MrDuck

New release. Click if you like beards and/or sea shanties... http://zeptepi.bandcamp.com/album/haul-away-joe-coming-up-for-air

http://youtu.be/7xhBFp7HOmg Orly? I think you are forgetting just how brilliant a player Giggs was when he was Bale's age. Bale is better than Giggs is in 2013, but Ryan Giggs has been a phenomenally good footballer for twenty years and he has adapted his game as his physical attributes have changed. Great video link. So many awesome moments, Bale has a way to go yet to match Giggs.

http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2013/02/12/who-said-it-rodgers-brent_n_2667551.html

What is Brendan Rogers smoking? "We lost the battle but we won the war in terms of going forward." Er no. You actually won the battle but lost the war. You're out. Idiot.

Usually after a couple of defeats Arsenal come good and totally hammer someone. As they've just lost to Blackburn and Bayern, I have a horrible feeling we'll be the ones getting hammered.

Would love to see him at Villa. Always entertaining, never a dull moment and has done an excellent job at Swindon as far as I can tell

True, but Randy also appeared to do very little to stop it happening. Some clubs fight to keep their contracted players, we seem happy to just roll over and let it happen.

12 pts off 4th, 12 pts off 4th from bottom.

I'd like to know what the legal basis for doing that is. It sounds to me like some people are so enraged by people cheating at sports that they're throwing the civil rights book out of the window. People should be able to put whatever they want into their bodies. The only time it becomes anyone else's business is when they show up to compete. If people are going to compete, it's reasonable to ask them to prove they're not cheating, but surveillance and wiretaps sounds like losing perspective a little bit (though I don't pretend to know exactly what they've been up to). Well we have organised crime gangs involved by all accounts - surely the police should have any powers open to use that they'd have in any other criminal investigation?

Comment from an article about this ruling on the Guardian... a bit of a generic rant, but couldn't agree more: The Premiership, Sky and UEFA have destroyed football. Not just in this country but all across Europe. England once had a top division where a team could be promoted one season and be crowned champions of England the next (Notts Forest 77-78). The supporters and chairman of every team in the league started the season with the hope that maybe, just maybe, this could be their year. And by their year I mean to WIN it. It was mostly a dream, most years it didn't happen, but it was at least possible. Now there is a league where the height of almost all of the team's ambition is to stay in the league - relegation meaning (relative) financial disaster. Those with higher ambitions aim to finish in the TOP 4!!!, hailing this as some sort of major achievement as it guarantees entry to the equally obscene champions league. (A competition that, thanks to it's use of seeding, practically guarantees safe passage for the same teams year-in, year-out-stretching, presumably, to infinity.) In reality England has a league that only 3, possibly 4 teams have any chance of winning. And 2 of those teams are there, not because of the brilliance of a Busby, Clough or Ferguson - not because of the team spirit of a Notts Forest or the steady, cumulative growth of a Liverpool - but because of hundreds of millions of pounds spent by billionaire owners. The SPORT of football has been obliterated. It is now like a playground game of football where the two captains line up to pick the teams and instead of picking players alternately, one guy gets to pick all of his team first and the other fella is left with the spotty herberts, fat bob and the ginger. One team is sure to destroy the other but what joy is there in it? The English league is a pitiful excuse for a sporting competition. Which is, actually, a national tragedy.

Allardyce will be rubbing his hands in joy at the prospect of his side taking on our "defence".

Ah, Balotelli. The "Milan family's little nigger". http://bit.ly/11RWCWa

Laursen was fecking brilliant, legend or not!

I liked Nigel.. always gave his all, and had some great attributes. But I don't think I've seen a worse passer of the ball in all my many years of following Villa!

Can't see us keeping Wiemann if we go down. Too much potential, and strikes me as a very ambitious young player.

I'm really not sure you're in any position to be commenting on the intelligence of others...

Once again, Chelsea's official twitter account bringing the lolz... "Chelsea are well in control with 15 mins remaining. #CFC"

Italians aren't exactly overly fond of anyone who isn't Italian!

I watched the '94 cup final dvd the other night to cheer myself up. Christ but we had some quality then! I always remembered Townsend & Richardson as kinda average midfielders, but they were like Keane and Viera compared to the shite we have these days.

Aye. I'd play a full strength side... I would say the confidence boost a win would give us before the Newcastle game is worth far more to us than resting a few of our best - hmmm, make that least shit - players.

If Hazard had kicked out like that at another player - even if the other player was, like the ballboy, being a dick - he'd be sent off and banned.

Monkey see, monkey do.

Agree entirely. I just don't think the fact that the kid is a dick is a reason to excuse Hazard for his actions or from punishment.

Rightly or wrongly, you can't go around kicking people just cos you think they deserve it... not unless you're prepared to accept there may just be consequences to your actions! At least wasn't a Liverpool player, so we're spared another black armband solidarity moment.

It's not all poisonous desert. We do have plenty of poisonous forests too. Although most of them are on fire at the moment.