When you drop a club record £18m on a player during any window, but especially in January, there will inevitably be a lot of opinions voiced and a few feathers ruffled. I’ve read a lot of ill-conceived nonsense that I won’t dignify by linking to, but it’s fair to say that outside of Villa circles the reaction has been decidedly mixed.
For example, watching the opinion rolling by my screen on Twitter, I happened to spot a Man City fan scoffing
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I know I’m in the minority here, but I’ve never really drunk the Holloway Kool-Aid. It’s not that I necessarily disagree with much that he says, most of it is basic common sense, it’s more that I’ve met a thousand Ian Holloways and they’re all the same; entertaining enough, but only in small doses.
I can’t fault his approach on the pitch, Blackpool are truly a breath of a fresh air, but we have to be careful not to be patronising.
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Thousands of undiscovered footballers from around the world have been competing for a contract with the Nike Academy 2011/12. Nike will provide a full season learning from top-level coaches and playing in front of Premier League scouts in the UK.
The final 100 players will shortly be pared down to the eight winners. The four players representing the UK have been receiving last minute tips from the pros, most recently stopping by Aston Villa for a technical session with our own
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Part two was an exploration of Gerard Houllier’s first 14 Premier League games in comparison with Dr Jo’s first 14 games in charge of Aston Villa back in 1990. Mainly because their record over the 14 games was so similar, despite Houllier’s program being considerably more challenging, but also because our position after 19 games is exactly the same today as it was 20 years ago.
Ian made the point in the comments that the table around us is not
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As starts go, Gerard Houllier has made a particularly bad one with Aston Villa; winning just 13 points from his first 14 league games, fuelling the fire with a number of clumsy PR gaffes, a growing army of fans calling for his head.
In part one, we looked at Villa’s history of dealing with the threat of relegation and here in part two we’ll make a direct comparison between Houllier and Jozef Venglos who oversaw a terrible season at Villa Park,
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We finished 6th in the Premier League last season for the 3rd season running; apparently evidence of stagnation for a significant proportion of fans. The fact is, and forgive me for repeating this once again, Aston Villa hadn’t achieved three top six finishes on the bounce in the top flight since 1933.
Hopefully it won’t be another 77 years until we can taste such putrid stagnation, but right now you’d be forgiven for thinking it feels that way. Those three
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I believe the pre-match press conference ahead of the Boxing Day game against Tottenham is taking place today, so brace yourself for cherry picked Houllier quotes to filter out over the next few days, sending people predisposed to fly in rages into those very rages.
He said WHAT?!?!? ARRRGHHHHH!!!
Oh, wait. I see. Well that makes sense I suppose. Okay, carry on.
I’m not entirely sure where the quotes on Brad Friedel came from yesterday, but they also look
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One of the words on the street is that Houllier and Randy Lerner are meeting today to flesh out finances for player acquisitions. Then again, that was also one of the words a couple of weeks back, so who knows?
However, it seems self evident that there’s plenty to discuss and that they’ll be getting together at some point. It also seems self evident that there will be some significant activity in January one way or another.
Paul Faulkner seems
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I likened Wigan to low hanging fruit in the preview, but we’re not going to pluck any today after “freak weather” has caused the game to be postponed. That’s a problem, we really could have done with sinking our teeth into that sweet, ripe flesh ahead of the Boxing Day fixture against Tottenham.
I hope no one asks Gerard Houllier for his opinion on the ability of the English to cope with inclement weather as his Gallic scoffs will surely
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