moose

I don't think anyone saw Newcastle finishing where they did. It's perfectly reasonable to think we can have a strong season. The lads have won more matches in pre-season than we managed all last season at VP, so hopefully they're going to take that mentality and positivity into the league campaign. I'm not entirely convinved the "big money" thing is relevant. Nobody's moaned that Vlaar only cost £3m or so. What if he brought in a striker costing the same? Would the reaction be "he won't be as good as someone costing £15m"?

Every time I see the name McLeish my heart sinks a bit.

I think Holman will get the nod over Bannan in our starting midfield.

Did he say "a great season....... for Man United" though? :winkold: Anyhow can't be happening, just popped into Tesco and there were no men in suits discussing it.

Great stuff, cheers.

Very optimistic. A notable lack of hoofball last night against Peterborough. Still think we need a new striker first and foremost, the defence is getting there and we're lightweight up front especially with both Bent and Gabby having had injuries in pre-season. I reckon we'll be 8-10th, but with every possibility of pushing 6-7th.

I wonder if they will be? Especially Burke. Burke wore 20 last night at Pboro, although admittedly you can't read anything into that whatsoever.

Presumably vacancies are left for any senior professionals who join the club in the summer or January.

Last person to wear it was Michael Bradley. It's usually left spare, hence why I always have it on my shirts

Great to see a player coming in with loads of enthusiasm. Welcome Ron.

Out of interest how much did you pay? I found flights for £177 per person but after adding up the additional transport from Hamburg to Bremen (not cheap on the train!) and a hotel I decided it wasn't worth it.

What's the best way in from the North? Will be getting off at J26.

I don't think we particularly *need* to sell to buy, but common sense does dictate that buying players does mean that one of your existing players inevitably gets pushed down the pecking order and since we can't change the fact that it's 11 on the pitch and 7 on the bench, then you might as well move someone on - unless you have a threadbare squad of course.

I reckon he'll move to West Ham at 11.30pm on transfer deadline day when it's clear nobody else wants him.

No complaints about the fee, expected he'd be the first to go as I think shifting Hutton and Warnock might not be so easy.

I'd be surprised if he plays tomorrow, but highly likely for Saturday given we'd only have two matches left before the start of the season.

AC3 will hopefully wrap the Desmond story arc up and then the devs will be free to continue the series with games such as the Vita one coming out, where the character isn't anything to do with Desmond. Looking forward to stories based in London, feudal Japan, etc

Smithing the more decent stuff is better anyhow, gives you a decent base for enchanting etc. Haven't played this game in months now, can't wait for the Dawnguard DLC to come out so I can get right back into it. Then again, I'm not sure I've got anywhere near to finishing all the available quests anyhow.

Glad to see parking's easy, will drive down for this one I think.

We've not sold out and we only had 591 tickets? Going to be a quiet night tomorrow then!

Mate at work just told me that Fletcher moved out of his rented house two months ago and said he was off to Sunderland.

The hopes of every Villa fan now raised to new heights.

At the end of this season, let's look back at the number of times we filled VP to capacity, and therefore potentially lost revenue due to not being able to sell more seats. Then let's have a rough guess at how many extrea seats would be needed. Then add up the revenue from those extra seats vs the cost of building a new North Stand or whatever. Then work out how long it would take the club to recoup the investment in the stand. Then, if you're a bit clueless about finance and return on investment etc, someone will explain the fact that it was probably a really pointless conversation. I'm getting quick sick of reading all the dumb asses expecting Villa's rebuilding towards being a sustainable, profitable, and sensible business to be shoved to one side with the hope RL will plough hundreds of millions of dollars into the club. It's not going to happen. You're just setting yourself up for misery and disappointment and a season or more of moaning about "why has Randy got all that money and he's not spending it on our club". Comes across as somewhat ungrateful given he's put, what, £150-£200m in already? How much will make him a "good owner" exactly?

I'm sure the official squad number list isn't due to be released until late August?

I'm half expecting mass change, for example if Hutton's still here I can't imagine he'll be 2, nor Warnock 3. I'm not sure how precious some of the squad are about their number though.