Brief Round Up – Baker, Osbourne, Warnock, Carew and Salifou

No major theme to address today, but a handful of stories that are worth touching on briefly.

Firstly, young Nathan Baker, who is currently out on loan at Lincoln, has suffered the embarrassment of being caught trying to sell his allocation of Carling Cup Final tickets on Facebook.  He didn’t actually have the tickets in his hands and not only will he now not be getting them, he won’t be going to Wembley himself either.  He’s also had to issue an

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SAD Fact: Beware The Ides Of March

I was reading an interesting article at The Telegraph last night about Gabby Agbonlahor’s goal scoring record during the Winter months:-

The evidence is compelling: 10 goals in total in the 2006/07 season, but only two scored between November ‘06 and April ‘07. 11 goals in the 2007/08 season, but none between January and end of March ’08. 12 goals last season, but just two after Christmas. So when he went six games without scoring after Villa’s 1-0 win at Old

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Show Her You Care This Valentine’s Day – Take Her To Selhurst Park

Crystal Palace beat Wolves 3-1 in their FA Cup 4th Round replay to earn themselves a home tie against Aston Villa in the 5th Round. The tie will be played at Selhurst Park on Sunday 14th February – sounds like an ideal romantic day out to me!!

I was rooting for Crystal Palace to make it through the tie for a few reasons. Firstly, no disrespect to them, but I think they’ll be the easier opponent, not least because

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Mama Said Knock You Out

Don’t call it a comeback
I been here for years
Rockin my peers and puttin suckas in fear

And the most tenuous headline award goes to…

Sorry about that.  In case you weren’t aware, Freddie Bouma played his first game in an awful long time last night, running out for the reserves in a 3-1  win over visiting Chelsea.  Coincidentally, he made his first comeback from the dislocated ankle in this same fixture last season, but later suffered the heartbreak of the

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Match of the Day 1904

An extreme hat tip to pre-Premier League football. The “good ol’ days”!! Both of these games were overseen by our longest serving manager, George Ramsey.

Blackburn Rovers 0 Aston Villa 3 – 1904

One of the final few games from the 1903/04 season which Aston Villa finished 5th.

Preston North End 2 Aston Villa 0 – 1905

This game, from the 1905/06 season in which Villa finished 8th, was played on what would eventually become Armistice (Remembrance) Day. Yes, it’s almost

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Aston Villa Transfer Deadline Day Live

As I wasn’t really expecting much today this wasn’t planned, but a few names are being thrown around in connection with Aston Villa today, so I figured we could use Twitter to keep us up to speed.

Below the fold you’ll find a widget for anyone who is interesting at the moment.  Michael Owen and Nicky Shorey being the prime examples right now. If I spot anything else interesting on Twitter, I’ll drag it in here to share.

Don’t forget that

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AVC Player of the Month – January

I’m starting to see a pattern here. Richard Dunne wins his third AVC Player of the Month award, this time based on the three Premiership games in January 2010. Anyone still wondering whether we have an adequate replacement for Martin Laursen on our hands? What do you mean Martin who?!?

Player of the Month – January

1st – Richard Dunne – 7.10
2nd – Ashley Young – 6.90
3rd – Stiliyan Petrov – 6.86

Previous Winners

1st
2nd
3rd

December
Richard Dunne (7.67)
James Milner (7.44)
Brad Friedel (7.25)

November
James

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This Season vs Last Season #05

23 down, 15 to go. It must be time to compare progress this season with last season again. You should know the rules by now, but if you’re new to this; I not only compare where we are now compared to the same number of games last season (chronological), I also compare the same fixtures with the 3 promoted teams replacing the 3 relegated teams (apples for apples).

It’s inescapable that we are 7 points worse of this year than

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Statshack – Fulham 0 Aston Villa 2

If you hadn’t seen this game and just saw the statistics below, you might think that Fulham had a good chance in this game and were unlucky not to get something. They weren’t and they weren’t.

The possession finished 55/45 in Fulham’s favour, but midway through the first half it was 43/57. I know this because I was poking fun of the official Fulham Twitter account when they were claiming it was “pretty even stuff”. No, it wasn’t.

However, we

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