LoughboroughLion

It's not a case of shafting. PL and most managers aspire to do bigger and better things, as do we all in our careers. It comes down to the fact Aston Villa Football Club is a better job for PL than Norwich. If in 3-4 years a bigger football club came in for him, I wouldn't be as naive to think he would stay, because it's football, but more importantly it's life.

Come on guys, be honest here, are you not a little concerned that Lerner may have just bought a nice car from us without checking that it came with or without wheels first!

Lerner bought a flying car?!

You raise a very good point Mantis, we will go nowhere fast without a good scouting setup. One of the most valuable things a club can have IMO.

The first thing I do on FM is sign 3 scouts with 20 - judging player ability and 20 - judging player potential

Completely disagree with this. To get us into the 'big league' as you put it, we would need 100m+ investment. There is a top 6 now as I see it (city, utd, spurs, arsenal, chelsea and liverpool). All have significant funds and are in a 'desirable' location to attract big players. What we need now more than ever is to steady the ship and build on form year on year. If this is done we stand a better chance of being a better proposition for big investment, whether it be from Lerner or someone new. For me, Lambert is the person who can achieve this, and for that reason I am excited for the start of the season.

Nonsense Sky Sports clichéd yucky talk. How much did Newcastle spend? How much did Levante spend to finish 5th in La Liga? How much do Arsenal spend? You can buy success, yes. Can you have success without spending silly money? The answer to that is also yes.

Ok, so with Newcastle in mind, would you have been 'excited' at the prospect of Pardew before he took the Newcastle job?

What a ludicrous post. The bit that makes me laugh is the 'wages for one good loan'. The key to all successful clubs in football has that phrase at its foundation.

Everything Houllier said during his tenure has proven to be true especially about the wasters who he found at straight away. All I'm saying his I found Houllier a lot more convincing and reassuring that he knew how to take us onto big things. I don't get that impression with Lambert. I don't think he'll be a bad manager, just not someone who could take us into the big league. 11th to 8th most definitely. Most of you would be happy with this. For me I wanted someone who was capable of more...

Completely disagree with this. To get us into the 'big league' as you put it, we would need 100m+ investment. There is a top 6 now as I see it (city, utd, spurs, arsenal, chelsea and liverpool). All have significant funds and are in a 'desirable' location to attract big players. What we need now more than ever is to steady the ship and build on form year on year. If this is done we stand a better chance of being a better proposition for big investment, whether it be from Lerner or someone new. For me, Lambert is the person who can achieve this, and for that reason I am excited for the start of the season.

Holt is a tricky one, clearly has goals in him and I think he would compliment Bent well. He is by no means a huge signing but at the right price would be very effective.

£3-4 million and 30-35k wages YES

£5 million+ and anything near 40k+ wages NO

Having said that, would Norwich let him go for £4m, I have my doubts

Hope - top 8 and FA Cup final

Expectation - top 12 and playing positively

Igor Akinfeev > Given > Friedal for me

Hi all,

I have just turned the big 18 and have received some money in the region of about £200-£300 from my nan. Instead of pissing it up the wall and spending it on holidays and nights out etc. I have decided I want to start trading in shares. I appreciate that its not the biggest amount of money, but then again I wouldn't really be interested in investing over £1000 as I don't see the risk as appealing.

As this is my first time trading I have been advised to go to my bank and do it through them. I was just wondering if anybody had any advice etc. on the methods of how I should find my company and how I should generally go about it. If there is any material or websites I can read up on and so on? Also, I have looked into ForEx and that dosen't really appeal to me as I am no mathematician, plus I think I would rather keep the money in £BPS so would rather trade with the FTSE I reckon.

Thanks all

I have from a very good source that he has offers from Qatar. Good luck to him, I'm a big fan of his

http://tinyurl.com/btv8m89

Although we're not with Nike anymore, if we had something like this but claret and blue I reckon it would look good. Mockup anyone?

I'm just gonna say, if Rafa does come and we only give him £20 million to rebuild the squad and he manages it and keeps us Top 10 the man is a genius.

Well look what Pardew has done with Newcastle, and I don't rate him that highly. I think getting a good scouting system is crucial to the modern game regardless of how much the new manager has to spend.

