Heroes

Association Football is the national sport of this country, and as such is an important part of English life. The sport is almost always referred to simply as football, unless you're American.

The Football League was established in 1888 by Aston Villa director William McGregor and was the first professional football league in the world. 

The good news first, we haven't drawn Manchester United. We haven't got any bad news, so the other news is that we've drawn either Gillingham or Stockport County.

It's not opposition that should cause us too many problems, but then again we've done poorly against 'inferior' teams in recent weeks. Gillingham away would certainly please the London-based Villa fans and Stockport is only 75 miles from Villa Park.

Let's get a few things straight from the off. We can't start complaining about Martin O'Neill just because we lost yesterday and not do it when we've won - the dropped points yesterday, that would have seen us move into third is a disgrace, but you can't blame Martin O'Neill now, because of that.

If you think Martin O'Neill is doing a bad job, hasn't bought the right players or anything else - don't just start slagging him off after a result like yesterday. Sure, it makes it clear, but be consistent - slag him off all the time. Please.

If anyone dares say below that 'Fulham got a point at Anfield, so we should be happy', they might as well just piss off now.

We drew, at home, to Fulham. Shit, I could have played one against eleven and got a better result. No disrespect to Fulham, but they're the 12th team in London - we should be doing better.

First, Martin O'Neill has reconfirmed what Gareth Barry confirmed at the start of the season, that he will be staying with the club until the end of the season.

Now, this isn't news as such because like I said, Barry told us this at the start of the season, but it's getting some press, so it's getting mentioned. I do however, have an opinion on it, which I guess is the point of this site.

Three times this season I've glossed over defeats with the classic 'if we were offered this place, after this amount of games at the start of the season, we'd have all accepted it'.

Well, I'm not going to on Saturday evening if we don't pick up three points, I'm just going to accept that this isn't the season where we're going to finish top four and possibly not even top five.

It's not that we couldn't put five posts a day up, copying what I read on the official club site and then sticking a 'that's good news' comment at the end, but I don't think that is what this blog is about.

You're a little more intelligent than that, and the forum is getting bigger all the time, so I think it's generally accepted that people don't come here for the comments section.

We could have dominated for 80% of the game, had three times as many shots and missed four penalties, but it would have still been us holding Manchester United for a point. Well, actually, that's bullshit.

The result is fair, whichever way you look at it. United had the bulk of the possession but we battled and played well at times and we did everything right.