Walsall, Hong Kong, Colombia, and Gardner withdrawn from the U-20 World Cup

The somewhat light pre-season fixture list gets underway for us tomorrow with a familiar trip to the Bescot. It’s a game that Shay Given expects to play in and should provide the first clues about Alex McLeish’s thinking in terms of tactics and style of play.

It’s highly unlikely that we’ll have recruited a new left winger by then, so perhaps we’ll see how innovative McLeish is too. Will he ask someone like Gabby or Bannan to fill in on the

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The current squad depth chart

There is apparently a quote from Alex McLeish doing the rounds this evening which has caused a few knickers to get well and truly twisted. It doesn’t take much admittedly, if it’s not the colour of socks, it’s something else equally earth-shattering. The new gaffer has said something to the effect that he only expects to make one more signing before the season starts.

ZOMG!?!? Where’s the ambition?!?

Without seeing the actual words, or arguing the semantics attached to “start of the

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New 2011/12 home kit officially unveiled at Star City

The new Nike supplied kit for the 2011/12 is officially being unveiled at Star City tonight, a neat connection to new main sponsor Genting. Of course, the away kit had already been launched and leaked images surfaced on the interwebz last month. The home kit had leaked even earlier, way back at the beginning of May. Seems like a lifetime ago now.

So, more of a confirmation than an unveiling then.

New signing Shay Given is joining Darren Bent, Gabby Agbonlahor, Marc

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One out, one in, one on the fence, one in the wings

So, Liverpool upped their offer to £20m, Stewart Downing handed in a formal transfer request and there’s not much more that needs saying. Don’t let the door hit you on the way out, Stewie. Textbook no-brainer.

That’s £8m more than we paid Middlesbrough two years ago, but represents a £14m profit in terms of “disposal of player’s registration”. Aside from the fact that we went from three wingers to two recently, and now to just the one, it still represents some

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25-man squad rule: there’s less room left at the Aston Villa inn than you might think

I’ve covered the Premier League 25-man rules several times since it first cropped up so I won’t dwell on the details in this post. If you recall, last summer we named 22 players within our maximum of 25 players 21 years old or over on January 1st 2010 without any problems with the quota of “home grown” players. Including the academy players, we had no less than 36 additional players under the age of 21 also listed.

That stacked up favourably

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Boys back in training, clean slates all round and squad numbers up for grabs

It’s been a while since anything surfaced here at Aston Villa Central, I know. The last post confirmed Ashley Young’s somewhat low key move to Man Utd and since then very little of substance has actually happened. Well, the Stewart Downing “situation” has threatened to develop into a “saga”, but aside from a couple of actual bids from Liverpool being reported, nothing has changed yet; Downing is still an Aston Villa player. For now.

McLeish has stated categorically that he’s “not

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Video: Ashley Young joins Man Utd on a five year deal

It’s official then, Ashley Young has made the switch to Old Trafford in a deal thought to be worth £17m after putting pen to paper on a five year contract.

It’s a transfer every Villa fan will have a view on, some will be more upset than others. Personally, I think Aston Villa and Ashley Young had simply gone as far as they could together and a change was best for both parties. With his heart elsewhere and a year left

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And the new sponsor is… GENTING

Whooooooo?

Genting is a Malaysian company whose core business is built around casinos and tourism, although they also own property and energy businesses amongst other things. They reportedly own the largest number of casinos in the UK, including the Circus Casinos in Hurst Street and Star City.

Their primary areas of business are Asia, United Kingdom and the United States. Their turnover last year was $41 billion which is similar to well known companies such as Cisco, Kraft Foods and MetLife.

Aston Villa

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Bradley deal off, Rangers bid for Cuellar and new away shirt and sponsor to be revealed

After a generally well received first press conference, it looks like life at Villa Park is getting off to a predictably busy start for Alex McLeish. During his time in front of the cameras on Monday, he mentioned being inundated with calls from agents offering their players, but it’s the futures of Carlos Cuellar and Michael Bradley that are capturing the headlines first.

Carlos Cuellar

McLeish was quizzed about Cuellar’s future specifically because it’s become fairly open knowledge that Rangers are interested

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