Pires signs for six months, Delph in America and Bannan’s MON problem

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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Robert Pires on joining Aston Villa

Little wonder the official site changed the McAllister quotes on Pires’ imminent arrival, someone clearly jumped the gun by some margin. The Guardian have some words from the man himself:-

Robert Pires
Nothing’s done yet, nothing’s been signed, but the talks with Gérard Houllier are going well. Now let’s say I just have to convince the team doctor and hopefully I will sign before the end of the week.

The medical is set for Thursday or Friday, so we’ll see first what

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Great Scott! Houllier to invent time machine, will sign 17 year old Pelé

Asked by French newspaper L’Equipe whether he’d be interested in signing out of favour Real Madrid striker Karim Benzema (Benzema was a teeenager trying to break into the first team at Lyon when Houllier was the manager) Houllier responded playfully; “If Karim wants to come and play at Aston Villa, we would sign him tomorrow.”

As he would with any player of that calibre, but it’s not going to happen.

You think that’s impressive, just wait until the British media get a

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Statshack – Aston Villa 2 Man Utd 2 – Efficiency is the name of the game

I’ve taken my sweet time with this one on purpose. I generally have a pretty good idea what the headline numbers look like by the final whistle and I know the more technical statistics almost immediately after the game has finished these days. If taken in isolation, these stats wouldn’t make encouraging reading, but that only serves to prove why we should take time look at these things as a whole and recognise that nothing can be “proven”

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Robert Pires set for Aston Villa, Birmingham must be “beautiful”

It’s long been rumoured that free agent Robert Pires could be coming to Aston Villa and Gary McAllister has just confirmed that the Frenchman will be “joining in the next two or three days“.

We’ll have to see in what capacity he’ll join, although he’s apparently been training with Arsenal, even if he arrives in tip-top shape, he’s still 37. That said, he is, or was, an exceptionally good player and having a World Cup and European Championship winner available

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Statshack – Aston Villa 3 Blackpool 2

I’m a little short on time right now, so I’m just going to dump the numbers and run. One thing I just want to draw your attention to is the possession. I had a conversation with someone on Twitter recently who felt that our share of possession under Houllier has been less than in the past. I’m not convinced that is the case, in fact, while it’s too early to say really, it look extremely similar to

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The Carew Situation – Part I [Updated with GH video following team meeting]

I’ve been mulling over writing a post exploring how player registrations, contracts and amortization of transfer fees work for a little while and planned on using John Carew as an example since there seemed to be a growing opinion that he should simply be sold in January. As if it’s really that simple.

That was before the spat that emerged via the media this weekend between player and manager, something that’s impossible to ignore, so I’ll save what I had in

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Statshack – Fulham 1 Aston Villa 1

Fulham weren’t anything close to spectacular, yet the stats show that their point wasn’t undeserved, contrary to what a lot of Villa fans felt at the final whistle, which begs the question of why we should find much to be encouraged by.

Well, four academy graduates in the side and all did well, Bannan’s superb pass and Albrighton’s take down and shot set those two apart. The chalkboards will reveal exactly why Houllier didn’t want the ball in the air

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Contracts and internationals – the future remains bright

I don’t know whether it’s appropriate to keep referring to them as “kids”, I know I wouldn’t have appreciated it when I was their age, but regardless of the moniker, there’s a good deal to be optimistic when we see the batch of academy graduates long tipped for greatness finally becoming first team fixtures and also gaining recognition further afield.

Barry Bannan is reportedly about to be called up to the senior Scottish side and is receiving rave reviews from just

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