Ah monday, Historically the most labourious of days. The start of the working week, the end of our lesuire time.however, Monday the 26 of April 2010 is a glorious contradiction of the normal grind for the claret half of Birmingham, and this is why.....
Aston Villa 1 - 0 Birmingham City!!!!
I am not naive enough to portray a biased opininion of dominance in this game, Birmingham gave us a fright, they are a far better outfit than i thought they were, We were better in the first half, they were in the second. The match was decided by a moment of attacking quality from Agbonlahor, and a moment of liability from Roger Johnson.
It was a penalty, No doubt in my mind, it was a foul, Therefore a penalty. I am not disputing that Johnson made some contact with the ball, but he had not gained either control of the ball or had he removed the threat of a goalscoring opportunity before he played the man. As Roger Johnson made contact he pushed the ball into Agbonlahor's path, whilst not increasing any pace on the ball. I believe had Agbonlahor not then been taken down by Johnsons challenge, he is in in goal.
The 'blue noses' feel hard done by, but thats life. Decisions have cost Villa all season, some massive games for the club have been effected by refferee's making misjudgement. Therefore i can appreciate your woes, However you need to ask yourselves this, was it necessary for the defender to go to ground there? Was he taking a gamble on winning the ball when Agbonlahor is clearly ahead of him?
I think that rather than blame the officials, Roger Johnson has to look at himself and admit that he made a poor judgement there, one that cost his team dearly.
Moving on from that vital win for us, what a massive game we now have up at Eastlands on saturday. If we could win against City we would be in a great position.
I think its a credit to Martin O'niel that he has picked the lads up from the rout at Stamford Bridge and we are still pushing for champions league football.
Thats all for now peeps, we are in europe again next year, so well done Villa, but it would be nice to see the media have to take us seriously if we beat Manchester City on Saturday, in what is now a cup final!!
Good luck boys, and thanks for the six consecutive wins over the 'scum'!!!
Monday, 26 April 2010
Wednesday, 21 April 2010
Villa v Hull, Delfouneso and the summer
Hello all....
whilst i have been away relaxing sinse my last post, we, Aston Villa have had an interresting few weeks. The most dissapointing aspect for me is the loss of Fabian Delph. I am a massive fan of his and think he could have made a massive impact in the 'run-in' and next season, with petrov looking very weary of late. This however has been offset by the emergence of Nathan Delfouneso. Although us Villa fans are fairly knowledgable of his potential, it was in recent weeks that he had seemed to be getting ignored in favour of the 'harmless' heskey, for me most notebly at home against Wolves. Then sunday, he popped up with the kind of predatory instinct that we have lacked all season, and i would love to see this lad get a bit of a run now as when he plays for us, he seems to score. He was also top scorer at last summers Under 19 championships.
Hull City play host to us tonight, and i will be honest, this is another tough awkward encounter. Both sides need a victory, i think this game will suit us. If we set up to play on the counter, we will catch them. I am going to predict a 4-2 away win.
A quick bit on the summer now, i am interrested to see who people would want to replace from the first team, who would be dispensible from your starting eleven to be replaced with players that will improve the first team. In my opinion it would be James Collins, Stiliyan Petrov and John Carew. Carew would be missed but he does not play enough games to be a regular, i will post a poll to vote on this.
whilst i have been away relaxing sinse my last post, we, Aston Villa have had an interresting few weeks. The most dissapointing aspect for me is the loss of Fabian Delph. I am a massive fan of his and think he could have made a massive impact in the 'run-in' and next season, with petrov looking very weary of late. This however has been offset by the emergence of Nathan Delfouneso. Although us Villa fans are fairly knowledgable of his potential, it was in recent weeks that he had seemed to be getting ignored in favour of the 'harmless' heskey, for me most notebly at home against Wolves. Then sunday, he popped up with the kind of predatory instinct that we have lacked all season, and i would love to see this lad get a bit of a run now as when he plays for us, he seems to score. He was also top scorer at last summers Under 19 championships.
Hull City play host to us tonight, and i will be honest, this is another tough awkward encounter. Both sides need a victory, i think this game will suit us. If we set up to play on the counter, we will catch them. I am going to predict a 4-2 away win.
A quick bit on the summer now, i am interrested to see who people would want to replace from the first team, who would be dispensible from your starting eleven to be replaced with players that will improve the first team. In my opinion it would be James Collins, Stiliyan Petrov and John Carew. Carew would be missed but he does not play enough games to be a regular, i will post a poll to vote on this.
Thursday, 1 April 2010
Aston Villa - The Future!!!
I have refrained from posting on this blog since Tuesday as I have reserved opinion on the shenanigans and Villa Park; or should I say 'speculated shenanigans'!!!.
The future for Aston Villa in my opinion is quite clear as there are very few realistic eventualities that will present themselves in the summer regardless of where we eventually finish this season.
