Aston Villa Thread

borocooper wrote:Yeah thats the one, he was looking good last year. Is he playing well this year??

I believe he was playing well before he was injured against Zenit St. Petersburg by Fernando Ricksen. Burke is injury prone.

Again, like McGeady, Burke lacks the necessary athleticism to thrive in more physical leagues. He also isn’t as technically competent as McGeady.

I can’t fathom it myself, maybe because it doesn’t really exist, but I think there is something intrinsically wrong with young Scottish footballers with regards to their attitudes and athletic capabilities. Perhaps it’s a genetic trait, a social problem, or maybe there is no problem.

Thanks

O’Neill given licence to spend as Villa chairman makes Europe top priority

Martin O’Neill was offered a blank cheque yesterday to help to turn Aston Villa back into a European force as Randy Lerner, the chairman, promised that his regime understands what it takes to break into the top four of the Barclays Premiership.

Richard FitzGerald, who was appointed chief executive by Lerner in January, confirmed that there will be no limit on O’Neill’s transfer budget as Villa unveiled a new club crest to signify a new era, incorporating a star to denote the 1982 European Cup triumph.

The 25th anniversary celebrations of Villa’s finest hour start in earnest this weekend, with Dennis Mortimer, the captain of the team who beat Bayern Munich in the final in Rotterdam, and his teammates to be introduced to the sell-out crowd before the match against Sheffield United on Saturday. Mortimer and Gareth Barry, the present captain, will help to open the new £14 million training ground – “one of the finest in the world”, according to FitzGerald – the next morning.

With Nike coming on board and the new television deal, Villa’s projected income for next season is £73 million, up almost 50 per cent on this term, and O’Neill will also be supported by the fortune of his American billionaire chairman.

FitzGerald said: “I don’t think we would have said that we want to be competing at the top end of the Premiership and in the Champions League if we didn’t know what that entailed. We do want to set the expectations, not just for this year and next year, but for the next five or ten years.

“Everyone has to be fully committed if we’re to push upwards and be successful. The Premier League is getting harder each year. You saw what we did in January – notoriously not the best time to buy – when we paid a reported £10 million for Ashley Young, a young player coming through, so you can rest assured that Randy has freed up a significant transfer pot for Martin.

“It’s fair to say that this money will come through the ownership. Money from the Premier League will come in over the next couple of years – tenth place in the Premiership next season will earn a club around £40 million, compared with £25 million this year – but we are an investing club. The master plan will be between Martin and Randy Lerner.”

O’Neill has been linked with Robbie Keane, the Tottenham Hotspur forward, Steve Sid-well, the Reading midfield player, Craig Bellamy, the Liver-pool striker, and Joey Barton, the Manchester City and England midfield player.

Asked whether there would be a limit on how much O’Neill could spend, FitzGerald said: “He’s a great manager and if we want to be at the top end of the Premiership going for the Champions League, we need world-class players. The guy’s very experienced and we trust him.

“I’m not decrying cash, but it’s not just about that, it’s about building things correctly, and that’s what today’s about. We want to be developing our branding and marketing. Look at what AIG are doing with Manchester United.” O’Neill was heavily involved in fêting the Lisbon Lions, the 1967 European Cup winners, when he was in charge at Celtic and was honoured to be involved in the 25th anniversary celebrations of Nottingham Forest’s two European triumphs from his playing days.

On the day of his appointment in August last year, the new Villa manager went on a moonlit tour of Villa Park and was struck by the absence of any photographic memorabilia for the heroes of Rotterdam. Their victory came at a time when Doug Ellis, Lerner’s predecessor, had briefly left the club.

Pictures of Mortimer and company are to be hung up at the new training ground to commemorate the club’s greatest triumph and to inspire the next generation.

Villa may be battling for tenth place this season, but their name will be up in lights soon. The new badge will appear throughout the stadium and will be lit up at night to be visible from the adjacent M6.



Good times

debaser wrote:
With Nike coming on board and the new television deal, Villa’s projected income for next season is £73 million

Peanuts.

Word is quite a few teams will be spending big this summer, with the new tv deal coming into place. It could get interesting.

£73m....plus the backing of a billionaire owner

i fear it's just going to be another transfer window of vastly inflated prices. bent going for 8 figure fee and so on.

still i'm excited to see who we might get. i'd like to think we could get a surprise signing, someone who'll make other teams take notice, rather than just picking players from teams around us in the table (or celtic).

debaser wrote:£73m....plus the backing of a billionaire owner

i fear it's just going to be another transfer window of vastly inflated prices. bent going for 8 figure fee and so on.

still i'm excited to see who we might get. i'd like to think we could get a surprise signing, someone who'll make other teams take notice, rather than just picking players from teams around us in the table (or celtic).

It will be, all this tv deal means is even higher prices and higher wages. BUT it will give us a big advantage over foreign teams.

