meregreen

Shame on you. The greatest cup competition in the world still means something to some of us. Sky and the abomination that is the Champions League have not corrupted all of us.

I must be getting old. Its the FA cup!!! Play a full strength team, I've been waiting all my life to see us win this, the worlds greatest cup. You and your club only get so many chances in your life to win it, don't waste a single one.

My thoughts exactly. You had to be there to know the disaster this man was for our club.Lerner may not be perfect, but at least one senses he has some feelings for the club and its fans. Ellis was only ever interested in himself. When Brian Clough asked Ellis to take himself and Taylor to VP, Ellis replied there was only room for one Mr Aston Villa. The arrogance of the man knew no limits

He cares about Herbert Douglas Ellis. We were simply there to feed his vanity. Anyone who has the arrogance to call himself "Mr Aston Villa" is in serious need of of a dose of humility. Why are we even talking about this man?

The stupidity of this post is amazing Rudeness must be your middle name. Try coming to a game instead of watching Villa on the TV. I have been going to Villa Park for 50 years and this guy is pretty poor. 7 million pissed up the wall when we were desperate for a creative midfielder.Try commenting with specifics rather than primitive insults to other posters. I am sorry I can't make it to every villa match because I do not live in England at the moment but I'd love it if I could go to the matches instead of watching them. You also clearly know nothing about Libor as proven in your post. You ask "Did anyone watch the useless lump before signing him?", well yes I did and Libor was a very young striker that caused a lot of fear into many good Europa league teams. He was touted as a very good prospect for the future and Lambert knew that. He managed to even become the Europa leagues top goal scorer with 10 goals in 11 matches at the age of 23. Now he has come to a new league and despite our awful form, he still scores goals. Give Kozak some respect. Without Kozak, we would be in the relegation zone right now. My point about viewing players and games live is that you can make a far better judgment of things than through a TV screen. I'm basing my opinion on what I have seen.It differs to yours, fine, you are entitled to your opinion of your fellow countryman. I will not call your post stupid simply because it differs from my opinion. I'm not particularly interested in the Europa league, there have been some pretty cranky games in that. Domestic league performances are a better guide to form IMO. The fact that Kozak was largely ignored by his club in those games should have sounded a few alarm bells. I have seen very little in his performaces to change my opinion that money was spent on him that could and should have been better spent on the creative midfielder that we so badly need.

The stupidity of this post is amazing Rudeness must be your middle name. Try coming to a game instead of watching Villa on the TV. I have been going to Villa Park for 50 years and this guy is pretty poor. 7 million pissed up the wall when we were desperate for a creative midfielder.Try commenting with specifics rather than primitive insults to other posters.

Nothing wrong with my spelling.. He's a mediocre nonentity, who has good stats because he rarely tries a pass that is anything other than a bland sideways tap to a team mate.. Delph tries to create, and so inevitably his passes carry a higher risk of being intercepted. I know which I prefer. The guy is simply not a Premiership footballer. Nothing personal against him, but he' one of the reasons we are so lightweight and uncreative in midfield. I hope that in January Mr Lerner will provide the funds to replace not just him but one or two others of limited ability.If not, then I fear for us.

This guy is a donkey. Failed to score a league goal in his final season in Italy, and we paid 7 million quid for him when we are desperate for a creative midfielder. Did anyone watch the useless lump before signing him. Makes me despair of giving Lambert any mor money to waste. 40 million spent on 15 players, only 3 of which I rate,Benteke,Okore and Lowton. The rest were no better and in most cases worse than we already had. This guy is just another example of our club signing a poor player .

When mediocrities like Ahmadi are rated by some Villa fans, you start to realize just how long its been since we had a midfielder with genuine quality. Oh for a Paul Merson, Andy Townsend or a Sid Cowans. It makes you want to weep that our midfield has been reduced to nonentities like him.

One of the poorest midfielders I have seen at the Villa, and I've been going since the 60's. Stats mean diddlysquat. My eyes tell me he is a pretty mediocre player. Still can't see what he has done since last season to deserve his place.

I think the first version was closer to the truth.

The real question surely should be , can Britain afford to see so much of her national wealth siphoned into an ever smaller number of rich hands. If the price of that is the re emergence of Dickensian poverty then the answer is no. Targeting the poor is merely a deflection of the real problem of low wages and unfair wealth distribution.

It is possible to be successful without being greedy. For Boris to extoll that particular human trait, is rather sad. Eddie Meyer was right, underneath the veneer of jovial buffoonery, he is a "nasty piece of work". More of this and he'll walk the race to be the next leader of the nasty party.

Methinks Cameron will be reluctant to push the drug taking angle on this one . His own shady past on this subject might rear its head again.

