well it better be a good performance after the terrible transfer window dealings, and if we lose and martin o'neill does a david o'leary and moans about the size of the squad im gonna run up to the villa ground and kick him in the balls
villa win 4-1

"It's a small squad and they're only a young bunch of lads" - I miss O'Leary and his excuses!!!!

3-0 to the Villa this weekend. Fulham is like a dead dog, just needs to be burried in the Championship.

lol, Webcam Ashley.

2-0 to the good. I hope fulham dont get relegated, that'd reduce the likelihood of blues getting relegated.

I hope every player gets injured

hahaha :)

hey all,

i've been coming to this site religiously for the past year or so but never actually made a comment. just wanted to say that i find most of the blogs articles very insightful. They are usually well balanced and critical!

to milk: i hope that the blues stay up cos next season im going to go to my first villa game at villa park and i want it to be against blues.

also is there any villa fan clubs here that anyone knows about? i've done a search to no avail. cheers

up the villa from down under.

We'll get 5 players injured & that will be the end of that.

MOM can then if he dare moan about our small squad.

Of Course i meant MON my mom doesn't care either way.

I think you might be suprised on Sunday boys. We have been improving game by game under hodgson. Our defence is a lot more sterdy now than it has been for the last 4 years. I thought we solved all our problems when we got rid of Knightmare to you, but it got worse, but we are actually not bad at the back now hodgson is in. Its up front where we have been struggling since mcbride got injured, but we have two new forwards playing on Sunday, so depending on how good they are, we are optimistic for an overdue win.

Villaaustralia

Mate one thing you will notice about this site is that the people are quite ignorant and rather than answer your question theyd rather go on talking shit in thier usual pessimistic tones.

To answer your question, i lived in sydney and there was a villa supporters club in the shark hotel which is just off george street, u should check it out, if you live in syd that is

Its not often that I get a chance to actually watch my beloved due to playing for my team on Saturdays and living in london, but this fixture is plumb and cant wait. Shame Young is suspended as I saw his goal at villa park v Derby. But looking forward to this away win. I reckon a comfortable 2-0. Routledge on as a sub in last 20mins; Agbonlahor to terrorise as usual...

mcgurt12345

thats a little uncalled for, especailly when you factgor in this is a comments facility not a forum

if you want to use the forum on this site [url=http://www.avfcblog.com/component/option,com_fireboard/Itemid,119/]click here[/url] and all your questions would be answered

as for talking shit in usual pessimistic tones - its a little uncalled for

at villaustralia

e mail astonvilladownunder at hotmail.com

i think by the email address you'll get it ;)

LOL... Taglor & Jinksy... Can you tell it's friday?

Villa to win 2-1, I fancy Super Wayne Routledge for a debut goal (!!!) and.. oooh... I dont know... maybe a Laurson header from a corner/free kick!

Thanks for the comments from the Fulham fella, nice to get a decent view from an opposition fan... your still gonna lose though! ;D

HaHa, I know, nah I reckon we will get a good result and win 3-0, I want to see how the call ups give the lads confidence and I reckon Gabby will be on fire.

to mcgurt12345: thanks for your help. i do know the place in sydney but unfortunately im living in brisbane. im moving to birmingham in september but in the mean time it'd be nice to meet some other villa fans so we can cheer the boys on to europe! it's going to be tough but we've been grinding out results all season and i think its that gritty mentality thats going to get us across the line. it has been fantastic to watch villa this season i must say.

i have noticed some pessimism but mainly from dickheads that dont know anything about the game making comments.

i emailed that address damian. fingers crossed!

up the villa

if we lose and get some players injured then hodgson is getting one hell of a kick in the balls, if we win i might go looking for McLeish and give him one hell of a kick, either way will be a good laugh, whats the odds on the villa players that have been called up being dropped when the actual squad is named

if they are dropped i might go give capello a big kick in the balls LOL

@ vilaaustralian, if you were a proper fan you would leave oz and move to aston, wannabe gloryhunter lol

thats the plan. cant wait to go to a game! if i was a gloryhunter pretty sure i'd support a more successful club..lol. hopefully that'll change in the near future.

LOL @ taglor

@ Kieran McGrath - I think I saw you in an S&M movie once...

Welcome home Villaaustralia.

im a knob jockey

S&M Movie??????????

It was a dirty Smarties and Minstrels Movie where you had fun in the chocolate factory.

kickin people in the balls!

Is this all in some computer programming language I'm not aware of?

i've no idea nan was a fan

this lot have been awake for 2 days now waiting for signings. somebody should tell them its feb 1st ;)

time to register for glastonbury, if i dont get a ticket this year i'm going to kick myself.............in the balls :'(

:o :o :o :o :o :o :o :o :o :o :o :o

Easy win on Sunday.

Who do people think are the main challengers for 4th place?
I'm no longer sure it's Liverpool. I think they're in meltdown and won't get new manager until next season.

thanks ste23 for hijacking my user name you bell end!

villa to win fulum 2/0

give salifou and harewood a go that will be like 2 new signings.....by the way is it club policy for every villa manager to have a phantom player....brian little-sasa curcic....john gregory-bosko balaban.......dol-mathieu berson.......mo-moustapha salifou........weird

Dispite my moaning about martin o neill in the transfer window

I will still continue to show good support to him and the team i hope everyone will do the same as now is when they need us most to carry them over the line of european football

3-1 Villa maybe more

From The TimesFebruary 2, 2008

Nigel Reo-Coker top of the flops to prove money isn’t everythingDaniel Finkelstein
Click here to see the best value summer transfers

A million pounds here, a million pounds there, pretty soon it adds up to real money. This summer, while the Fink Tank was searching behind the sofa for some loose change to buy a new pocket calculator, Aston Villa went to the shops and splashed £7.5 million on Nigel Reo-Coker.