This isn't going as well as I had anticipated

OGS - No

Lambert - No

Martinez - Probably No

Who does that realistically leave? Rodgers, Poyet or Mick McCarth...

Hoping for Rodgers then, seems a bit doubtful though

My head says Lambert, but my heart says OGS... but which to chose?

Always follow my heart, OGS!

Plenty were backing us to go down on the Mcleish thread ...it's a decent bet considering OLG is an unknown apart from the propaganda video. I got 60/1 with a private bookmaker.

http://tinyurl.com/bm72f4p

...springs to mind, Greggoss Tratorelli

I watched that video that has been posted numerous times on this thread, and regardless of how much I know about the Norwegian League, the things that strike me is how likeable OGS seems and his potential to be a great manager is instantly recognisable. The style of football he tries to install in his teams will be a change for the better at Villa Park, and he seems to want a tight knit group of players, coaches and involve the academy as much as possible. Roll on I say.

This AVB speculation is really not helping us. Raising expectations that will only be slashed if/when someone of a lesser caliber is hired. Having said that, I wouldn't be disappointed with Rodgers

AVB > Rodgers > Lambert > Poyet

Nah, don't rate Ranieri at all. Hasn't done anything of note in the past ten years.

Have we?

would prefer O'Hara, Jarvis or Doyle tbh

We have a manager at the moment?

Bits and tips for The Grand National 2012, my money's on Becauseicouldn'tsee or Giles Cross. Also hearing a lot of things about shakalakaboomboom, but I think this is just because of the hype around the horses name and not its ability. Thoughts?

I like that man utd kit

One of the biggest issues with going with a brand like Macron is the lack of global availability and visibility of Aston Villa shirts. Macron is small relatively unknown brand on a global scale which means they will not get the global distribution such as brands like Nike, Adidas, Puma and to a lesser extent Umbro.

Since Villa have been supplied by Nike there has been a much bigger profile for the club in countries such as New Zealand (where I live), Australia, Singapore & Canada, just to name a few. This is purley because the brand of shirt gets them into the large mainstream sports stores. I have seen a lot more people wearing Villa shirts during my travels over the past few years and it is down to that fact that there are only a limited number of football club shirts available in a lot of these stores. People see a shirt, they might like it, they buy it, then they find out about the club and become fans (albeit sometimes only for a short time).

The Villa brand is extremely important and should be marketed globally at every opportunity to increase support and ultimately revenues through shirt sales and peripheral merchandise. With the Macron deal it is unlikely that you will see a Villa shirt for sale in the Southern Hemisphere (unless it is a dodgy knock off) because Macron lack the marketing strength and distribution to get shirts into this half of the world.

What does this mean for Villa? It means loss of revenue from shirt sales and little or no profile in one of the fastest growing regions both economically and in population.

My son was proud to go in to a sports store over here with hs Villa shirt on and see it hanging on the racks. This won't happen again for along time as we will not see a Villa shirt in a NZ sports store unless we get one of the big brands making our shirts. Unfortuntaley that means we could miss a generation of people looking for a football shirt and deciding on an Arsenal, Man Utd & City, Newcastle, Spurs or Liverpool because they are the shirts available and our shirts are no longer.

This is a huge error in the marketing of Aston Villa and a potentially long term financial mistake. Do you think we will get any more rich Asian sponsors on our shirts when they realise that they can't even buy the shirts in half of the world anymore? I think not.

I share your desire for AVFC to be a global brand and for our shirts to be sold in every corner of the globe. But I live in Leicester and walk into my local JJB and Soccer Sports and can find maybe 4 tucked away home Villa shirts. The fact is, big teams have their shirts in shops because they win games, floating around mid to lower table we won't be a global brand for a very long time.

No.

It's not about me being bothered he used to be at birmingham, it is categorically down to the fact he dosen't win games. So much over the past weekend I have seen on the BBC sport website and twitter, 'why are the Villa fans annoyed they're avoiding relegation', it angers me to think that our club could fall into a position where if we finish top half everyone will be amazed. We are a top 6 club, and we shouldn't settle for anything less.