gilbertoAVFC

So would a £10 bet on Houllier be worth it at 5/2 on Will Hill?

I'm not surprised you're banned from Heroes and Villains with tripe like this! Nationality bias? It's called giving the lad a chance!

That Mail article has to go down as one of the stupidest headlines I've seen from them, and that's saying something! Awful journalism.

he also is playing for a temporary manager who has never managed in the premier league before. (not a dig about kmac at all, but he has been signed bya club who dont know who will be managing the team next week.) Yep there's another one! Completely ideal circumstances then for a player to make a good impression?

Firstly, he hardly played last year and has clearly faded out of games as a result of a lack of match fitness. Secondly, he has only ever played with Richard Dunne from our team, he'll need time to gel. Thirdly, the whole team were pretty damn awful in both Newcastle and Rapid Vienna games. Fourthly, he is being played as a holding midfielder, would Wesley Sneijder play as well there? No. Fifthly, he has played two games, difficult to make huge judgements of a player from that. Just stating the facts!

Hi General, great to see the club interacting with the fans from the highest level - can't question you or Randy's commitment to our cause in any way. Anybody that does, is just looking for a fight? I am a little concerned about our activity in the transfer window, but more to do with SELLING players than purchasing them. I appreciate we may need a few new recruits before the deadline on September 1st - but if we are to believe some of the figures given to us from papers and posters 'in the know' - what are your plans to reduce the huge wage bill we are under? I know you can't satisfy them all, and you must be thinking 'how can I keep 'these' fans happy about their need to buy players and 'these' fans happy for their need to sell them'? I understand it is a tight balance. But what I will argue is that, stopping the loss of money that has happened in recent years is CRUCIAL to the well-being of our club. You've seen what's happened to Portsmouth - on the verge of ceasing to exist at one point. I know bringing in good players means spending lots of money, but I for one would accept a few years to 're-build' with perhaps lower ambitions following Randy's brilliantly generous spending in recent years, in order to ensure the long-term health is this club is good. I think I speak for all Villa fans when I say that keeping this club in business is more important than ANY result. I obviously want to see us do as well as we can, but I'd hate to see us putting success ahead of potentially losing the existance of my club. I know we're a long way off that, but it nearly happened to Leeds. Thanks for your efforts in keeping in touch with the fans General.

Friedel - helpless apart from Barton's goal. Young - best of the defence Dunne - worst I've seen him play Clark - lightweight, not good enough yet Warnock - where was he? Albrighton - ran into corners Petrov - over-run, no impact other than a negative one Ireland - on par with Eto'o deal my arse. Looked disinterested after we went behind. Young - best of bad bunch Downing - just utter shite. Scared, no belief, DROP HIM! Carew - direeeeee

What we've lacked is any sort of aggression in the middle, NRC should've been brought on a lot earlier. We were closing down well from the front but are giving them far too much room at the back, KND has always lined-up the reserves with no players diving in - you CANNOT afford to give that much room to players in the Prem. Downing has been same old - no effort or bottle whatsoever. Carew just woeful. Worst performance I've ever seen by Richard Dunne. Only Ash has done anything really. Need Collins/Cuellar and Gabby back pronto. So contrasting to last week. We look yards behind their players - they're much fitter.

Great statement, can you imagine the Villa website ever acknowledging something like that? Still, at least we don't terrorise our own fans when they're in agony.

Hopefully we get a new manager in before the start of the Premier League cycle. :winkold:

Great news, indicates real faith in our young players, which is always brilliant to see. UTV!

What about Brian McDermott of Reading - totally transformed them last season? They played some great football against us last season. Will never happen, but could be a big-name in future.

If he was willing to take an 80% paycut then he's welcome

Am I the only one that is happy to see Kevin MacDonald in charge at the minute? Granted, he's not a 'big-name' that will attract lots of players, but I feel that he could really do a job for us in the coming weeks. Knows the club, done brilliantly for the reserves who play a lot of good football and will not hesitate to give young players a chance ahead of first teamers if they are slacking. Not saying I want him there full-time, but I think he should be considered if he does well.

Keane is a dead-cert to come.

Brilliant article. I of course appreciate Randy's commitment to our cause, but why oh why did we spend as much as we did last season and allow our wage bill to increase by nearly 300% in three years? It's gone from one extreme to another now. I suppose the lack of patience amongst a great deal of our fan base will have played a part in speeding up this process, but it could be argued to be very poor business. However, I'm optimistic that because we seem to have realised and addressed the situation before it really was too late, we can get out of this mess. Getting rid of the likes of Davies, Luke Young and NRC would certainly make our squad overall weaker, but it sure would benefit us in the long-term. Sidwell and Heskey have to go if they really are on £5.2m a year between them. I feel that MON will be placing much more faith this season in our young players, which I look forward to, even if it will be frustrating at times. Keep the faith, UTV.

I think the real answer to this poll is: WE DON'T KNOW, IT'S JOHN CAREW AFTER ALL!

