Enda

BBC Football, when he signed.

Signing Alan Hutton is coup for Aston Villa - McLeish

Aston Villa manager Alex McLeish says the signing of Scotland international Alan Hutton is a "coup" for the Midlands club.

The former Tottenham defender agreed a four year deal on deadline day to join up with McLeish who previously managed him at Rangers and Scotland.

"He's a good signing for us," McLeish told Sportsound on BBC Radio Scotland. "We do lack a bit of experience in the squad. To get Alan, an international in his prime is a great coup for us."

And McLeish believes Hutton has several years ahead of him in the top flight of English football, despite failing to find his best form with former club Tottenham Hotspur. "Alan has got five or six years ahead of him," McLeish said.

"There were some problems between him and Harry Redknapp, but you never know what happens.

"I would certainly like to think, with the experience he has gathered, he should be able to come to our club and not be fazed in any way. He's definitely got great athleticism."

Worst footballer I've seen regularly play in a Villa shirt.

And that includes me, aged 8.

QPR have three matches left. Chelsea, Man City and Stoke. Because of our slight goal difference cushion, they'd probably need to pick up four points from these games. That'll keep us up, I think.

The last Celtic man we had in charge did a good job, all things considered. We just needed to rein him in a lot more than we did.

The current troglodyte in charge is a Rangers man, and it has been a disaster. And they're in administration, the bastards.

Clearly therefore our next manager must be Paul Lambert

you need to be mindful of the fact that in several parts of the world there is religious tension and the Jewish religion and the religion of the Arab world has, for thousands of years, been at loggerheads and the carrying out of a business transaction between the two groups is highly unlikely.

Nah, this is wrong. The religion of the Arab world wasn't even founded "thousands of years ago", and Jews and Muslims mostly got on very well (notable exceptions aside) until after WWII. Throwing in a "Oh a Jew would never sell to an Arab"-type comment is off-topic, bigoted, and historically stupid.

Whilst I would state that bringing religion into a debate about football is not necessarily the right thing to do, and maybe even stupid, I do think that calling other people 'Tools' is equally as stupid and quite probably offensive.

Stupid? Well I think they deserved to be called on it. But your point is fair enough, so I'll shut up about it.

WHAT? RL is jewish?.. Oh this makes it even more embarrassing.. you learn something new everyday, usually jewish americans are so Good with money..Think we need daniel Levy instead.

Hence why we won't beselling to Arabs

You're both **** tools.

Why am I a Tool? For thinking Jewish people are usually better with money? its true most of the time though.

RL's religious beliefs have absolutely zero to do with AVFC. The performance and management of our club is embarrassing because we've made terrible choices that have us flirting with relegation. It's embarrassing that Bolton at home is the biggest game of the season for us. These have absolutely nothing to do with Randy's religion. Bringing religion into it is as stupid as bringing race into it.

WHAT? RL is jewish?.. Oh this makes it even more embarrassing.. you learn something new everyday, usually jewish americans are so Good with money..Think we need daniel Levy instead.

Hence why we won't beselling to Arabs

You're both **** tools.

What a shit hole.

I'm needing to get to cork from dublin, i'm sure it's easy but what's the best cheapest way? Have to search the family roots..dad lived there most his growing up life, moved from dublin.

Assuming you're going from Cork city, the best way is the Aircoach. It's about e20, doesn't stop at every third house so is fairly quick, and is comfortable. The train is about an hour faster but is twice the price unless you can get a good deal.

In case anyone is thinking of travelling across from England to the Chicago game, have a check at the prices from Dublin. I'm a poor student going across the Atlantic a couple of times a year, and I've always found Dublin cheaper than London or Frankfurt or Paris. And Aer Lingus have the nicest planes, too. (PS Expedia is yer only man.)

scottb51 and usvilla - how do matches in America work? Will the Villa fans be in a certain section? Basically, am I better off buying tickets from AVFC than Ticketmaster?

Birmingham Mail

VILLA will prepare for their own major league season with a summer tour of the US, stopping off at Philadelphia, Chicago and Portland.

The three-match trip will take place in late July with the claret and blue squad expected to be in the States for around ten days.

Villa will kick off the tour with a match against Philadelphia Union on July 18 at PPL Stadium. They will then travel to take on MLS club Chicago Fire on July 21 at Toyota Park.

And finally the club will complete the pre-season trip with a friendly against Portland Timbers on July 24 at JELD-WEN Field.

I'm living in Michigan, so Chicago is a five-hour bus away. Definitely going to this.

2 in 2 for Drennan. sgc will not be happy.

Not half-bad for a kid who "literally can't run."

------------------Given----------------

Stevens--Dunne--Williams---Devine

Coleman--------Clark----Carruthers

-----------------Ireland----------------

---------Drennan------Burke----------

Could happen. Some day.

Hi General,

My new kit that I ordered off the official website arrived here in the States this morning. $72.50 including shipping.

As noted by a few fans on the New Kit thread the shirts this year are a size larger than in previous years.

These are both "Medium". It's the same with my Medium neon-blue kit from a couple of years back, others have reported the same thing relative to last year's kit.

If I want to exchange my shirt for a smaller size - the size I thought I was getting based on previous AVFC shirts by Nike - I will have to pay another $15 in shipping (i.e. send shirt back to B6 AND pay for shipping out the exchange shirt.)

