VillaRob

New season, new kit, new money. Footie is greed

Back in the day I would have played Gardner ahead of NRC so I regret selling him. We should have fought to keep Cahill, we could see he'd come good for us. The others should have gone when they did for the good of their careers. It was the right thing for them and us.

Not looking forward to seeing their banner asking who our saviour is gonna be. We need to win, badly, I just don't see where it's coming from so another defeat for me - unless their new french players don't click. Here's hoping

Then the players know they will get picked to play. Win-win!

The thing that concerns me is that should we get past Bradford and meet Chelsea in the final, they will already have mentally beaten us. This is why they kept going when 3,4,5,6,7,8 - 0 up.

Exactly, he puts a lot of work into doing this too.

They might, except I believe he is a Villa fan so that may go some way to reducing them...

FWIW I think Redknapp would be a good fit for Chelsea and not us. Why? He spends money. Lots of it. Chelsea accept this and we don't.

I will add my voice to the Houllier was not a bad appointment call. At the time I remember we wanted a move away from one style of play to another and H was as good a choice for that as anyone else. We were looking forward to free flowing football with skilled foreign players. This didn't happen overnight then: McLeish was a disaster waiting to happen but again I think he was asked to catch a ball with his hands behind his back.

I think Randy was working on the basis of "Build it and they will come". Effectively he built it but we stayed at home. Hence why we aren't getting shiny new North Stand and cutting cloth to our budget. I agree that this has been all too quick and our balloon has been well and truly burst.

Mikey, I saw Gareth Barry (and Gary G both in the posh seats!!). It was a good crowd. Hope everyone who went enjoyed it

There is a Stan Petrov charity game between a Petrov XI and Villa Lions and Legends at the mighty Halesowen Town ground on Sunday. Stan , Gareth Barry and James Milner should be there and all proceeds go to Pedal For Petrov http://www.ht-fc.com/matchday-a-news/latest-news/2164-stan-petrov-charity-game-sunday-18th.html If you can make it, it would be great to see you at the Grove, then maybe come along to watch the boys - on a non-Villa day of course!

And West Ham... More positively, I'm loving the team spirit among the team. Pats on the back during the match when players tried to do good moves. Bannan did this a lot. Possible future captain?

Holman does an important job for the team and does it well. For every Sid you need a Bremner; for every Beckham you need a Keane. For every Messi you need an Mascherano. Ok they are different levels of player but they are at a different level of play!

Sadly it's the only way to join them. If you try and nurture a team to grow into a challenging team, the current big teams just pick off your best players, as we have experienced, and are left to rebuild for it to happen again. I hate it but there is no other way to achieve. Therefore we have to be happy to finish 6-16th, with decent cup runs, the occasional upset when we topple a giant which is why it's important to play attractively as there is nothing else now for those non "elite" clubs.