MON's relationship with the media is a funny one really. He's still hailed as a great manager despite his blindingly obvious faults that are there for any clued-up Villa fan (not saying he's awful, but the consensus acknowledge that he is very old-fashioned, tactically rigid and stubborn). It infuriates me when our fans are slated for even daring to criticise the great Martin during games. The amount of insults aimed at us as fans by the media for booing against Wigan, although it's counter-productive, was pathetic when there were glaring negative factors that needed to be addressed. A lot of journos watch Villa once every three months and some of their research is poor at best, and thus this image of O'Neill being a great manager is kept. He'll be found out this season I feel if we go on a bad run. He's not a bad manager, just an incredibly over-rated one.

That's a massively subjective view of that squad. I personally disagree with almost all of it. You're (IMO) particularly generous towards Ridgewell, Davis, Berger (by that stage in his career), Baros (ditto), Sorensen (ditto), and Delaney was already crocked as far as I remember. You're arguably quite selective in your choice of replacements too. It's certainly not 'nonsense' at least. Davis > Sidwell Sorensen > Carson Cahill > Knight Ridgewell < Davies Baros < Carew Berger < Milner? (can't think of a direct replacement) Delaney (when fit) = L. Young Bouma = Warnock Pretty inconclusive really. It's not 'nonsense', nor is it the opposite. However, I'd have to favour Risso because the replacements cos about 5x more!

To be fair though, the goalposts have been moved quite significantly in the last year. It may be that our apparent austerity is a reaction to what's happened at Eastlands; why pour more money into a dream that all of a sudden has a significant chance of disappearing off over the horizon? Last season may have been our best chance of CL football for the foreseeable future. Until the Premier League introduce a wage-cap, it'll be forever, unless some Sheikh buys out Randy. Yaya Toure's transfer is just crushing for a team like Villa. What hope do we have?

The appeal to 'domestic competition' success last season is not really plausible in my opinion. The most difficult teams we beat in both were Blackburn and Sunderland. Not exactly ground-breaking now is it? We also played our best team in each game (which I support, yes, but other teams such as Sunderland didn't). You can point to the league position as a reason why MON has been successful, but not the cups, as we were outplayed in both of the difficult games. We've spent loads of money, and that money has run out seemingly. My answer is no, I feel we need a more pragmatic, less stubborn and generally more modern manager. I won't be upset if he stays, as MON's still a decent manager in many respect, but I don't think he can take us forward from here.

Hi General. First time poster on your thread, but I've had a season ticket at Villa Park since the age of thirteen and I'd like to think I speak on behalf of the vast majority of Villa fans (see voting thread on matter) when I say that I'd never like to see the singing-based atmosphere to change at Villa Park, and I think that with the possibility of these vuvuzelas being allowed into the ground, this could be spoilt. What is the clubs stance on the issue of the potential banning of vuvuzelas? The Premier League have indicated that it is up to each individual club to act and Spurs have been the first to do so. I'd hate to see the Villa Park atmosphere tarnished by monotonous trumpets as I feel they had a negative impact on the atmosphere of the World Cup fixtures. Thanks.

Sorry but I'm with MON on this. Why would he publically announce that Milner wants to leave unless he was certain that is what has been established? By indicating the player wants to leave, he has lowered the value of an unhappy player. What's Milner got to be 'angry' about? He clearly wants to leave, and MON has basically given him his wish providing a fee is agreed? Could this be Jimmy's agent trying to stir things up even more to make sure a deal HAS to go through?

Can I just say, from the club's perspective, I can't see how getting in the region of 28 million quid for a player like Milner could be anything but a good thing. Yes, we all know he's young and a very good player, but to get such an inflated sum for somebody who could certainly be replaced in time would be great in my eyes. I've said it all a long I think Milner is a tad over-rated. He works harder than anyone and he must be commended for that and his technical side has improved a lot so I'm saying I won't miss him, because I will, but we could reinvest that money on players like Ireland and Parker for instance and in my view that would make Villa a stronger team. 4-2-3-1 anyone with those two in it? Quality. From a personal perspective, and I don't want to jump on any 'Milner's a mercenary' bandwagon here, I can't understand Jimmy's reasoning behind his request to move other than it being to do with financial gain. I'm not saying I'd do any different to a company I have little affiliation with personally other than they are my employers, but to say that it is down to ambition can't be the case. It's been well and truly proven this season that if City don't reach at least the Top Four, the message to the manager is to keep spending until they do (as Gareth found out when Mancini decided he wanted Yaya Toure to replace him). If City fail to break the Top Four then Milner will be just the latest player to give way for a bigger star. If they succeed, they'll be able to start attracting THE very best players which means that the Kaka-type players that turned them down a few years ago due to not participating in the Champions League will be no more. Money and trophies would tempt all but the loyalist of players. I hope Jimmy continues to develop as a player from an England perspective at Man City as he has done under MON, but I don't think there's much chance of it with all the inevitable changes this time next year. He'll get his bumper payday, and just a small fish in a big pond. He knows that wouldn't be the same here.

Barca: --------------Valdes------------------- Alves Pique Puyol Abidal/Maxwell -------------Busquets---------------- -----------Xavi----Cesc--------------- Messi--------------------------Iniesta ----------------Villa--------------------- Real: -----------------Casillas-------------------- Ramos----Albiol-------Pepe------A. Cole? - Mourinho's been touted to be linked with him -------Xabi Alonso--Diarra?(several options there) Ronaldo---------Kaka------------Di Maria ------------------Higuain--------------------