It’s been the week of loans in B6 with no less than four players heading out to get some competitive football elsewhere.
Firstly, Habib Beye went to Doncaster, initially until January, but hopefully a deal to take him through to the end of the season (and his Villa contract) won’t be out of the question. Assuming he’s not a disaster.
Then Nathan Baker, closely followed by Shane Lowry, made a temporary switch to Milwall; Baker for a month, Lowry just into the
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You may well have already seen this, but on the off chance you’ve been off the grid, as I have, in the last 24 hours or so, here’s the extended highlights of England’s 5-0 win over Iceland in the 2013 European U21 Championships qualifier in Colchester.
Nathan Delfouneso was in the starting eleven, but left the pitch with the game barely 10 minutes old after pulling up chasing a ball into the box. It didn’t look like anything major so hopefully
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Carlos Cuellar got on the pitch last night for the first time since his knee operation in May, playing 45 minutes in the reserves’ 1-0 win over Chelsea – Callum Robinson with the goal – and says that he’s feeling good.
That’s great news for a very popular player, but what happens from here remains to be seen. It seemed likely that Rangers would have pursued their interest to conclusion during the summer had it not been for his knee
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Another international break has come and gone, time to focus on the bread and butter stuff. If you watched England labour to three points against Wales at Wembley this week, as a Villa fan, the line-up may have looked a lot like the image below. It probably stung quite a bit for most of us.
This is a relatively rare experience for us, but it’s been coming and it’s easy to lose sight of an important fact amongst the bitterness. In
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Nathan Baker’s Under-20 World Cup adventure will last for at least one more match after England qualified for the knockout stages in Colombia, but Andreas Weimann will be heading back to Europe as Austria finished bottom of their group.
England might consider themselves a little fortunate after squeezing into the knockout phase as one of the best third place finishers thanks to three goalless draws. It’s true, it’s hardly a scintillating record; played three, drew three, scored none, conceded none, but
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I’ll be honest, I didn’t actually spot Nathan Baker dancing, but he was certainly there as member of the England squad landing in Medellin, Colombia ahead of the U-20 World Cup. So what? Well, just watch the video… let’s just say that airport security in Colombia is a little different.
¡Arriba!
England play their first group game against North Korea on Friday and will want make sure of a strong three points before facing Argentina and Mexico.
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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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Don’t look now, but I think our season may well be back on track after a hard won three points in Wigan thanks to goals from Gabby Agbonlahor and Ashley Young from the spot, despite James McCarthy’s deflected effort setting up the usual nervous final 10 minutes.
Jean Makoun made his Aston Villa debut and Nathan Baker made a surprising Premier League debut in place of the injured Ciaran Clark at left back, both giving a very good account of themselves.
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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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