villan83

I went in September and it was the windiest place I have ever visited. It was also quite cold and expensive. Despite this, there's loads to do there and it's a brilliant city if you like history.

I am thinking about going to Australia and whilst I am there, perhaps taking in some Australian Horse Racing. Has anyone been to the races Down Under and can recommend a good time to go?

I completely disagree about Koln, there's not a lot going on there at all. Dusseldorf old quarter is nice, there are some great guest houses and pubs there.

How long is your pass? You could do a lot more if you have a month one.

I did, Paris, Lille, Brussels, Amsterdam, Hamburg, Berlin, Prague, Krakow, High Tatras (Slovakia), Budapest, Zagreb, Hvar, Ljubjlana, Nice, Barcelona.

(Had to skip Italy but spent time in Florence and Milan before). Stayed most places 3 nights but some where just one day or night stop offs.

I would definately recommend veering East. Didn't go very East myself but what I did see was very different and very cheap. I've heard Bosnia is a cracking place to visit.

My favourite cities that I would definately recommend would be Berlin, Amsterdam, Budapest, Prague and the High Tatra mountains in North Slovakia were amazing.

I have to agree about Budapest and the Tatra mountains - absolutely brilliant places. I would also suggest visiting Krakow in Poland and Ljubljana in Slovenia, the latter because it has the greatest ever beer

So he looks at his squad and pinpoints a number of players on high wages he doesn't want - Carew, Sidwell, Ireland. And he basically says I don't want you at the club.

Hmmm, judging by the quote from Houllier in this football tips blog it looks like it's Ireland who wanted out "Once a player wants to go, he goes. He said he wanted to go in January. He said that to his agent. I think we will be looking to get the same kind of money back."

Clearly doesn't like Houllier. Just hope we do get our money back.

Europe could be an issue again this year, going out early last season was one of the reasons why we could push on towards the end of the season, if we play an extra 10-12 games in the Europe league just to get to the last 32 it could have an impact at the end of the season.

Juan Roman Riquelme and Humberto Suazo have been linked with SHA!

They will be like "Birming-who want to sign me???"

Riquwlmw is past it now anyway, a great player in his day but he is a expensive mistake waiting to happen IMO.

Arsenal and Tottenham both going for £10million rated Connor Wickham

Does anyone know if this lad is any good? I haven't seen him play at all. It's just that Redknapp and Wenger both have habit buying expensive teenagers who don't turn out to as good as expected so don't always trust their judgement!!

Reserve squads just aren't good enough for Man Citeh.

No, they have the Elite Squad

How patronising + pretentious is that????

just a rumour but it's looking likely, Paul Scharner is in talks with Liverpool

How the mighty have fallen.....

There is so much to dislike about the game nowadays. It has gone from one extreme to the other in 20 years. Back in the 80s the game had no money but was a lot more honest. Yet you had crumbling stadiums, rubbish pitches and hooligan fans.

Now we have state of the art stadiums and nice flat synthetic pitches (apart from Wembley of course!) but we also players 'winning' free kicks (i.e diving) and obscene amounts of money.

The money in particular has taken all the competition out of the game now, winners are determined by how big your wallet is, The art of coaching and team building has been removed.

In the long term this will be bad for the game - People are already being turned off the England team. Once City start winning things every year and hoover up everyone elses players, paying them £500,000 a week, they will turn away from their club sides as well.

The one thing that keeps a football fan going is hope, if that hope is crushed by a billionaires wallet there is no point in going anymore!!

To persist with the current setup would be mad. It's not working.

Personally, I've come around to the idea that it's the bloody players fault after watching a bit of the Algeria game back. They were getting the basic things wrong. Okay, play Gerrard more centrally. But otherwise...

I dunno. I think the 'golden generation' are all big time bottlers who are too worried about ruining their own reputations to truly give it all for England and fail. There is always a convenient excuse with England- the manager. Never the players.

This!!

I know McClaren had other faults but one of the main accusations against him was that he was too friendly with the players. Now Capello is being accused of being too strict with them. The manager can't win with this lot.

Why did Capello bother bringing Carragher out of retirement? Surely that told him everything about his commitment anyway? I would rather see players like Dawson to Jagielka than slow has-beens like Carragher. f he starts for the rest of the WC he is going to get ripped tp pieces as soon as he comes up against anyone with pace.

As for the goalkeepers is anyone surprised? We all knew that Green and James were error prone while Hart was inexperienced. However he is still the better 'keeper so why didn't Capello play him more in the warm up games to give him experience?? Instead it looks odds on that David calamity James is going to start against Algeria!

