Rob182

Right wing, but I have faith that Downing will come good this year. I hope that he's spent the whole summer being a right winger and learning to cut in onto his left to blast a few shots off. If not, then maybe a new winger is needed. I don't like the idea of Ash being on the right.

I was once on holiday and met a girl who was the niece of Razor Ruddock. I got taught at college by the drummer and bassist of Pop Will Eat Itself. I have played at the Carling Academy 2 (Before it moved to 02)

I'd prefer the full £28m tbh. That values Barry at £10m, which I don't think he's worth. Hopefully MON could work some more magic in the window and get a younger Barry for the same money.

Good point, you can keep him

28% complete for me... I'm lagging! I'm going to play tonight for a good 2 or 3 hours!

Is that you, Fabio? Both are completely different to playing Gerrard/Lampard or Barry/Lampard, it is more a Kheidra/Schweinsteiger, all action pairing. Without a midfielder behind the striker to drop back when needed, I think it'd leave us too open in the middle. Milner runs off to help the wing and leaves the centre of midfield completely open. If we had another midfielder doing that then people would just walk through the centre circle unchallenged. Although I do like KPB and think he could be utilised well at Villa.

I wouldn't want Belhadj simply because he's a dirty bastard. Remember back when we thought Craig Gardner was a Villa fan, he took chunks out of his knees. One player I think we really should be putting an offer in for is Kevin-Prince Boateng. (Not just from his WC performances, I've wanted us to put an offer in for him since last season. He was one of Pompey's best players and is only 23) EDIT: Also - As we're going to be selling Sidwell, possibly Milner, Stan getting old, already sold Gardner & NRC possible leaving. He'd be a great bit of cover for centre midfield.

The rumours are that the away kit is black - which would be nice!

I'd just wait until the kit is announced if I were you. What's to say that the people who made the little "sin city-style" cartoon know what the new kit looks like?

--------------Keane/Gabby-------------- Young ----------Ireland -----------Downing ------------Parker - De jong - How about that then? Nah, Parker's good but West Ham would want over £10m for him. He's injured too often and only has a few more years so wouldn't be worth the money. I'd prefer us to have De Jong & Ireland then use all of the money from the fringe players to buy a striker to play with Gabby or Delfouneso.

I think Ireland is one of the most likely people to come to Villa (along with Robbie Keane). He's underrated at City, he's clearly not wanted, he was their player of the season 2 years ago and clearly has it in him to be a great player. I don't think the attitude thing would put MON off too much, maybe his attitude would be different if he was coming to Villa to make a fresh start?

It would be 'sweet' to have a midfield three that Manchester City decided wasn't good enough for them to finish fifth with last season? Be still my beating heart. I'd like to see De Jong or Ireland at Villa, but we already have one defensive midfielder who is past his best and can't run for 90 minutes. They can keep money-bags-but-no-future-Barry.

I too would love to see Ireland at Villa. I don't think Milner's much better than him tbh. Yes, Milner has a better engine and get's stuck in more, but Ireland is better technically. I think if MON does well this summer, we could be starting next season with a stronger squad than we currently have. Milner for Ireland + £15m. Plus £18m-ish for selling the fringe players. We could buy Keane or could splash bigger money and get a younger striker of real quality. He's been mentioned a million times (and I've never even seen him play) but I saw something in an article Today about Falcao wanting a move to the Premier League.

I've been thinking about this. As we went into the transfer window we would have had plans to get a striker (at least) and probably a midfielder using the money from the sales of fringe players (and possibly a little extra that Randy might want to input). Also Randy made a statement and answered a hypothetical scenario, saying that we wouldn't be spending £20m on one player. Now; if Man City are going to come in and buy Milner for big money then maybe we'd be more inclined to splashing big bucks on a striker? We know that MON likes to play, what he thinks is, our best team as frequently as possible and that he doesn't buy into the "players getting tired" rumours. So maybe it's likely that we could buy as few players as possible - but really make them count? Sell Milner for £28m and buy a replacement for around £12m-£14m (Or Milner for £15m + Ireland) and then use the rest of the money (on top of the money we knew would be coming for the fringe players) to get a really good striker for around £18m-£20m. If that happened then maybe we wouldn't be too upset at the prospect of losing Milner.

I don't think Man City will be title challengers next season and I also don't think they'll comfortably get the top 4. I think the season will pan out the same as last season did. I just think they've got too many players to keep happy and if the Manager fails to achieve the top 4 by Christmas then will he be sacked, just like Hughes? My fingers are crossed that City, Barry and Milner, if he goes, fail miserably. Maybe it's all wishful thinking. But I don't see how their squad can be much better than the quality of players they had at the start of last season.