"Their victory came at a time when Doug Ellis, Lerner’s predecessor, had briefly left the club. "

this never fails to make me laugh whenever i'm reminded of it. ellis was in charge for over 30 years, except for a 3 year spell when he went away and we won the league and the european cup

Great bit of trivia

Its because Ellis is a cnt



Good news for Villa. That kind of money can really make a difference.

How's Maloney playing anyway?

he hasn't had all that many games, mostly been coming off the bench but he's done okay, started to look better last few games. he's still adapting to the pace of the prem but scored his first goal at man city, a free kick (first goal we've had from a direct free kick for about 2 years!)

got a lot of promise and with this settling in period behind him, hopefully he'll be ready next season to make an impact from the off

scored a nice free kick last week, first goal for Villa

A month that started with Villa being booed off after 45 minutes ended with Martin O'Neill being named the Barclays Premiership Manager of the Month.

The Villa boss was today awarded the accolade as a return of 12 points from 18 helped his side climb away from a potential relegation scrap to mid-table safety and optimism is sky high looking ahead to next season.

And yet the month hardly began in promising circumstances. Trailing 1-0 at half-time in the home clash with Everton, the Claret and Blue Army made their feelings known after a lacklustre 45 minutes.

One rollicking later and Villa bounced back to secure a deserved share of the spoils as Gabby Agbonlahor grabbed a late equaliser.

The England Under-21 international was on the mark again five days later, along with Patrik Berger, as Villa came from behind to win 2-1 at Blackburn.

A home draw with Wigan was followed by another away day victory as Craig Gardner, Luke Moore and Stilyan Petrov fired Villa to a 3-1 success at Middlesbrough.

Villa then drew 0-0 with Portsmouth, before John Carew and Shaun Maloney secured a third successive away win - this time 2-0 at Manchester City.

Speaking as he was informed of the accolade, O'Neill said: "I'm delighted to get this award. We've put some good results together over the last few weeks - then again we've had to!

"Winning three on the trot away from home was obviously very pleasing and we just need to replicate that sort of form at Villa Park."

Jim Hytner, from the Barclays Awards Panel, said: "Martin O'Neill has made a terrific impact in his first season back in the Barclays Premiership.

"He's built a team full of young talent that is becoming increasingly hard to beat, no more so than in April. Three successive away wins also demonstrate that his Villa side combines a solid defence with real threat in attack."

been linked with distin again today. he would be an excellent signing - particularly if he's free (am i right in thinking he's out of contract?). there's no guarantee laursen will stay fit & ridgewell may be on his way, plus distin can cover lb.

debaser wrote:been linked with distin again today. he would be an excellent signing - particularly if he's free (am i right in thinking he's out of contract?). there's no guarantee laursen will stay fit & ridgewell may be on his way, plus distin can cover lb.

He's after 50k a week apparently, that's what puts me off. He's not worth that.

hmm. that is the danger with bosmans. still, it seems better value to sign him on inflated wages but no transfer fee, than pay £6m+ for someone like curtis davies, who we've been linked with before.

so long as it isn't going to cause unrest elsewhere in the squad (which it hopefully wouldn't, o'neill is famed for his man-management, if nothing else) i'm all for it.

Maloney looks set to return to Celtic for £1 million.

Villa will prove tough opposition on the opening day of the season, last season we got a bore draw there, but thrashed them at home with a fine display, so it will be difficult, but I think we can get the job done if we perform to what we're capeable of.

Ridgwell has left for Birmingham...strange, I thought he was a good talent?

kas wrote:Ridgwell has left for Birmingham...strange, I thought he was a good talent?

cahill's the best defensive prospect we have. ridgewell was decent but always a little suspect. he's probably championship level, which means he's gone to the right club.

however, we definitely need some more defenders in. a rb and a cb minimum, and o'neill has acknowledged this.

Yep, Ridgewell was not good enough, definately suited to a bottom half Prem team. £2.25m is very good business. Pretty confident that a RB and CB will be brought in by Saturday, possibly a keeper too.

And judging by todays game, even though its just a friendly, im very confident for next season. The attacking, especially, was good and i can see Young, Gabby and Moore running defences ragged, with Barry, Petrov and NRC pulling the strings in midfield.

Im liking the fact that the media and other teams fans are under-estimating us and writing us off, no pressure at all. I would not be surprised if we beat Liverpool next week.

Shabbabrain wrote:Yep, Ridgewell was not good enough, definately suited to a bottom half Prem team. £2.25m is very good business. Pretty confident that a RB and CB will be brought in by Saturday, possibly a keeper too.

And judging by todays game, even though its just a friendly, im very confident for next season. The attacking, especially, was good and i can see Young, Gabby and Moore running defences ragged, with Barry, Petrov and NRC pulling the strings in midfield.