I appreciate that this is not a huge issue for the Club but from my point of view this is pretty crappy. I buy the new kit almost every season and they're always Medium. This year Nike (or someone else) has gone and changed the sizes and now I'm out an extra $15 as a result of it.

I would not have had this problem had I bought from a high-street store but I wanted to buy directly from Villa to give them the extra profit. This exchange policy really discourages fans from doing that.

Could you look into sorting something out on the official site's exchange policy or, at least, ensure that size changes are clearly highlighted for future years please?

Best,

Enda

I don't think I've ever felt so depressed about Villa as I did yesterday

Around February I told myself I'd stop complaining once we stayed up. This season is easier to accept that way. I'm writing this season off.

After watching that shit today it makes me even more angry about my season ticket price being increased for next season. Where else but football does the quality of the goods go down and the price go up?

Going to find it really hard to fork out over £500 for a season ticket if that is the sort of crap I am going to have to suffer every home game.

Thanks Mr Lerner, you have really brought us on haven't you!!

Understand that nobody likes renewing their ST after a poor performance, but I have to completely disagree with the bolded bit.

Do you remember what things were like with David O'Leary and Doug Ellis? Doug Ellis who chased two very good managers away from the club and was so tight our players feared we'd miss matches because our bus would break down.

In contrast under Randy Lerner, off the top of my head, we've had:

1. The return of European football to Villa Park

2. Ashley Young, £9.6m

3. The restoration of some of the club's tradition with the mosaic and the Holte

4. Proper interaction with the fans

5. Sponsorship by acorns

6. James Milner, £12m

7. Stewart Downing, £12m

8. Darren Bent, £24m

None of the above would have happened under Ellis. Fair enough we sold Milner but we wouldn't have signed him at all under Ellis. We've had a shit season, no question about it, but it's certainly not Randy Lerner's fault.

could still go down. easily.

only need a wolves win at home tomorrow to leave us only 6 ahead of wigan, who'd be 3rd bottom.

considering they'd have west ham at home next and us arsenal away, it's by no mean guaranteed we'll stay up.

You're forgetting that it's not just Wigan below us. To go down, we'd also need Brum to beat Fulham and get a point at Spurs, and Blackburn to beat Man Utd but lose to Wolves (or something weird like that) and Blackpool to beat United as well. Not going to happen.

It was in the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) recent ruling on the case the IFA took against the FAI on player eligibility (specifically on Danierl Kearns):

http://www.tas-cas.org/d2wfiles/document/4385/5048/0/Award%202071.pdf

P.19, about half way down:

"• On 5 November 2007, FIFA informed the IFA that the FAI did not accept its proposal of 7 March 2007. FIFA also came to the conclusion that the applicable regulations did not provide for avoidance of the “one-way situation” described in its letter dated 7 March 2007. Hence and in order to find an amicable solution to the Irish eligibility issue, the FIFA Legal Committee made a “new proposal” and invited the IFA as well as the FAI to express its position on the following “suggested approach”: “(…) every player born on the territory of Northern Ireland, holding the UK nationality and being entitled to a passport of the Republic of Ireland or born on the territory of the Republic of Ireland and holding the Irish nationality could either play for the [FAI] or the [iFA], under the condition that all other relevant prerequisites pertaining to player’s eligibility for a specific Association team are fulfilled”.

• On 8 November 2007, the IFA expressed its disagreement with the proposal of the FIFA Legal Committee, which was however accepted by the FAI on 20 November 2007."

As an aside - the ruling in itself is an absolute embarrassment for the IFA, who took an unwinnable, poorly thought out, case to the highest sport court in the land. Worth reading if you have the time.

Apologies - I know this is going massively off topic but I don't understand why the IFA (who are the Northern Ireland Association - right?) would reject this proposal when it appears to readjust things in their favour?

I imagine they realised that it a compromise with no benefit to them. About 50% of the population of the North feel Irish so might want to switch allegiances. FIFA offered the compromise that people from the south could play up there too. But approximately 0% of the south feel British so nobody would take the offer up.

Off-topic again here but BOF I don't think the current scenario is all that unfair on the North. Irish people are Irish; British people are British; it just happens that there's a mix of them in the North. So the Good Friday Agreement said "Right, if you want to be British you can have a British passport and if you want to be Irish you can have an Irish passport." Fair compromise, democratically endorsed. Nordies who feel Irish (and who object to claims that they're British) can play for ROI. Nordies who feel British (and who object to claims that they're Irish) can play for NI. I think that's a fairer outcome, particularly from the unionist stand-point, than the rugby scenario where nordie Brits can only play for Ireland.

He'll be going nowhere after tonight.

Oh I don’t know. A quick trip to a club might be in order...

Although I agree that a good stint at a top Championship club will do him good, we are lacking in the CM department and he will get games here if he can play like he did in the second half of tonight.

I think you missed the ironing.

We could have done with the Fonz for the last 20 minutes.

FFS Marc.

Houllier must be well pissed watching this

Why? He thinks we are a 7th=12th place side. This must have been what he was expecting.

Lost in translation and you know it, Trent. He didn't say we "belong" there. Give the man a **** chance.

Carlos Cuellar, not a full back.

Luke Young has made some incredible blocks today.

Delighted for Clark. Did himself and the Villa proud.

Think it might be a little early to have him replacing Carlos or Collins just yet though. I fear that the likes of Drogba would tear him a new arse. Should definitely start in all cup/Europa matches though.