It’s been an interesting, yet quiet week for me. I’m really not a fan of the transfer window periods, there’s so much nonsense being regurgitated. Some of it by people who don’t know any better, but mostly by people who know full well that they’re peddling baseless speculation in search of traffic.
However, the new air of openness at Villa Park under Gerard Houllier is refreshing and perhaps the glimpse of the work behind the scenes we’ve been given helps temper
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Thousands of undiscovered footballers from around the world have been competing for a contract with the Nike Academy 2011/12. Nike will provide a full season learning from top-level coaches and playing in front of Premier League scouts in the UK.
The final 100 players will shortly be pared down to the eight winners. The four players representing the UK have been receiving last minute tips from the pros, most recently stopping by Aston Villa for a technical session with our own
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I have good news and bad news. The good news is that we finally won a game thanks to goals from Kyle Walker, who made one of the most impressive debuts we’ve seen in claret and blue in recent memory, Marc Albrighton and Stiliyan Petrov.
The bad news is that the scoreline flatters us; it wasn’t pretty at times, and we finished the game with ten men after Ashley Young was dismissed for what was a very soft second booking,
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Steve Sidwell has signed for Fulham after being on the edge of signing for both West Ham and Wolves in the last couple of days. He will be remembered as the first real transfer movement for Aston Villa in 2011, an own goal on his debut, that lovely goal at Goodison… and… er, the ability to turn practically invisible at will. I’d say he’ll be missed, but not too many people have seen him enough to miss him.
Sidwell was
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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
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And the hits just keep on coming.
Honestly, outside the first 20 minutes or so, I don’t think we were too bad (although I was expecting a little more vibrancy), a bit nervy here and there, but far from being second best. Houllier named an unchanged side, they created chances, they had control of the game for the most part, but made life difficult for themselves with frustrating mistakes.
Emile Heskey was superb in the outfield, bringing exactly what we’ve missed so
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A great deal of confidence was undoubtedly restored at Stamford Bridge and our slide toward oblivion apparently halted. At least for a while. Tonight, with Sunderland coming to Villa Park, we’ll see whether there’s enough fire burning in this team to launch an ascent back up the table.
The CEO’s backed the manager, the assistant manager has backed the team, now it’s up to the players to show that they really do care.
Results last night weren’t the most favourable
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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
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Maybe, just maybe, it’s time to put the doom and gloom of the latter part of 2010 to bed and look forward to a bright 2011. We were certainly treated to the sort of spirit and determination that abandoned our side of late as the boys fought against an inexplicably inept refereeing performance to grab a last ditch point thanks to Ciaran Clark.
Villa had fallen behind early, just as they appeared to be shedding early nerves and impose themselves
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