I know many people were more than a little concerned about Gérard Houllier’s age when he was appointed and that may well have caused feelings that his appointment wasn’t a long term solution. Initial reports of a two year contract seemed to compound that feeling, despite his predecessor operating on a 12 month rolling contract that proved to be entirely worthless in the final analysis anyway.
Maybe the fact that his contract, once it was eventually signed, was actually three
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When I saw the teamsheet for today’s derby game I leapt to the assumption that Gérard Houllier was going to use a 5-4-1 system with Collins, Dune and Clark as a three man central defensive team. As it turned out, Ciaran Clark would play just in front of the back line in a holding midfield role that raised just as many eyebrows.
Perhaps not at Clark playing such a role, he’s surely an assured and skillful player with the ball
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I’ve been waiting for this interview to be published all day! Ashley Young sat down with The Sun today as part of promotional activity for VMF and has assured fans that he is committed to Aston Villa, despite putting contract negotiations on ice.
Ashley Young
All I’m doing is concentrating on my football. I don’t want to be distracted by anything else. I’ve not said I’m leaving and I’m not taking my focus off football.
The fans have been brilliant
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I’m getting a little irked with a lot of the reporting around Villa in recent times. Let me be clear; I couldn’t be happier that Nigel Reo-Coker is going to be wearing the armband and will also be negotiating a new contract at the club, regular readers will know I’m a fan. However, you’d think from the way it’s being portrayed that NRC had been exiled to Siberia and was literally coming in from the cold.
Obviously Reo-Coker isn’t
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Stephen Warnock will be writing a cheque out to The FA this week for £1,500 after his 87th minute booking at the Stadium of Light, making a total of £7,500 he’s contributed to the Soho Square coffers so far this season. It’s not Warnock’s bank account I’m concerned about though, I’m sure he can take that hit – you may have already done the math yourself – yes, Warnock picked up his 5th booking of the season against Sunderland
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It’s been a reasonably quiet week on the Villa front so I elected to make a rare foray into the realms of off-the-field antics at another club, mainly to get to the little nugget about Sir Alex not fancying Villa Park because of Deadly, but I suppose the Rooney story was the story and worthy of a mention.
Football’s resembling a cheap Mexican soap opera more and more every day. Frankly, I was never a soap opera type and it
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It might seem like a strange combination to throw together in a headline, but bear with me. I should let you know from the outset that I’m not suggesting Wayne Rooney will be an Aston Villa player any time soon – much as I would love to – but it’s clear he isn’t going to be a Man Utd player for very much longer.
You’ve no doubt seen the revelations in recent days and may also be aware that Alex
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I watched, or attempted to watch, three games of football yesterday and didn’t see any goals. Perhaps it was fortunate that I was unable to see the England Under 21s a little earlier in the day, but congratulations to them for securing their place in next year’s European Championships in Denmark with a goalless draw in Romania.
Given his age and talent, it’s remarkable that Ashley Young was making a debut of sorts as last night was his first start
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I know most of the readers who stop by the blog regularly are cool cats and will get the headline reference straight away, but just in case you’re one of those awful squares, it’s a nod to the now infamous ‘Double Rainbow’ video made even more popular by the Auto-Tune the News folk.
It remains something of a meme in my household and I’ll never miss an opportunity to respond to two barks from my dog at the back door, for
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