The headline I went with when Martin O’Neill walked out on Aston Villa was something along the lines of “They think he’s taken us as far as he can… he has now“. It was a reference to the persistent theme among the growing dissent that our club was stagnating under his stewardship and also the fact that the record would forever confirm that that would indeed be as far as he could take the club.
The truth is, we’ll never know
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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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We have a number of players with contracts expiring this summer and uncertain futures, but the one with the biggest question mark over his head was Nigel Reo-Coker. That question mark remains no longer, the club have just announced that he has been released along with nine other players.
I know Reo-Coker wasn’t in everyone’s list of favourite players, but he’s always given 100% and frequently was the only one providing anything close to the grit we needed in the centre
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It’s widely known that Man Utd have adopted a couple of firm policies when it comes to player dealings.
Firstly, they want to stick to players under 26 years old when it comes to bringing in new faces to retain a potential resale value.
Secondly, they won’t allow existing players to enter into the last two years of their contracts if at all possible. Again, this is intended to protect a resale value that decreases rapidly if the player is to leave
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The LMA has just issued a statement confirming that the dispute between Martin O’Neill and Aston Villa has been amicably resolved during the course of the tribunal.
Martin O’Neill said:
Martin O’Neill
It has taken a long time to deal with this matter but I am pleased that all issues have now been amicably finalised.
I am very proud to have managed Aston Villa and I wish the club all the best for the future. I would also like to thank the LMA
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I heard a whisper a day or two ago that Carlos Cuellar was in London for a knee operation and the Express & Star and OS have confirmed the news with some interesting details today. Apparently, Carlos was having a torn meniscus in his right knee fixed and will now be out for up to three months, probably causing him to miss the start of next season.
The most interesting part though, according to Craig Birch at E&S, is the revelation
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Fabio Capello has named a 26-man squad to take on Switzerland in the next Euro 2012 qualifier at Wembley on June 4th and Ashley Young, Stewart Downing and Darren Bent are all included. As is Kyle Walker, although he’s no longer technically a Villan, he more than deserves a mention here.
In fact, Walker’s also included in Stuart Pearce’s confirmed 23-man squad for the European Under-21 Championships in Denmark next month along with Marc Albrighton and Nathan Delfouneso, who definitely are
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Wow. What a day! The game wasn’t all that thrilling, but Liverpool have been beaten at Villa Park for the first time in 13 years thanks to a superb strike from Stewart Downing and, with the other results today, we end up finishing in 9th place. A top half finish, on top of the Midlands once again despite our worst performance over 38 games for five years.
And… if that wasn’t enough, Birmingham City were relegated, initially thanks to hapless Wolves
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This is it then; the last game of the season. It might something of a dead rubber for us, although I’d like to think the players would be keen to finish the season on a high note. Liverpool fans will be hoping for a win at Villa Park and a loss for Tottenham at White Hart Lane. So, the exact opposite of us then.
Here are the confirmed starting line-ups:
Aston Villa
Liverpool
1
Brad Friedel
25
Pepe Reina
36
Kyle Walker
38
John Flanagan
29
James Collins
23
Jamie Carragher
5
Richard Dunne
37
Martin Skrtel
2
Luke Young
6
Fabio Aurelio
16
Fabian
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