Video: Bent, N’Zogbia, Clark and Gardner battle it out on FIFA 12

The players are Darren Bent, Charles N’Zogbia, Ciaran Clark and Gary Gardner. The fella with the hair and the mic is Lukey Moore from the Football Ramble (no relation to the lazy former Villa striker). The competition is IGN FIFA 12 pro player tournament. The venue is Bodymoor Heath.

The winner is…

[Email subscribers can see the action here]

Menor que un club

Not everyone enjoys watching Barcelona play football these days, some find them incredibly boring, but I happen to be among the group who gets a lot of pleasure from watching them play.

I’m reluctant to hold them up as an example of what other teams should be doing – least of all Aston Villa – as they have players from another planet in terms of ability. Often, if you try to replicate Barcelona without the same quality players, you’ll fail miserably

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The Return of King Carlos

Carlos Cuellar got on the pitch last night for the first time since his knee operation in May, playing 45 minutes in the reserves’ 1-0 win over Chelsea – Callum Robinson with the goal – and says that he’s feeling good.

That’s great news for a very popular player, but what happens from here remains to be seen. It seemed likely that Rangers would have pursued their interest to conclusion during the summer had it not been for his knee

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Could Ciaran Clark be our Sergio Busquets?

I wrote a post last year which put forward the notion that James Milner could be our Wesley Sneijder. As it turned out, I missed the mark somewhat, but only because he’s not ours any longer. I still think he would have done very well there for us last season and maybe, just maybe, things might have panned out differently.

C’est la vie.

Now that we’ve received confirmation that a Reo-Coker shaped hole needs filling in the centre of midfield, I found

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Contracts and internationals – the future remains bright

I don’t know whether it’s appropriate to keep referring to them as “kids”, I know I wouldn’t have appreciated it when I was their age, but regardless of the moniker, there’s a good deal to be optimistic when we see the batch of academy graduates long tipped for greatness finally becoming first team fixtures and also gaining recognition further afield.

Barry Bannan is reportedly about to be called up to the senior Scottish side and is receiving rave reviews from just

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Ciaran Clark signs new contract and 3 months out for Petrov, but no surgery

We really haven’t had chance to see that much of him, but Ciaran Clark has already won himself an army of fans among the Villa faithful and beyond. I’m sure all fans will be as delighted as I am to hear that Ciaran has just signed a new contract at Villa, extending his stay until 2014.

He was inside the last 12 months of his contact and was starting to gain the attention of other clubs besides also being snapped

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Aston Villa Triumphant In Hong Kong Again

You thought our season was over, didn’t you? Not quite. We’ve been sending some of the young lions over to Hong Kong each summer for at least the last 8 years to participate in the Hong Kong Soccer Sevens tournament and it’s something we’ve had a fair amount of success in.

Earlier today a team that included Nathan Delfouneso, Marc Albrighton and Ciaran Clark won the trophy for a 5th time, beating Glasgow Rangers 3-2 in the final.

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Clark Signs While Shorey Whines

It’s been kicking around for a while now, but I’ve been unable to shoe in the news that Ciaran Clark has signed a new two-and-a-half-year contract at Aston Villa.

Ciaran’s a quality prospect, but having just turned 20 he’s very much the baby of our centre back line-up. However, he’s the captain of the reserve side and has also won his first England Under-21 call up recently. He’s looked extremely comfortable when called upon, but is benefiting from training

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