The worlds full of cynics who lambast the system. Well democracy is still the best form of govt. we have . How many of those cynics have actually got off their arses and tried to do something about a system they say is going so badly wrong. Very few I'll warrant. We have the representation we vote for, if you're not happy vote them out. There are people in this world risking their lives to attain what we take for granted. There is no perfect world out there, you take our Parliamentary system warts and all. By and large it has served us reasonably well.

And it is in that bastion of accurate, unbiased news reporting that is the Mirror! So someone who is around 40 and 'respectable' shagged and took drugs when he was 20 something, preferring not to talk about it, hardly a story. Our MPs should be accountable for what they do now, not what they did as youngsters. All you shagging, high, student VTers take note. If you have high political ambitions, stop what you are doing, and start living the relatively clean life of us boring 40-somethings. You've rather missed the point. Most people are not interested what Gideon did as a young scrote. The point is were the police there to look for drugs, or was it to do with finding possible evidence to back up her claims in the forthcoming book. I don't know the answer to that, but it would, if true, be a far more serious allegation.

Thing is Dem that in my experience I have found that Labour politicians, and those supporting them, are very quick to accuse others of something that they see in themselves and in fact is more prevalent in their own actions than in those of others. Not saying that the "art" of politicking isnt on both sides just that some of the more , shall we say unpleasant, behaviour comes more often (in my experience) from the left side of the political spectrum. Character assasination is a speciality of the right. The rather tawdry attack on Millibands dead father being but its latest example. Politics is a pretty rough and tumble business, but the Daily Mails attitude is fairly symptomatic of the worst exesses therein. Dacre and his ilk are all too prevailent in the Tory press. I suppose all our takes on these things are somewhat clouded by our own political leanings, as are my own. But I grew up in a Tory household , and over time came to my own standpoint politically. Have to say, that over many years, the hysterical ravings of the right wing media made that choice somewhat easier to make aren't you confusing a Newspaper with a political party ? Richard was talking about the " political spectrum", and those that support particular parties. I believe newspapers would come under that heading.

Thing is Dem that in my experience I have found that Labour politicians, and those supporting them, are very quick to accuse others of something that they see in themselves and in fact is more prevalent in their own actions than in those of others. Not saying that the "art" of politicking isnt on both sides just that some of the more , shall we say unpleasant, behaviour comes more often (in my experience) from the left side of the political spectrum. Character assasination is a speciality of the right. The rather tawdry attack on Millibands dead father being but its latest example. Politics is a pretty rough and tumble business, but the Daily Mails attitude is fairly symptomatic of the worst exesses therein. Dacre and his ilk are all too prevailent in the Tory press. I suppose all our takes on these things are somewhat clouded by our own political leanings, as are my own. But I grew up in a Tory household , and over time came to my own standpoint politically. Have to say, that over many years, the hysterical ravings of the right wing media made that choice somewhat easier to make

Two cynics. I'm outnumbered.

There's that cynical world poking its nose in again.

Don't diss the great man! (That doesn't mean you have to be a Marxist or even agree with his observations). Meh another wealthy socialist So if you are wealthy , are you not allowed to have a social conscience, and work for a fairer distribution of said wealth. To my way of thinking, anyone who personally stands to lose financially by changing the society we live in in order to benefit others, is someone with far a higher moral base than those who simply advocate looking after their own social class. it was a private joke ( all be it in public) with snowy but to answer your question , having seen communism / socialism at work I'd say those people making the changes didn't / don't appear to have been losing out financially or distributed the wealth If you consider every despotic corrupt regime in the world as your template, then yes , there are those who work the system , be they of the left or right. However, my point is that for a rich man to advocate tax rises for the wealthy, he is motivated by more than the self interest of his class, that I find admirable, not something to be mocked in this rather cyniclal world in which we live.

Don't diss the great man! (That doesn't mean you have to be a Marxist or even agree with his observations). Meh another wealthy socialist So if you are wealthy , are you not allowed to have a social conscience, and work for a fairer distribution of said wealth. To my way of thinking, anyone who personally stands to lose financially by working to change the society we live in, in order to benefit others, is someone with far a higher moral base than those who simply advocate looking after their own social class.

In Dennis Mortimers case and indeed Brian Little and John Gidmans cases I would agree. But they played in an era when England had a great deal of very good players to choose from. To be frank, this era England are pretty pants. He doesn't get a look in because other fairly average players are simply better than him.

Are there two Gabby Agbonlahors out there, because the one I'm watching bears no similarity to the one others seem to see. His career average of league goals is now in single figures per season. Awesome. One of the worst finishers I've ever seen, that miss against Newcastle being but one of many throughout his career. No guile and as Peter Withe commented a while back, he doesn't work defenders enough. Take away the pace, and their aint much left. It's why ,unlike so many other top players at VP, no other big club has ever seriously tried to buy him. It's why he has so few England caps. Hit and miss player at best, and it's usually a miss.

That miss today, to go with the many similar throughout his career, is a perfect illustration of why he isn't good enough for England. An average player who isn't near as good as some on here think he is.