It's completely different PieFacE. Sorry Rob but I think you're badly and sadly deluded if you think we're that much different to City ultimately. There's a lot of this going round at the moment and it smacks of people finding nothing other than the chance to try and take the moral high ground as they've nothing else to use. None of us are happy that Milner, and Barry will have gone to City, none of us like the fact that a shit club like them are all of a sudden mixing it with Europe's elite in the transfer market, none of us like Manchester City. But you don't hear us resorting to ridiculous claims in order to try and make ourselves feel a bit better about it all. Accept it and move on. Whatever mate, you obviously can't accept the fact that some people don't like the idea of "selling out". You don't know me personally so don't try and put it down to the fact that Man City have got a billionaire owner in the last few years. It's nothing to do with that. It's not taking the moral high ground. It's me and my personal feelings on this subject. Whether it's in football, music or anything else. I despise it. I'm only mentioning it now because it effects us directly with City supposedly taking Milner off us.

Someone said that a minute ago :winkold: Jon, I'd be happy for RL if he found another £500m under his bed. But it wouldn't make a difference to Villa (and I'm glad). He'd still invest in us in the steady way that he has been. Where's the joy in buying the league title? Jon.. would you be happy if we spent £300m on players this summer then won the league. Then next summer we spent another £200m and win the CL ?

No, did I imply that?

i'm not sure any sensible person who wants us to be successful would be saying that trickie. Why do you have to lose your integrity to be successful? This really pisses me off. Why do some people find it so hard to believe that others will place their values over instant success? I'd feel no sense of acheivement if we won the league by spending £300m. Well done, you have more money than anyone else :?

It's completely different PieFacE. We're steadily investing in the club. Randy Lerner has ambitions for the club to be able to run itself financially. He has put money into the club, which he decided to do to get us to a standard to compete with the top half of the table. Man City have invested something like £300m in 2 years. They have bought how many strikers? 5? 6?.. How many midfielders do they currently have? They can only play so many at a time - which means others miss out. Which, in turn, will effect their careers. Could Ireland be one of the best midfielders in the league if he'd been played constantly for the past 3 years? Probably. What about England? Clubs bring players through their youth systems which will try to get into the England set up. How will Man City's youth players do this? Man City are buying the best players from around the world and adding to the amount of foreigners in the league. I don't have a problem with teams having foreigners until it starts to effect me directly. What if Adam Johnson doesn't get as many appearances this year because of 3 or 4 midfield signings. Will he develop sufficiently to be and England star?... Possibly, but there's also a high chance that he'll be competing so much for a position in the squad that he won't improve as he could. It effects everyone when clubs splash money about ridiculously. I hate clubs that do it and I'd hate to be a supporter of a club doing it. And to anyone saying it's the same as Villa. It's not. We've spent so much money in the last 3 years to actually build a squad that is stable (it's not even that much money compared to City), we haven't bought 8 midfielders and 6 strikers. We've bought players to compete for places. (Okay, some of them haven't been upto the required standard - but they've been given a chance - I don't think Santa Cruz, in his first year, at city has had as much game-time as Sidwell in his first year).

I'd get my season ticket's worth of seeing them as I've already renewed, but yeah, through princible I'd probably stop going (though I hate to do it).. I'd go to my local and watch Halesowen Town 8)

I bloody would I feel sorry for you if that's your honest opinion! I'd hate to be a supporter of one of the sides that are ruining football.

Not really as it still gives you loads of money to splash on other players. Or are we just about making profit on players now? It is completely different Richard. It's producing money from something you have already paid for. £12m for Milner, sell for £28m = profit. There's an honest quality of picking up players and improving them. Having a billionaire owner didn't cost Man City anything. Do you honestly believe that people would not say no to having a multi-billionaire owner who would splash the cash like Man City? I'd hate it.

Woodytom, who would you realistically like us to sign then? - Baring in mind that we can't buy the best players as we don't have the lure of CL football? I know you're not a scout, you're not MON (I don't think :winkold:) and you're not involved with buying players - but in your view, who could we sign for the money that might be coming if Milner leaves? Ireland was immense 2 seasons ago, what's to say that MON couldn't get the best out of him again? I don't know of many top class RB's that could be available, but Van Der Wiel is one I'm aware of. He's been linked with Arsenal so he must have something about him (and yet - nothing has come out of their apparant "interest".. so maybe we could get him). The striker debate could go on for days. But I think that if we do sell Milner for £28m then we should be looking at a higher quality than Robbie Keane.

stewavfc, I think it's very optimistic to think we could get De Jong, Ireland and Richards for Milner. Even if it wasn't a swap deal and we used the money from Milner and from the fringe players - they'd probably want around £12m for Ireland, £15m for De Jong and £10m for Richards.