Im liking the fact that the media and other teams fans are under-estimating us and writing us off, no pressure at all. I would not be surprised if we beat Liverpool next week.

i know what you mean. the signings (or lack thereof) have certainly kept us well out of the news and hype, with everyone looking at man city, west ham etc who've had far more significant incoming players. so whilst it has felt a bit like we're being left behind with no particularly exciting signings, it may well work in our favour to have a close-knit squad of mostly relatively un-hailed young players, with o'neill hopefully building a good team ethic out of them. i'm certainly glad we've cleared out all the fringe players...although having said that, it could all backfire with an injury crisis!

And looking at the warm-up and then the game today, the squad does like very close-knit. They all seemed to be getting on with each other, having a laugh etc. Signing big players may cause harm to the closeness so buying players like NRC and Harewood and other less hailed players is the way forward. MON has had a lot of success doing this over the years so its a tried and tested way of succeeding.
And I feel we will finish above West Ham, Man C, Portsmouth and most the other big spenders (I think we'll finish 7th, behind big 4, Spurs and Newcastle).

Havn't looked forward to a season like this for a very long time, I am very optimistic!!

You're being linked with Gordon. He's a top keeper. Would be a good move.

@debaser, where have you been?

Shabbabrain wrote:And looking at the warm-up and then the game today, the squad does like very close-knit. They all seemed to be getting on with each other, having a laugh etc. Signing big players may cause harm to the closeness so buying players like NRC and Harewood and other less hailed players is the way forward. MON has had a lot of success doing this over the years so its a tried and tested way of succeeding.
And I feel we will finish above West Ham, Man C, Portsmouth and most the other big spenders (I think we'll finish 7th, behind big 4, Spurs and Newcastle).

Havn't looked forward to a season like this for a very long time, I am very optimistic!!

I don't see you finishing 7th. You'll have to buy better players than Reo-Joker and Harewood. Every other team has bought at least 5 players and are on their way to buying another 2/3.

As it currently stands I wouldn't put you in the top half...unless you sign some more players.

I don't think your squad is better than Tottenham, Newcastle, West Ham, Everton, Portsmouth or City are current.

Calidad wrote:You're being linked with Gordon. He's a top keeper. Would be a good move.

@debaser, where have you been?

yeah i'd be happy with gordon for sure. he could be long term answer for that position.

i spent the last month or so travelling in usa/canada. sadly i'm back to reality now!

Freddie Ljungberg wrote:

Shabbabrain wrote:And looking at the warm-up and then the game today, the squad does like very close-knit. They all seemed to be getting on with each other, having a laugh etc. Signing big players may cause harm to the closeness so buying players like NRC and Harewood and other less hailed players is the way forward. MON has had a lot of success doing this over the years so its a tried and tested way of succeeding.
And I feel we will finish above West Ham, Man C, Portsmouth and most the other big spenders (I think we'll finish 7th, behind big 4, Spurs and Newcastle).

Havn't looked forward to a season like this for a very long time, I am very optimistic!!

I don't see you finishing 7th. You'll have to buy better players than Reo-Joker and Harewood. Every other team has bought at least 5 players and are on their way to buying another 2/3.

As it currently stands I wouldn't put you in the top half...unless you sign some more players.

I don't think your squad is better than Tottenham, Newcastle, West Ham, Everton, Portsmouth or City are current.

this is all on paper though. if man city start with 7/8 new signings, it's going to take a while for them to gel and i could see them being fairly inconsistent, at least in the early parts, and you could say the same for any team who is trying to integrate a significant number of new players, especially players new to the premier league. only spurs and everton of those you listed have pretty settled teams, and both of them will have european distractions so i think we're in a good position to go for the top 8.

if nothing else, o'neill is renowned for getting the most out of non-big-name/underachieving players, so the lack of star names in the team compared to newcastle or whoever doesn't automatically mean we'll end up below them.

you should love villa anyway, the amount we've given to you this summer!

I have nothing against you...I just think you need some more signings...I just think you look a bit thin on squad depth and need to buy 2/3 more decent players...which I'm sure you will...

I didn't mean for it to sound offensive

it's all good. i'm just being over-defensive

squad is 20 players at the minute, including some youngsters like osbourne & o'halloran, so i agree we need a little more depth. maybe a gk, cb and rb this week and we'll be about ready

debaser wrote:

Calidad wrote:You're being linked with Gordon. He's a top keeper. Would be a good move.

@debaser, where have you been?

yeah i'd be happy with gordon for sure. he could be long term answer for that position.

i spent the last month or so travelling in usa/canada. sadly i'm back to reality now!

Awesome. How was it? Where did you go?

it was great. went to toronto then montreal for the jazz fest (manu chao = ), then new york, boston, chicago with a couple of little bits in between. lots of fun. kind of broke now though