certainly not gloating. Amongst all fan bases there will be differeing opinions, but the majority of Spurs fans remain very uncertain as to where we will finish this season. We've got every reason to be confident, but are fully aware that we have the toughest run in and that Liverpool are beginning to find form. I understand that for some reason alot of Villa fans on this messageboard have a problem with Spurs and Redknapp, but why make shit up? It's as if you need to convince yourself of reasons why you have this dislike for Spurs. If you don't like us, fair enough. I don't have a problem with that and fully understand as there are clubs I dislike for no rational reason, but I don't see why you need to post rubbish like we are gloating, when it's not true. Yes you'll be able to find occassional examples of over confident fans, but there will be just as many Man City and Liverpool fans who think the same about their teams chances.

Source, don't think you need to reg to read This isn't really an example of why Redknapp is hated, but a biased piece in order to justify hating him. Everyone who reads it and even the guy who wrote it knows that all of these points can easily be dismissed as nonsense. I don't know much about his time at Bournmoutn, but the West Ham comments are ridiculously biased. Every manager pesters their chairman for money to invest. kevin Keegan is loved at Newcastle and he opnely admits he kept telling the chairman we need to spend just a bit more and then a bit more after that. He even admits to lying about Peter Beardsleys age so the chairman would agree to his fee. The article doesn't mention Harry took Wham to their highest ever league position. It slags of his signings, but doesn't mention the quality he brought to the club. It says he spent as much as Wenger, but doesn't mention how much he got back in transfers and neither does it mention how much other clubs spent in relation to Wenger. Basically the guy has compared Redknapp to the best manager in the transfer marker in Prem history and has used this as a way to criticise. And the Pompey stuff is even more ridiculous. Unbelieavably he slags off Harry's transfer dealings. He took players to Pompey they could only have dreamed of in the past. And he made a huge profit on his transfer deals. Add up the cost of the players he brought in and compare it what they got back. Oh and whilst you are doing this, compare it with Wneger at Arsenal. Funnily enough the writer wasn't so keen to make that comparison this time. Pompey were doing fine until Mandaric sold to Gaydamak. Yet some how people try and blame Harry for it. If people don't like Redknapp that's up to them. I can understand why, as there is something dislikeable about him. But I don't see why they try and justify this dislike with bullshit reasons like those posted above and often in this thread in general. You all know Redknapp wasn't in charge of the finances at Pompey, Wham and Southampton. You all know he's had more success than failure in the transfer market. He says more good things about other clubs than most other managers. Overall he's just a good football manager. But he isn't a likeable guy and I can see why he winds people up, but I wish they would at least criticise him more honeslty. Why can't people just admit they hate him he's just erm...... hateable!

Why don't some of you post links to the posts in which Glaston has irritated you? I'd genuinley like to see them. My suspicion is that he's just posted in manner typical to most football fans, in which he over rates his team and their players, but is totally genuine in his belief. I also suspect that the replies he gets from these posts are over the top and will confirm what i wrote earlier about Glaston not being the problem and it's more the attitude of some of the posters here. I think there could be some selective memory issues, in which only certain parts of Glastons posts are remembered and the posts that caused him to reply in the first place, often forgotten. I could well be wrong and will certainly apologize if some of Glaston posts can be highlighted which seem antagonistic and worthy of the abuse he often gets. I'm genuinley not trying to stir up a Spurs vs Villa fan argument, as I don't see individuals as representative of a football club. How people behave on a messageboard tells us nothing about the fan base of a particular football team. But I just think it's the minority (ie Glaston) who is the wronged part here and the majority are using their numbers to justify the abuse he gets and fuel each others nonsense prejudices (ie stuff said about Spurs fans in general).

Good luck tomorrow. Btw, stop trying to kid yourselves that Galston is the main the problem in this thread. I'm not defending him simply due to Spurs fans bias. There are a number of posters in this thread that have a hatred of Spurs and Redknapp and it does seem to be close to obsessive. Glaston isn't any different to thousands of posters on football forums, in that he gets carried away with the merits of his team. There are numerous examples of Villa fans doing the same on this very forum. He's not deliberately offensive and tries to keep things civil. But some of you seem to want to convince yourselves that he is a wum and this gives you an excuse to continually abuse him.

But aren't those stats biased as he's played more games outside the Prem League in CM? In terms of the Prem doesn't he have 6 assists and 2 goals from the right and 2 goals and 2 assists from CM? But regardless i'm not talking about goals scoring and creating productivity, but his overall suitability to the role. I think it's safe to say that be it from the righ or the centre he'll contribute in terms of goals and assists. At the moment I think he's the best man for the job in CM, as you don't have many options in the middle, but to really push on I think CM is the area you are most need of improvement.

From what you are saying here ,he sounds more suited to a Modric type role or even how Gerrard plays for Liverpool. Either an ACM, who defends out wide, but going forward has the license to cut in and make things happen, like Modric. Or an ACM who plays infront of 2 more conventional CM's like Gerrard for Liverpool. I really can't see Milner as a conventional CM player from what I've seen so far. His game seems to be more about trying to make things happen, rather than controlling the tempo of the match. I thought that was what you were really missing the other night. You desperately needed a Huddlestone type to take control in the middle, set the tempo, organise the team shape and get the ball to the Milner's, Young's and Downings. Petrov and Milner seemed totally ineefective against Huddlestone and Palacios. It was the same when we played you at Villa Park, when you had Petrov and Reo Coker in the middle. CM is the one area where seem to have total dominance over you. It should be Petrov's job to set the tempo from deep, he doesn't do it enough, why I don't rate him as highly as other, need someone like Parker. I think Parker would be a great signing for you, but more as a ball winner who likes to drive forward. I think you need a quality, composed player in the middle to set the tempo, like you had in Barry. Parker is very gettable for you and I'd suggest someone like De Zeeuw at Ajax. I'd have gone for Pedro Mendes aswell, but he's gone to Sporting now. A midfield of Young----De Zeeuw---Parker----Milner would be awesome and then you have Downing as an option aswell.

But I'd argue that he can get the goals and assists from playing wide. You don't seem to gain anything from having him in the middle that you'd not have with him in a wide postion. I suspect he actually gets more of his goals and assists when playing wide. Personally I think you have 3 quality wide players and thus have the strength in depth you need in those positons. But I'd still want MON to bring in 2 quality CMs in the summer.

From what you are saying here ,he sounds more suited to a Modric type role or even how Gerrard plays for Liverpool. Either an ACM, who defends out wide, but going forward has the license to cut in and make things happen, like Modric. Or an ACM who plays infront of 2 more conventional CM's like Gerrard for Liverpool. I really can't see Milner as a conventional CM player from what I've seen so far. His game seems to be more about trying to make things happen, rather than controlling the tempo of the match. I thought that was what you were really missing the other night. You desperately needed a Huddlestone type to take control in the middle, set the tempo, organise the team shape and get the ball to the Milner's, Young's and Downings. Petrov and Milner seemed totally ineefective against Huddlestone and Palacios. It was the same when we played you at Villa Park, when you had Petrov and Reo Coker in the middle. CM is the one area where seem to have total dominance over you.

What is Milners best postion then? I said the other day that he's no way a CM player. This didn't go down well, but compared to Huddlestone the other night, it was a total no contest. And whilst Huddlestone is having a good season, he's not amongst the very elite CMs. I've seen Milner have some good moments from CM, but it was nothing he couldn't do from the right. He can't surely be your long term solution in the middle can he? I see him as more of a cross between Beckham and Giggs and should be played wide (more Giggs style, but Beckhams pace).