The history of the way we have strived to improve and restructure since the arrival of Lerner and O'neil will dictate the path of investment, there would have been a clear and concise plan on arrival, and while I think that this 'project' has proved more difficult than initially predicted, I would imagine the plan would be still relevant and achievable to an extent.
Martin O'neil will be Aston Villa manager in August 2010, Villa will again invest a net spend of between £20-30m on young english players who will improve with time. This is because, should Lerner walk away, or should the club hit a financial crisis, he can re-sell the players he purchased for a profit. If Villa sold Agbonlahor, Milner, Ashley Young, Stuart Downing, Carlos Cuellar and Steven Warnock, it his highly likely we would make a vast profit on the 'investment' (I', aware that Agbonlahor came through our youth system!) This is how Randy Lerner justifies the money he is allowing us to spend.
There has been a disagreement of some sort betweeen the manager and the owner, but I doubt that this will see a impact or change of any sort, if Martin O'neil walked out or was sacked, would a new manager want a figure of cash to make his own changes??, This would more than likely see Lerner being forced to invest more money. More time would have to be given to allow the new manager to succeed.
I would strongly suggest that Lerner and O'neil will be happy to be top 8 every season and challenge for forth, have cup runs and wait for the young players to mature and hopefully mean the need for less investment in the future, if you add a Torres and a Lampard to our side, we would be top 4, a goalscoring midfielder and a match winning striker is essentially what we lack.
Last Saturday was a freak game, we are a good team, the correct buys would see us as a very good side, we need to buy well and invest in quality now rather than quantity, you buy 2 maybe 3 players who improve the first team, you then naturally improve the squad, because two good players like Carew or Petrov now sit on the bench. This summer there will be departures, I for one would like to see Sidwell, Harewood, Heskey, Beye, Salifou, Shorey and Osbourne all go and be replaced with 3 quality players, they are out there, and are realistic, Steven Ireland, Oscar Cardozo and Veloso. Add to that some young flair like Dorrans and Carroll could see us as a lot stronger outfit, the question is, can we buy wiser than Liverpool, Spurs and Everton because eventually Manchester City will become title contenders due to the level of investment capability.
Lets all hope that we bounce back on Saturday, and I am also hoping for wins for Barnsley and West Brom, these are for my two pals 'Uncle Graham' and 'The Yam'.
Final note, Watch Benfica v Liverpool and let me know your opinion on Cardozo and Di Maria!!!
The future for Aston Villa in my opinion is quite clear as there are very few realistic eventualities that will present themselves in the summer regardless of where we eventually finish this season.
The history of the way we have strived to improve and restructure since the arrival of Lerner and O'neil will dictate the path of investment, there would have been a clear and concise plan on arrival, and while I think that this 'project' has proved more difficult than initially predicted, I would imagine the plan would be still relevant and achievable to an extent.
Martin O'neil will be Aston Villa manager in August 2010, Villa will again invest a net spend of between £20-30m on young english players who will improve with time. This is because, should Lerner walk away, or should the club hit a financial crisis, he can re-sell the players he purchased for a profit. If Villa sold Agbonlahor, Milner, Ashley Young, Stuart Downing, Carlos Cuellar and Steven Warnock, it his highly likely we would make a vast profit on the 'investment' (I', aware that Agbonlahor came through our youth system!) This is how Randy Lerner justifies the money he is allowing us to spend.
There has been a disagreement of some sort betweeen the manager and the owner, but I doubt that this will see a impact or change of any sort, if Martin O'neil walked out or was sacked, would a new manager want a figure of cash to make his own changes??, This would more than likely see Lerner being forced to invest more money. More time would have to be given to allow the new manager to succeed.
I would strongly suggest that Lerner and O'neil will be happy to be top 8 every season and challenge for forth, have cup runs and wait for the young players to mature and hopefully mean the need for less investment in the future, if you add a Torres and a Lampard to our side, we would be top 4, a goalscoring midfielder and a match winning striker is essentially what we lack.
Last Saturday was a freak game, we are a good team, the correct buys would see us as a very good side, we need to buy well and invest in quality now rather than quantity, you buy 2 maybe 3 players who improve the first team, you then naturally improve the squad, because two good players like Carew or Petrov now sit on the bench. This summer there will be departures, I for one would like to see Sidwell, Harewood, Heskey, Beye, Salifou, Shorey and Osbourne all go and be replaced with 3 quality players, they are out there, and are realistic, Steven Ireland, Oscar Cardozo and Veloso. Add to that some young flair like Dorrans and Carroll could see us as a lot stronger outfit, the question is, can we buy wiser than Liverpool, Spurs and Everton because eventually Manchester City will become title contenders due to the level of investment capability.
Lets all hope that we bounce back on Saturday, and I am also hoping for wins for Barnsley and West Brom, these are for my two pals 'Uncle Graham' and 'The Yam'.
Final note, Watch Benfica v Liverpool and let me know your opinion on Cardozo and Di Maria!!!
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