Rob182

Why do you care about Collins ? Or was he another of your youth tips for the top ? Please keep up Collins was in the car, what we don't know yet is who was at the wheel Yes, but why are YOU bothered if Collins is charged or not ? That is the question Because if Collins is charged, chances are that Bannan wouldn't be (or wouldn't be as severely).. Although someone on here has already said that he has a good source that says Collins wasn't driving, I'm guessing that's where CI is coming from.

When I've seen Delph in, what I believe has been, his best games for us, he's had room to push forward, sprayed passes wide and forward to create attacks and has also been excellent at dribbling the ball forward, round opposition players. I do remember a bunch of games where he was the only person in our team who had the confidence to actually push forward. Now I would say that him and Bannan are the two most confident of doing this (though Delph's confidence has probably been effected with his recent, below-par performances)

From the names given so far, obviously none of you have seen me front my band... 8)

Why browser based? Are you looking for a game to play while at work? If not, go for Civ 4!

I can't view them because I'm at work I really want to have a look!

I've bought a houuussseeeee!!! (Well... The offers been accepted, house taken off the market, 'sold' sign is sitting outside and I just need to deal with the boring money stuff now)

What's it about? A while back I searched the internet for 'the best sci-fi/ fantasy films' and Brazil always came up but I thought it looked too 80's, so I ignored it

I wouldn't worry about that, Petrov will be long gone by the time they make it into the first team. :winkold:

Did Lerner appoint O'Neill?

Barry Bannan isn't a small human, he's king of the Borrowers.

Sorry Nik but this isn't true is it? Just because we didn't invest too heavily this summer doesn't mean we won't in the future. It's possible that we need/ want to reduce the wage bill further before we splash some more cash. I can see Beye, Heskey & Cuellar leaving this summer, allowing room on the wage bill for a few more additions (whilst keeping Fonz/ Delph/ Bannan/ Albrighton/ Weimann/ Clark & Gardner in the full squad to allow for rotation/ sub appearances/ injury cover etc).

I don't mind Collins. He's not the best on the ball, but I don't mind that. He puts his body on the line, makes numerous blocks and tackles. It's only his lack of pace, getting turned and occasionally his distribution that lets him down. If Clark is to come into the first team next year, I wouldn't mind keeping Collins as our sub defender.

At times I think he is just too calm on the ball. Against Wigan he lost it on a few occasions when we were under no pressure at all. He knows he has a good pass on him but I think sometimes he's just feeling too comfortable.

I've disagreed with you on a lot of things macandally, but I agree with most of that. I like Petrov and I see what he does for the team. But I believe Delph can offer so much more to our side, even if he isn't right now. Petrov is a calming head and probably a good influence on the pitch, but there still comes a point in a game when players run past him as he struggles to find the energy to make an interception.

Except his two best goals this season have come from situations where he had plenty of time to think, and plenty of work to do to score. I suspect this sort of opinion, often expressed in previous seasons, is now a bit out of date. He is already looking much better this season. I disagree briny. He's had more time to think during the build up to the goals, but when he's got through to a shooting position, he's lashed at his shots, without much time to think, and this is when he is more effective. I think what Morpheus means is that if Gabby has 3 or 4 seconds, one-on-one with the keeper, this is when he often over-thinks his shot. I'd agree with him to a certain degree. (Though Gabby has improved year on year, so hopefully that is slowly leaving his game).

