moose

Zebra is fine, used them the last two years. Did renewal at VP ticket office, direct debit comes out of my account. Sorted. Changes get reflected on the ticket website once Villa have got all the paperwork back from Zebra I believe.

I hope Norwich keep Lambert and Wigan keep Martinez. Both are about as exciting as BBC4.

Christ, if I have to turn up next knowing 3/4 of our back line can't really be arsed it's going to be a bloody long season.

Just can't get excited about Martinez at all. I'll give him a chance, but I can't see it as a new dawn, just "maybe a bit better than last year".

If you take a look at Villa's accounts, the balance sheet has something like £68m of "intangible assets" on the balance sheet. This is basically the transfer fees and acquisition costs of our playing staff and at some point that needs to be written off. Last year, ie the one to May 2011) the write off amounted to £30m (ie that LEFT £68m AFTER the £30m write off) and that £68m has to get written off over the life of player contracts.

So when everyone looks at how much money Villa has lost, just remember that before we sign anyone else, there's a further £68m of costs yet to hit the P&L account.

What I don't know of course is what the composition of that intangible asset is, although I could probably have a good go at working some of it out.

Just had an email from the club about that.

Had the bloody nike logo on the promotional material, lol.

Nike deal doesn't run out until 31st May I think?

FWIW a "rolling contract" does not necessarily mean that it is a perpetual 12 months into the future, it can also be a contract whereby it has technically got an annual expiry date and if neither party exercises their right to terminate it, the contract will automatically renew for a further 12 months.

However, I would suspect that in these situations, either side would have to give advance notice of their intention to terminate, and if you don't give sufficient notice then the contract will replenish as usual.

So even if Lambert's on the type of contract I mention above, it might be that the annual expiry date is 31st May but he would have to have told the club, for example, 3 months prior to the renewal date whether he was going to renew or not.

For a club that is supposedly having to "cut costs" we still made 7m last season, and that's not including selling off our squad.

Check this out : LINK

I looked at these figures, which are set out in more detail in the paper Guardian today, and thought "Oh, we are really in very bad trouble."

I can't see how you dedúce £7m "made" last year from these figures. No figures in the charts, whether added or subtracted, seem to come to 7.

Maybe I'm missing something?

Also, thoe figures are just turnover and staff costs - they don't include any other costs so are quite frankly pretty meaningless.

Villa's accounts are a very intriguing read though, I had a scan over them yesterday and some of the numbers are quite worrying.

The only issue I have with any "OGS in x months time" scenario is - what the hell are we going to do in the meantime?

The more I think about it, the more I suspect that Villa had done all their research, put OGS as number one. PF puts out a statement saying they'll be looking for a young, vibrant manager knowing full well he'd just described OGS and then hey presto, the board deliver the exact manager they said they would and everyone loves RL/PF again.

Only it went horribly tits up and now they've realised there aren't any young, vibrant managers around who would actually manage Villa and they're screwed.

There's now only two scenarios

1. Venglos II - we've no idea who he is and it doesn't go well

2. McLeish II - we do know who he is and it doesn't go well

I suspect there's quite a few people secretly hoping the OGS deal still comes off. The alternatives have been, at this point in time, uninspiring.

I mean using your family as the excuse and then changing your mind does not go down well.

Actually, if it was his family who decided they would stay in Norway, isn't it his family who can decide that actually they'd be quite happy to move back to England?

OGS doesn't need to change his mind at all......

Or our first choice might not have Villa as his first choice? I don't think we're going to appoint a half decent manager before Chelsea and Liverpool do - everyone would be waiting for them to make a move.

Chelsea only want one man, and RA is getting the serious hump about the fact he hasn't signed yet. In fact Pep probably knows this and is just watching the number on the cheque getting bigger and bigger.

Liverpool, well...... whoever it is won't last a season.

Since o'Neill has left players that have left the club.

Keane

Milner

Young x2

Friedel

Jenas

Heskey

Beye

Downing

Heskey

Shorey

Pires

Walker

Bradley

Sidwell

Davies

Guzan

Cuellar

Carew

Hogg

Osbourne

5 of them were only on loan/short term deals though.

not at all mate, your choice wether to believe it or not, im not sure i do!! but hes seems to be genuine!

Utter balls - accountants wouldn't draw up a contract - lawyers would.

Take it from someone who is an accountant.

This. Even the biggest accountancy firms are entirely separate from lawyers, and there's no way you'd be drawing up a contract withj a potentially large settlement clause in it without it coming from a highly respected legal firm.

Hey guys, first time poster here!!!! I’m not here claiming to be ITK(they wind me up) but being a massive villa and Gillingham fan(i live down south, don’t shoot me), i’ve heard a bit of gossip on a Gillingham message board by a respected poster. He works for an accountants, which i know is true, he reckons he’s been tipped of by a friend at his firm that a contract has been drawn up for paul lambert!!!! – good news if true! His odds are already shortening and the Birmingham post are mentioning his name again in their headline strangely! So, don’t take this as gospel, but he sounds very genuine about this and has no reason to post anything about the villa!!!

1. which message board? link?

2. which accountancy firm?

I think that's probably because the club are being utterly watertight after the OGS fiasco.

KMac to oversee the removal of the old guard and keeping us in the division before the appointment of OGS next summer

/wishful thinking

Gate receipt decreases are a drop in the ocean. We just spent far too much money on players and salaries. Remember that Villa's latest financial year ends in 3 days time, but it'll be 10 months before we get to know what the results are this year. I suspect a loss, but much smaller than previously.

So "young and vibrant" was just a way of saying "cheap and inexperienced".

I still can't reconcile the "if VIlla give me an offer I'll take the job" comments from OGS followed by a sudden "actually my family prefer Norway" comments.

It's just..... not adding up to me. The biggest problem for the fans is that since he made "his" decision, the lack of credible alternatives is causing the fans to dispute RL even more. Maybe he's going to pull a rabbit out of a hat and maybe next year the team will be picked by text vote.

No idea.

I remember the ZX81 where you had to program all the games yourself before playing them. Loading them off a cassette? Sci-fi!

Is that the one with the rubber keys?

No that was the Spectrum. The ZX81 had a plastic flat keyboard.

That's because all the names that were originally in the box have been crossed off.

Just wondering whether anyone's made any "decisions" about pre-season friendlies yet? Any tours planned?

They've been decided for ages :shock:

I remember the ZX81 where you had to program all the games yourself before playing them. Loading them off a cassette? Sci-fi!