LancsVillan

Tell you what though if we make the wholesale changes some on this thread seem to be pointing I will be A) very surprised waiting for the 'they need time to settle, wait for after Xmas' posts in September! It doesn't work like that in football, maybe in FM or CM but not in the Premier League. If we have more than 4 new starters come the first game I'll be amazed and will donate £30 to VT

prefer him over Richards

Here too Dave, I've liked him from the first time I saw him in the youths

those three aside have we seen enough of the others to cast them aside as not being good enough?

Rubbish. Sorry. I know this is only an opinion based argument but I'm extremely confident that time will prove you wrong here. Only Luke may have this kind of potential IMO. I know it's a shame we cannot sign Silva and Fabregas to prove me right..... :-) Then again I'm sure by summer they'll be mentioned in this thread

Last time I looked I thought Cahill Ridge Gardner Ozzy Davis Gabby Luke Ashley were all experienced kids with plenty of potential or is it just that we always view players at some clubs as being better than ours? Gardner or Ozzy would for me look as good as Denilson if he played with Silva and Fabregas Gabby or Luke as good as the over hyped Theo our youngsters are trying to perform under a far different pressure.

I would say Maloney, Young, Gardner and Moore. I don't think Osbourne or Ridgewell should be written off either. Which young players out there do you think we should be looking at who show more potential? The whole of Arsenal's youth team. Micah Richards, Ronaldo, Rooney etc etc. Now i know your going to say im being unrealistic naming these players but the point is our youth are a million miles behind this kind of talent and will never be even close to the kind of quality we need to take villa to the level we wont to be at. Well having watched Arsenal's youth team get turned over by our reserves not so long back I stand by my appraisal. Micah Richards is to me just another Man City over-hyped player. Ronaldo and Rooney - oh yes those excellent products of their clubs academy! Indeed most of the Arsenal reserve team (which is the ony I think you mean, i.e. the one playing the cups this season) have been bought in too. Ours this time around are more fully homegrown, as Lund and Steiber aren't exactly Brummies but cost nought. Our previous 'kids' Jlloyd, Ridge and Barry were all bought in. Only Vass and Davis can be seen to have amounted to much of those over 21 who signed as schoolboys

How do you define a big star? In the last few weeks we've been linked with the likes of Bellamy, Bent, Keane, Defoe, Koné. Plus we've signed John Carew who has spent nearly his whole career at some of the biggest clubs in Europe. The above are all internationals, four with Champions League experience...Does that mean they are big stars? If you want us to be linked with the likes of Klose, Eto'o, Torres, Kaka et al then tough. It's not going to happen. To be perfectly honest, I don't care if they are a 'big star' or not. As long as they are the sort of player who can move us up to the next level I don't care if we end up buying them from Barcelona or Bury. Agree totally with this, look at some of the better players from the current premiership and it's history and you will see that when they signed for their respective clubs they were not 'stars'. The fee paid for some automatically dictated it but that is a different point. If MO'N spots Joe Bloggs playing in Africa to take the DM role who we've never heard of then so be it.

Luke, Gardner and Ozzy have the potential of those already with regular reserve experience. Lund, Olejnik, Steiber and Williams of the next crop too for me.

well I didn't listen to it but as an ex-'ammer I'm sure a team that was possibliy in sight for them gaining a point would have hurt him

Fighting without results is all well and good, the side in 1987 had plenty of fight but couldn't win a raffle if they held the only ticket.

a real game of two halves from the boys in Claret and Blue tonight versus Everton Yes after what can only be described as a woeful first half performance and one where I thought not one player earned his wages Martin O'Neill earned his by making a change at half-time that was much required and what a stroke of genius it was. Yes I watched the game online tonight and was very depressed at the first half 'performance' where we made Everton look like world beaters. We were behind in every area, possession, shots and most importantly the goals column. This forebode only bad news as not only is it a couple of years since we have won coming from behind but it was also some four hours since our last goal at VP. Then the change that I honestly thought won us the point, off went the ineffective Gav McCann and on came Patrik Berger. To be fair to Gav for a nano-second MO'N could have taken just about anyone off but he was having a mare. Right from the start of the second half Villa were up for it piling pressure onto the Toffees goal, John Carew bringing two excellent saves out of Tim Howard. (That said if a certain Columbian or Brummie had missed those chance they could expect a public hanging, JC still has the fans 100% backing there) We pressed and pressed, the commentator called it a bombardment, me I felt that was unfair as that would mean we were playing long ball after long ball, but in this game we weren't. WE were playing some quite good football and on the ground. Barry and Berger were bossing the midfield and Petrov too improved. I feel Stan is probably doing his best work when you don't actuallu see him! On the game went and Everton had two good shots, one of which Tommy spilled but on second viewing it moved late and at least it never went in. Then we got the goal our second half performance warranted as Carew chased a nother through ball, collided fairly with Howard and Gabby Agbonlahor was on hand to knock in th rebound. A good point and a good second half. More of the second half at Ewood on Saturday please lads.

I want robbie keane or benny mcarthy to help carew upfront and bridge for left back

I sometime wonder why I don't get affected by the air in Manchester in the same way you do Jas, Mellberg is excellent and looked it this season when he played with Laursen. I don't think he is helped by the fact he is playing alongside Gaz Cahill as his education and talking to/of others is one reason I think he lost the Captaincy. There are others who need replacing before we get to Olly

I like the third one to my untrained eye. The way the spots on the leaf pick up the colour of the eye and the comparison it allows with the the colour of the leaf

The General is well aware of our concerns about the moving of fixtures and the impacts it has on individual arrangements and has referred to it on a number of occasions now. Can we please not clutter this thread up with it - thanks

maybe not but it was the same at Celtic from what I've heard. Indeed Maloney's own performances were limited by his insistence on playing a very out of sorts Alan Thompson at times... I have two instincts about MO'N: 1- he is a stubborn man that will not necessarily admit he is wrong and will play players he has bought regardless. 2 - I'm not convinced he knows how to buy the right players given the amount of money at his disposal; at Leicester he traded players in and out on a limited budget and at Celtic he based his side on some pretty average Prem players, knowing that that 'averageness' was more than good enough for that standard. The first of these is fine and is actually something you want from a manager 'It's my decision, my future, it's up to me'. The second one is a concern that until the end of this summer he has no chance to address for me yet I am prepared to be wrong and also prepared to wait

Point out MON's actual failures in the transfer market so far. Where's our squad that so full of his spectacular failures? Either you can justify the spectacular failure line or you are guilty of PFE don't think it's a PFE but it is guitly of massive over exaggeration. Currently all of MON's signings are either 1st team regulars of pushing for a first team place. One has excelled (JC) and the others have done well at times and not so well at others. None have failed spectacularly IMO. and none will be dropped regardless of how they are performing it seems...

Cheers OBE and you remembered the score too - well done. News just in darn sath is that the Arsenal Right back is complaining about Zoltan Steiber's wings of steel

Pablo Aimar. I wish.......

I meant a similar type of player. Someone to keep the side ticking over. McCann doesn't do it for me. Gotcha but I still think Gav is the lynchpin of our side. We need to find some sort of unknown entity as all the known players of this type are with the major clubs

Barton is nothing like Fabregas he is a class a tw@ and a thug off the pitch, someone I do not want to be associated with Villa

He's about the same size as Aston and he's 10!! Fortnight ago he was dwarfed by the schoolboy ballboys Cannot wait to see him in action.

Cheers OBE another good report for what sounds like a pretty poor match

I would call it a penalty if it had been a Villa player, Aston in his U11 game or me playing fatmans footie...