Take for example Albrighton; he played him in a FA cup against Brighton. Albrighton played brilliantly, but then got injured and didn’t come back to March; you can’t play someone when they are out can you? I'll admit that's a fair example, but surely you can't disagree with the amount of times in games that we were winning, losing or drawing and we saw the same tried and tested substitution Sidwell or Heskey coming on in the late stages. I was a MON fan, but it felt like he wanted to chose the 'obvious' or 'easy' option in most of his games. Even if we were winning, he rarely took a chance on one of the youngsters. Hmmm...MON good with Young, Gabby, Milner? So that's not such a bad track record, is it? ...... Whatever, it's a bit foolish to criticise MON for his approach to young players when he created a squad partly based around talented young English stars who were very exciting to watch - so much so that two of them were snapped up by top 4 clubs. Gabby, I will give him, but Young & Milner weren't exactly 18 year olds, fresh out the academy, when he arrived. They had already gained experience in the Premier League before they came to Villa. I only cited their names to prove that I wasn't being completely 'anti-MON'. As I've said, I was a MON fan. But he rarely took risks and I'm sure many people who frequently watched us, during his time in charge, would agree that we knew which substitutions were coming. The fact that 2 of our 'young stars', as you call them, were snapped up by top 4 clubs would surely mean that there was enough experience/ talent in the side to let a few younger youngsters have a run out more frequently than they did?

I thought that Delph could have had a lot more appearances under MON than he did. There were quite a few games before he got injured that he could have played in (or had more sub appearances, instead of the standard Sidwell-substitution that we had to endure), there were also games where MON took him off when he was one of our better players. I remember him playing against Man Utd and Blackburn and, at the time, many people said he was our current MOTM but MON chose to take him off. MON was good for some youngers (Young/ Gabby/ Milner etc) but, in my memory, there were a LOT of occasions when he could have brought on Albrighton/ Bannan/ Delph instead of Sidwell/ Heskey etc. Obviously this was a year previous to Houllier's arrival so they won't have been as good as they were last season, but still, you'd think they would have been good enough for a few cameos every now and then.

I don't see why that has any relevance at all. Who gives a sh*t what he does with his money or what his wife does? :? I do when he is giving **** all in return. If he was even have decent I wouldn't begrudge his £3 million a year, but we've seen nothing for our £10 million investment in him. It's not like he hasn't even got the talent, which pisses me off even more. Is it his fault that he is on such high wages? As I mentioned previously, he got offered a nice big contract from Man City because he had a good year, that's why he's on such high wages. Should he have declined it? Jeez. You must hate Habib Beye too. Maybe we should put it in a players contract that if they don't play really well, they have to live in a council flat and drive a Vauxhall Astra?

I don't see why that has any relevance at all. Who gives a sh*t what he does with his money or what his wife does? :?

Not taking the piss but why is he? I too would like to know why Ireland is everything that's wrong with modern football. Apparantly he trains excellently (as was stated by Houllier and by McLeish earlier this season), he might not go flying into tackles in matches but he certainly runs his fair share, he is a victim of Man City, in that he got given a huge contract because of one decent year, that has then meant that he'd need to be offered decent wages when he moved to a new club. I can't see anything that he's done wrong, except for badmouthing Birmingham (which I couldn't care less about) or talking about a possible move to Newcastle when he was shipped out on loan. Unless... you're talking about the fact that he has bright coloured cars and an eccentric taste in home decor. In which case, that's pathetic.

I thought I actually read it from an article with Barry Bannan. Though, it was a year ago so I'm not 100% certain.

I remember reading an article with Bannan a few months ago, stating that he would like to be a regular first team member by the end of the season and I thought he was being a bit optimistic. But now that he's had more first team games, it's looking more and more likely! Perhaps McLeish only brought in N'Zogbia for the wing because he knew that Albrighton can play there and Bannan can perform as a right or left midfielder too (not winger). Though he would do well behind a striker, I quite like having Gabby & Bent both up top. I like Bannan playing on the wing as a clever midfielder who can link the play together and form attacks. Then we can have one of the wingers on the opposite wing, as an alternative option for taking on fullbacks.

What was that all about? Stag do. A guy who sits behind me was chatting to one of them on the phone

What's wrong with the other one?

The first goal was the central defenders fault, the second goal was unlucky as he was having to cover where the central defender would normally be. Third goal he was probably at fault for. I thought he was okay, considering. One thing I noticed is that he was composed on the ball (as were the whole Rovers team) and has a decent first touch. Rovers played loads of long balls from left to right, Stevens controlled them perfectly each time. Obviously we can't take too much from this game, but I thought he showed a few glimpses of good passing/ vision.