Aston Villa have completed the loan signing of Kyle Walker, Tottenham’s young right back signed from Sheffield Utd about 18 months ago, before being promptly loaned back and then playing at QPR on loan this season. He’ll be on loan with Villa until the end of the season, I don’t know yet if there is any option to make the move permanent.
I can’t comment on Walker as a player, I honestly haven’t seen him play so far as I
We’re now 20 games into 2010/11 so it’s time to compare this season with 2009/10 once again. As we’re only four points better off than the last post, the gap to last year, however you slice or dice it, has grown. After the first 20 games last year, we had 35 points and by comparing the same fixtures, apples for apples, we had 32 points compared to 21 points this year.
We’ve conceded twice as many goals than we
USA Today are reporting via the AP that Brad Guzan has joined Hull City on a one month loan deal. It’s a great move for Brad, a brilliant opportunity to get some first team action under his belt and he may well be playing as early as tomorrow against Leicester after Vito Mannone returned to Arsenal.
It does, of course, raise intriguing questions about the goalkeeping situation at Villa Park as the transfer window is about to open, Brad Friedel’s
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
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,
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
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
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
Villa will not be letting Ashley Young head for the exit door in January and, if he doesn’t re-consider signing a new contract, the club may be willing to let him run down his contract and leave on a free in 2012. The thinking being that another season with Ash in the team is worth more than any potential transfer fee, but that would depend entirely on how committed he is.
In the mean time, Houllier is hopeful that Ash