Yakubu isn't rubbish he is just lazy oh and probably older than his passport would have you believe.

Yep, there is no way that guy is 26!!! To be fair I don't think he has properly recovered from an achilles injury he picked up a couple of seasons back. When he is on form he is a great player, but watching him last year looked just bloated and lazy!

Another rumour: Bastian Schweinsteiger linked with Chelsea. Though that could be just a journo putting 2+2 together as they have just released Ballack. I rate him though, I had him in my fantasy World Cup team in 2006 when he got a hat-trick in the final game!

Thing is if Villa won the Prem it would feel a lot more personal, I know their are millions of Villa fans across the World but it would still feel like our little piece of glory. With England we would have to share it with everyone in the whole country!!

Don't get me wrong I love the World Cup and it is a good laugh to watch the match with by SHA supporting mates on the same side for once. But after it is all over, its back to the main event - Villa!

He is an established player but is he worth £30million?

If O'Neill spent that money wisely we could be better off come the start of the season. The key is to make a form decision and not let it drag on all summer like the Lescott transfer last season.

Villa. Replace England with my national team, and it still holds true.

this

hate international football tbh

Is it because you're shit? :winkold:

no its because i find it a dull version of the sport

id rather watch a conference game than an international

Really???

I agree that friendlies and qualifiers can be a bit tedious but the actual WC itself is great to watch, especially the knock out stages.

I will always put Villa first in terms of winning silverware, it is more of a personal victory. But that is not to say I would love it if England won the World Cup

Arsenal have been linked with Gary Cahill and Mark Schwarzer.

Cahill I can believe but it looks like Coyle is pricing him out of a move (£30million!!) but Schwarzer? He is 37, which is old even for a 'keeper. Though if Arsenal are skint then he maybe the best they can hope for?

With the blue specs on AG how was baines tonight? And rodwell will be a star in cm, still not seen him play cb though which is where I originally thought he was a top prospect

Not a good game by a million miles but in the first half Gerrard gave him barely any support, he was often left exposed and they exploited it with 2 on 1. When Milner was moved over, he looked better as Milner worked back.

He was poor by his standards but as Moyes says, he needs confidence put into him as he has such low confidence in his own abilities. A huge part of his game is getting forward and crosses in and he's had little opportunity to for whatever reason. He was pretty nervous and it showed. Still don't think he was much worse than most of the other players to be perfectly honest. Didn't think anyone was very good actually. Totally unimpressed with England.

Mind you, he is such an easy and obvious target so I'm honestly not surprised with the stick he has taken.

I agree, he didn't have the best of games, but neither did a lot of more experienced players. Hopefully he learned from the experience though and will improve if called upon in SA (Warnock's non appearance suggests he won't make it in the plane)

Agree. If City really want him then lets take 'em to the cleaners. They seem happy to tell us how rich they are the rest of the time so lets see the colour of their money now - if bloody Joleon Lescott is worth £24 million Milner is worth at least £30million!!

Barca have today been linked with Fabregas, Villa AND Torres! Seriously where will they fit them all in?! It looks like that would spell the end for Ibrahimovic, who is rumoured to want to go back to Italy.I have never really rated him anyway TBH

If Barca had a midfield and forward line of Xavi,Inesta,Fabregas,Messi,Villa and Torres you may as well hand them the Champions League now!!

I hope it isn't Leicester again!

Cardiff would be interesting becasue the fans would start a riot at every ground (Cardiff v Stoke? ouch!!) But I would rather Forest or Blackpool come.Forest because they are quite a big club and Blackpool becasue it would be good to see a small club be rewarded for good financial + football management.

I was reading in this betting preview of the play-offs It is all about momentum tough and who is in good form (like that year Palace came from nowhere to come up) if that is the case then Blackpool are the favourite as they are the form team going into the play-offs, Forest are the least in form.

Green isn't that good either certainly as a no1, if he went to Arsenal he would be solid enough but you can guarantee he will make a mistake in a big game. Joe Hart is probably the one for them

It was one of those decisions where you have seen them not given before but it just depends on the split second reaction of the ref on the day. Thankfully it went for us and we got the win we deserved as we should have had a pen earlier. It was good to see Andy Gray bigging us up before the game, usually his gushing praise is just reserved for us but he remembered he used to play for us as well. Brum offered nothing really and resorted to strong arm tactics to try and rile us. Carr will be in trouble and deservedly so, no need for that. The one good thing about them staying up is it is a guaranteed six points for us again next season!!!