Which of us got better value for money? You are about to find out.

Dr Henry Stott and Dr Ian Graham have been sifting through the summer trades in order to see how they’ve been doing. They have had the help of our player level computer model. This takes every kick of the ball and relates it to the number of points it helps to create. Then the season is simulated again and again with the acquired player and without them (they are replaced by a player of average quality in the same position).

Once this work is done it is possible to rank all the newly transferred players in terms of the points they have added (or subtracted) compared with the average player. Actually, not quite all. Quite a few transferred players haven’t been on the pitch enough to rank. Lassana Diarra, the midfield player, went from Chelsea to Arsenal and on to Portsmouth without being on the pitch long enough for us to assess his contribution to Arsène Wenger’s side.

Now you have a choice. Do you want to look at how good these players were per minute on the pitch, or do you want to take account of how many minutes they played?

Let’s look at their contribution per minute first, shall we? You might consider this a measure of potential, and therefore of longer-term interest.

At the top is Carlos Tévez, the Manchester United forward. Last season we didn’t rank him so highly, but then he didn’t score for West Ham United until the curtains were beginning to close. This season he has been a sensation. Second comes Kieran Richardson, the Sunderland midfield player, although he has played in only 22 per cent of the games. Then comes Gareth Bale, the left-sided player, who looks like a good buy for Tottenham Hotspur.

Things change when we multiply the points added by these players by the number of minutes they spent playing. As you can see from the graphic. Tévez and Fernando Torres, the Liverpool forward, won’t surprise many, but it turns out that Bacary Sagna, Arsenal’s £6 million defender, was a great buy. It will not cause heads to turn at Goodison Park to discover Yakubu Ayegbeni right up there, but it may interest Chelsea fans that Florent Malouda is the most valuable of their summer buys.

Who has been flopping so far? Reo-Coker has been a terrible disappointment. He has lost 8.1 points compared to an average player. Alan Smith, the Newcastle United player, hasn’t done terribly well either. What about Darren Bent? Not a flop. Yet. He is 0.3 points above average despite playing so little. Fink Tank has always rated him and thought he was worth a lot of money – but not to Tottenham.

The question of value for money is hardest to calculate because we don’t know the proper transfer cost. Tévez counts as free, does he? Yeah, right. Until we know salary data we cannot rule on the best deals. Which is why fans should be told such details. It allows us to assess the game better.

So I think that I am probably better off with my pocket calculator than with one slightly used Reo-Coker. But until there is a proper Football Freedom of Information Act, I can’t be sure.

What do Dr's Know? As for Reo Coker feel he has done a good job. However, we must realise that this season MO'N has used him as a defensive midfielder and that supposedly his new discipline as a midfield player!! Ok he is not fantastic at distribution but he works hard in the middle and in my opinion doesnt do that bad a job in front of the back four. Anyhow we forget he is still young and time for him to grow into a valuable squad member! Rememeber ASrsenal were linked to him but were not willing to pay the high tranfer fee, as it did not fit into wengers policy, especially after signing Jeffers and Wright!! Reo Coker will come strong..........

With regards Reo-Coker - what good is a midfield player (defensive or attacking) if he cant pass the ball. I don't buy into this s**t of 'works hard in the middle'. He can work as hard as he likes and tackle all day long but when he gets the ball he can't find one of our players. Fair enough, he breaks up opposition attacks but unless he learns fast he'll never be another Makelele.

I hope he does improve but i have my doubts!

Match Prediction: 1-3

(Routelege to get a goal on his debut)

0-2 to The Villa ... Routledge is rumoured to not be in the squad sunday due to lack of match fitness.

Agbonlahor and Carew to score.

dont care wot the score is, we just gotta win. its gonna be tough but the england squad players are good enuf to step up to the plate so lets do it an banish those jan transfer window blues

I'll have a hard time watching this game. Obviously, I want Villa to win. But I'll hate seeing Fulham lose. They have several Yanks in their squad and just added another, Eddie Johnson.

We see English players play every week and we don't feel bad if we beat them !!!!! e.g. Gerrard, Lampard.

You can support the Yanks when they play for the national team.

@gazza WARNING never leave your pc unatended

shit result, shit performance, 2 players injured (davies and gabby that i know of)and not enough players to cover there positions, but at the end of the day we have an honest bunch of lads

Well Done Martin, I blame you totally for this defeat, We had nothing on the Bench to push on and take these mugs to the cleaners. No shape or balance to the side, outbattled in Midfield. If you would have the balls to buy some players we would not have lost this game.

utter cr*p!!!! 2 players injured. having to bring gardner and osborne on off the bench. what a joke!!! we have a dismally week squad and its going to show. Why didnt we get players in. it has cost us in this game and is going to cost us a european place.
sh*t sh*t result!!!!
ps Petrov is sh*t!!!

Long ball after long ball and not a clue on the transfer market. You'd think a club with alleged financial muscle would build on what achieved so far but..nah, not good enough, totally cheesed off. If this is a club with ambition, I'm Amy Whinehouse on crack.

A dire performance and an insult to the traveling faithful. If a team has hopes of getting into Europe sides like Fulham have to be beaten and beaten well. I fear we've peaked too soon and without new signings to give the team impetus I think Europe is beyond us and, before I get called a pessimist or worse just look at the goals against column and the leads we've let slip.