Aston Villa flavoured news has been a little thin on the ground recently, but here’s a few things that have been going on in the last few days that caught my interest:-
World Cup Squad
This is happening right now and whispers started last night that it’s our Stephen Warnock who will be Ashley Cole’s understudy, not Everton’s Leighton Baines. Neither will play unless Cole is injured and, from what I’ve seen of Baines in an England shirt, I know which
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I love these types of videos and this is quite nicely done, although no one involved is in any danger of winning an Oscar any time soon.
John Carew gets bored during filming before an interview and fixes an annoying flickering light behind the Villa badge on the North Stand using his skills. Yes, that’s Jack Woodward’s dulcet tones you hear in the background making convincing requests for “maintenance” to fix the sign before Carew steps in.
Perhaps Carew could put
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Hot in the heels of the 28th anniversary of our European Cup triumph in Rotterdam, which was on Wednesday by the way, it’s emerged that Gordon Cowans and Colin Gibson have been keeping a little secret…
It’s a scene you couldn’t possibly imagine happening today; the midfielder and left back apparently chucked the trophy in the back of their car and headed over to the Fox in Hopwas, near Tamworth, for a few cold ones and a game or two of
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Quick hat tip to EPL Talk for putting me on to this, here’s how much each team in Premiership received (will receive?) in prize and TV money for 2009/10:-
A total of £831m is shared among the 20 teams above plus the 6 teams relegated over the previous 2 seasons receive £12.4m each in “parachute” payments. (As Birmingham City were promoted back to the Premier League, their £12.4m goes to the Football League to share among it’s members).
Each team receives
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Just in case you missed it, the OS have published a touching interview with departing Freddie Bouma where he pays tribute the support he received from the fans and explains that he wanted to take the microphone during his farewell at Villa Park, but feared that emotion would get the better of him.
He also reveals that he’s hoping to play another 3 or 4 years. I haven’t heard any confirmation of his destination yet. There’s been some interest from clubs
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I seem to remember mentioning the Castrol Football Index a couple of months back as I had hopes that I’d be able to use it as a regular feature here in addition to the Actim Top 100 Index. Unfortunately, Castrol only post updates once a month, usually a couple of weeks in arrears, so it’s not been current enough for me to use as I hoped.
However, I like the way it works and they’ve just posted the final update
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Brad Guzan played in the United States’ penultimate friendly on home soil before the World Cup last night; a disappointing 4-2 loss to the Czech Republic in Hartford, Connecticut. Coach Bob Bradley was very much looking at his periphery players to help him decide who will make the final 23 man squad.
As one of the three goalkeepers in the 30 man preliminary squad, Brad Guzan is the only Aston Villa player that we know for certain will
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I’ve read a lot of criticism of Martin O’Neill’s technical nous, or lack thereof according to some. A lot of it has to do with formation, people want to see something new and sexy. They want to keep up with what the Man Utd’s and Chelsea’s are doing. It’s no secret that I’m a fan of 4-2-3-1, but you’ve got to have the personnel and all systems will ultimately boil down to the personnel employed. Square
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I was pleased to see James Milner’s name in the starting XI an hour or so before kick off last night and, since he made up a midfield quartet with Theo Walcott, Michael Carrick and Steven Gerrard, I assumed he’d be playing on the left. Not so. At kick off we found that Capello was playing Gerrard on the left and Milner in the middle. I’m guessing he just wanted to see Milner in a central role
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