Since last year, Premier League clubs have been required to publish the payments they’ve made to agents during the preceding 12 months at the end of November and the OS revealed that players’ representatives have received £2.28m from Aston Villa between October ’09 and September ’10, up from the £1.71m last year.
Given the lack of transfer activity at Villa Park in the last year, that might cause a head or two to be scratched. I suspect it reflects how some
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Unfortunately, it’s time to review this season’s performance against last season and it’s pretty grim. Last year I apparently ran the numbers after 14 games so that I could arrive neatly at 19, the half way mark, but I think I’ll stick with every five games for the rest of this season.
I won’t waste your time with narrative, the numbers speak for themselves. What I will add is that in games 16 – 20 last season we went
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Apologies for the delay on this one, I haven’t had much chance to look at the data and ESPN have introduced significant changes to their match graphics which have made things difficult for me. They say a picture paints a thousand words, this will be graphically heavy I feel.
Firstly, the old cliché about a game of two halves couldn’t be more apt, could it? Villa were woeful during the first half. The opening gambit with Clark moving the
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A breathless second half, with a vastly more energised Villa performance, was not enough to prevent Arsenal leaving Villa Park with the spoils, the two unanswered goals during the first period being the difference at the final whistle.
Goals from Arshavin and Nasri during the final 6 minutes of the half capped an irresistible display from Arsenal, Ashley Young’s half-volley over the bar the only reply. Villa threatened to make a fist of things when Ciaran Clark got
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Arsenal are a curious side right now, frequently, as far as I can determine, a victim of their own complacency. 2-0 up against Tottenham by half time at the Emirates last Saturday and they somehow conspired to take their foot off the gas to the point they seemed helpless to respond to Spurs’ resurgence and rightly ended up with nothing.
The fans and manager alike, apparently, stunned and without an explanation of where it all went wrong.
They rocked up in Braga
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I somehow managed to miss posting an EA Sports Index update during October, but it wasn’t deliberate, merely an oversight on my part.
Given that the index is primarily a measure of contribution to a winning team, you probably won’t be surprised to find that we’re not exactly packing the top 100 with Villa players. There are just six Villans in the current top 100, none in the top 20; Stewart Downing the highest ranked in 24th place.
Similarly, Bolton’s high
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One of the great things about football (sometimes) is the variety of opinions, some more valid than others. Fans are particularly vociferous in expressing those opinions after a loss. I’ve read them all. Take your pick of the players not playing yesterday; that’s why we lost. We missed Albrighton. We missed Collins. We missed a big man in the middle. Downing should play on the left. Ireland is rubbish.
If only it were that
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I joked on Twitter after the game that I just couldn’t be bothered writing this, making me the Stephen Ireland of the blogosphere. Sometimes things are funny because they’re true, sometimes they’re not funny for precisely the same reason. I’m not laughing much right now.
I didn’t get chance to do a preview post yesterday, but I figured having played Blackburn so many times last season we all ought to have a good idea what we’d be in for.
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It’s a breaking news type of thing; Robert Pires has passed his medical at Bodymoor and has signed a six month contract which takes him through to the end of the season. Carlos Cuellar tweeted earlier today that he’d met Pires at Bodymoor, he looked fit and they talked in Spanish – Pires was at Villarreal for four years of course.
I’m looking forward to seeing Bobby in action, not sure exactly where he’ll fit in, but as I keep
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