tomav84

hmm...depends...young players it would play lesser part than a player in his 30s whose kids might be in school already. i hope your logic is true however

a medical looks for key underlying problems, not current injuries...stewart downing passed his medical for us with a broken leg

i didnt spend long looking in fairness, but i see nothing in the news articles from when he joined us indicating that. considering the shambles our club was in coupled with the league position i think goes to show the totally unrealistic expectations that some fans have that they would consider not getting playoffs that season a failure. these unrealistic exceptions have unfortunately continued to this season whereby anything other than promotion will once again be branded 'failure' despite having a weaker squad whilst others have strengthened

Nor me He 'failed' once...i refuse to believe a board would set promotion as the seasons objective to a manager that takes over a team in the bottom 3 with a quarter of the season gone

perhaps he thought it would give him a kick up the backside? the embarrassment might spur him on to prove everyone wrong? we all know he had/has goals in him so perhaps he wanted to see if he could become the player we know he can be rather than giving up on him straight away

i have a £5 free bet i put on a while ago at 5/1...trying not to be confident...

depends on the country - the APAC countries are quite cheap (£3-5 a month ish) whereas from the US it's $20pm

ooh didnt think of that - thank you sir!

i'm unsure if it's the VPN to be honest - as we can get to the payment screen, go all through card validations, then all our transactions get declined

have spoken to work colleagues who have also had the same problem...we all use paid for VPNs

"The one thing that the pair of them have said is that nobody is for sale," Bruce told the club's website. "That's music to my ears. " http://www.skysports.com/football/news/11677/11452549/steve-bruce-says-aston-villas-key-players-are-no-longer-for-sale

Anyone have a BEIN Sport (or similar) subscription? Have been trying to subscribe to various asian versions of BEIN through VPN with no joy (i think they block international credit cards). The Thai offering has an alternative method of payment (True Money?) but again appears to be for Thai residents. Anyone had any luck?

shame...hoped this one would happen

we dont really know where we stand at the moment regarding FFP. He may be told that it's the best thing for the club's future to move to spurs, and i dont see him refusing to sign for them if the opportunity presents himself. why would he risk doing a delph and publicly saying he doesnt want to leave knowing that it remains a possibility? also wouldn't endear himself with spurs fans if he comes out and says "i dont want to leave but i have to" if he's still a villa player after deadline day i would expect to hear something from him. who knows, maybe the first we hear is the news he's signed a new contract

has any UK based fans had any luck watching these on AVTV when using a VPN?

he will have certainly had a word with him but he would have had next to zero involvement regarding contract details...plus JT was a free agent, so he was allowed to have a chat with him.

talk about jumping to conclusions...

Something didnt sit right with me about that interview...i dont know what it is. it felt like they could have literally just bought any club aside from mentioning the year we were founded. it was so generic. maybe they're just not media friendly

Then there's going to be plenty of disappointed folks on here. A lot of the reaction to Bruce staying has been that we now have no chance of promotion indicating that they expected it with Henry

Below are my thoughts: No manager could get this squad promoted, especially if we lose grealish, but i know Bruce wont take us down The owners are probably realistic in their expectations this season so i doubt he's getting sacked as long as we're top half Hate words like "Bruceball" and "Dinosaur tactics" - the football really wasn't that bad, and considering we were 3rd highest scorers in the league i was quite happy most of the time I dont think there was much to the Henry rumours. The Star wrote an "Exclusive" and every other report was either quoting said exclusive or began with "Reports suggest"...no other media outlet i saw indicated there was any truth to it There is no reason to suggest Henry would have played attacking football aside from the fact that he's younger than 50 and used to play as a striker. In fact had Bould joined as his assistant this probably indicates we would have been more defensively minded The players seem to enjoy playing for Bruce and JG in particular has indicated how much Bruce has done for his development

i remember that...we were so excited!

i think it all comes down to everyone's expectations of this squad...those like the above think that the squad is good enough for promotion and that a different manager can achieve that. i personally think this is a mid table squad (certainly if JG leaves) that, with the wrong manager, could also be relegated. henry is an unknown and it could go very badly wrong. at least with bruce, i cant see us going down

to address the bolded point first, this was largely due to the forums/facebook being riddled with "Bruce out" after every defeat (and it went right back to the start of the season - take a look at R&R of cardiff thread) and i think we have the right to fear going forward as a club right now, it was trying to move forward too quickly which made us an egyptian and an american away from going into administration. i hate to break it to you, but we're ALREADY in trouble. the squad is weaker than last season, and will only get weaker with the probable sales of our 2 best players. if you really think that an unproven manager will get a squad of mid-table quality promoted, above others that are spending and spending wisely, then i admire your optimism...but forgive those of us that think we just need to keep a bit of stability following what will have been quite a turbulent summer bruce probably wont get us promoted this season, but i dont know many managers out there that would...but there are plenty that could get us relegated quite easily, and i dont think bruce would be one of them

interesting thought, is is possible that the owners leaked the henry story to gauge the fan reaction?

the caliber of players in the squad was such that pretty much anyone with their coaching badges would have made them competitive...and i somewhat disagree with the "better opponents in the league" comment, as many in la liga would struggle in the championship. and sorry to be pedantic, it's harsh to say he failed at promotion twice, based on where we were when he took over