NIVillan

Hadji a great??? Being Old I would Add Morley and Walters to the mix.

Gabby!!

Dave Wakeling of the Beat (Mirror in Bathroom, Tears of a Clown) is a big Villa Fan.

No but Swimmer Commonwealth Champion Adam Ruckwood is a big Villa fan, last time I saw him was the A Madrid Match in the holte. British Olympian Swimmer Jamie Salter also a Villa Fan.

Perhaps due to the state (alleged) of Ross's mind, the player himself didnt want anything announced and more wanted to slip into the background.

Simples - We do our best and see what happens.

To me Steer is like Nigel Spink. Good Solid all round Keeper. Will do Ok for you overall. What we need is a Bozzie type. Yes has a clanger in him and perhaps lower attributes in certain areas when compared to steer/spink (Thinking Distribution Here) but when really needed can pull out the execeptional, amazing and put on a one man show. The Game that I think back to is against Sunderland in the League Cup the season we won under Big Ron. They hammered us and Bozzie in one of his first starts was a one man army against them pulling amazing save after amazing save. He broke the Sunderland players himself and we won 4-1. Not sure what Klanic is like yet but our signings in Jan have so far been good so I cant see us wasting 7 million on a sub par goalie. Thinking about it though Steer might just develop into that sort of Goalie when considering the Save he made first leg against West Brom. The main difference in Steer to me is that he was sent out to play under Smith without having to worry about making a mistake. Under Bruce he was never given any encouragement that he would be given a long term chance and was not as confident in his play. Smith must have given him that for one to bring him back off his loan spell where he was doing well and then this time when Steer did make mistakes (again thinking against West Brom) he didnt crumble. It will be interesting battle.

Think it is, Im sure I read somewhere we will get more money if we waited out his contract than terminating early.

No the Barry to Liverpool thing went tits up because after whispering sweet nothings in Barrys ear the FSW told Barry he was going to play left back for them. Barry wanted to play midfield and was unimpressed with them changing what they told him before. Man City stepped in and gave him the playing position he wanted.

Not sure why Rico Henry keeps being mentioned apart from he played for Smith at Walsall and then Brentford. He had a serious injury that kept him out for a long time and was solid enough but is he really someone who would walk into the first team of a premiership club?

Going back a bit but in the book Ron Saunders Scrapbook, Im sure he mentions the one delight in being a manager is taking a player from another team that hasnt worked out and making him work in your own team.

He should finish his career up at Rangers Be interesting seeing Hutton and Scott Brown having a go at each other in the Old Firm game

I think Rongtian He was actually there before Xia arrived. HE went to Uni over here and Supported Villa before coming over. He was working at Vila in a Graduate role??? and was noticed by Xia because being Chinese speaker etc.

Okay when the team was announced wasnt Villa a Premier League side? Not sure on the timings

We must do! Though I prefer the yellow to the home one. The one I am suprised hasnt made a comeback is that Le Coq hooped yellow thing. Remember being on a Football Tour down at Western and someone was wearing it, must have just been released as everyone was going What the hell is that! It has sort of grown on me

But it has been overblown. The stories promoted claiming this was the best kit ever / past 40 years. From a logistics point of view the Current Kit especially for the kids has been unavailable for large parts of the season. My boys liked the 3rd Kit and we went into the club shop just after it was released and they had no stock availability, wasnt just the 3rd kit though, couldnt make up a complete kit in the other designs. Luckily just before xmas I was able to jump on quick enough so my youngest could get a goalkeepers kit but again the availabilty didnt last long. I liked the design of that Macron yellow Kit as well but the quality of the kit wasnt great, felt very thin and cheap. Macron came up with some good designs and similar in that they raided our past (White Kit striped like 82 Away). Macron also showed great desire to understand the history of the club and incorporate that into the designs. The UA and training wear was great especially the quality just needed a darker claret body. As for people not buying. When it comes to a football club, yes they will. Its a a habit and especially kids they want to wear what their heros on the pitch wear. Enough people bought that Henson Kit in the mid 80s.

I dont think Lerner was an asset striper at all but that he stopped wanting to fund Villa out of his own pocket (Maybe due to his wealth going down due to the divorce). He lost interest and tried to bring in people who would manage it for him. Then due to his bad appointments the club was struggling to survive. But at least Lerner wasnt as bad as Ellis Short up in Sunderland. The Doc got carried away and gambled upon us getting promotion. He ran out of money as there were no issues when he was transferring money from China during the first season to pay and keep Villa running. He has also swallowed his pride and found better owners to take over, and the way it worked helped them take over quickly and easily. See Bury currently for an Owner who has run the club into the ground but will not sell to buyers who are enabling him to make a profit. The new guys do seem totally different but only time will tell.

Never and still do not particularly like this seasons kit so happy enough with different designers. That 3rd Kit was worse than the UA training tops (Which I liked) and just an excuse to extract more money from us fans. I think people have overblown the design of the kit because he is a Villa Supporter. BUT as a Villa supporter surely not copy a Kiit from a period we were on the slide big time from Champions of Europe to relegation. AND a Villa supporter designing a kit that doesn't have blue sleeves!!!

110% Commitment in Rotterdam

I thought we looked a bit disjointed at times and played with fear. One of the good apsects of the run is the playing without fear and prepared to try things. Albions goal in the first leg came from their striker prepared to chase down lost causes, no one expected Whelan to make a howler but he was in the right place at the right time. Against Albion I think we were a little scared to lose and played within ourselves. But also throw in that it was a local Derby the games are often not pretty and the best time doesnt always win.

When Paul Lambert went off and spoke to Pep at Bayern he had us play a passing game that meant we had the majority of possession in most games. We were still shite and played like shite because we didnt create anything. He got sacked. Even Timmy improved on that by getting us to take a chance more (Turnaround against Leicester in Cup ). We didnt play well at all over the two legs, slipping and sliding around.

Just put any old team out there as opposition on May 27th Because We Are Aston Villa

Albion kept most of their squad from the Premier League and were one of the favourites to go up. We were considering using the rest of the season to blood youth players etc ready for next season back in Feb. We played like shite and yet managed to win the Tie. Last year in the final we played like shite and lost the final Yes I am going to celebrate, not only the win, not only a trip to playoff final, not only a win over a local rival, I am also celebrating the rebirth of a club after just short of 10 odd years of shiteness. As a Kid I celebrated every single win.

Same way we got past Boro last year, which is why I am enjoying this years attempt more than last year. As Grealish said Last years team had a lot more experience but I just believe more in this years team

Have we not been waiting for a long long time for a manager that could identify early enough when his tactics are not working and adjust?