With the season drawing closer, although it is more than a month away, many will be asking whether things will change.
With Andreas Weimann, Matt Lowton and Yacouba Sylla already having left Villa Park, the feeling is that change is coming, although quite how much change Tim Sherwood can manage is likely going to be a function of who will take who.
For the likes of Christian Benteke and Fabian Delph – if they leave – it won’t be a question of a lack of demand, but a hope of keeping hold of a pair of good players.
The challenges will come for the likes of Aly Cissokho and Carles Gil – relatively solid players who have fallen out of favour. Unlike Benteke and Delph, many of the squad who Sherwood seems uninterested in getting rid of will be a struggle, and the truth is that the manager may have to face up to the fact that he can’t get rid of everyone.
Whilst suggesting this is a repeat of the “Bomb Squad”, Sherwood has not been one to mince his words, and his plain-as-day statement after the FA Cup Final, whilst fair, is less than morale inspiring.
Sherwood could face a reality where he has a number of players who are hard to shift, and who end up being a drag on the wage bill.
Yes, Villa’s financial situation is far better than in recent years, but a club like Villa can not really afford to have extra players on the fringes who aren’t going to play some part. Villa aren’t a club with a squad like Chelsea where a multitude of players can be elsewhere on loan or of no relevance to the immediate future.
We’ve seen before the impact of a manager wanting to make a dramatic change to Villa under Gerard Houllier, although it arguably took a huge amount of spending to dig the club out of the relegation dogfight the club ended up in.
Villa fans know the changes that happened next, as the club went from one direction to another again and again, with each manager seemingly offering no continuity from the last one.
Few can doubt that Sherwood needs to change things, but how quickly he can manage it remains far from clear. Villa fans will, on the whole, agree that the players who seem destined for the exit will be far from missed, but the team needs to be motivated to ensure that it sticks together and pulls in the right direction, even if it means making do with players who have no real long term future.
The likes of Kieran Richardson and Phillippe Senderos may not be the most fashionable names, but to alienate them if no sale is in sight is foolish and short-sighted. People may not like some of the squad, but these are not players causing rifts, these are players who are a consequence of change they couldn’t control, leaving them in limbo.
What Sherwood must realise is that Villa are not a team who can be transformed overnight. Despite Randy Lerner’s supposedly impending exit, it will take time to transform a team who have, if one is candid, been poor for years.
Villa can change, but the timescales involved will be long term. Sherwood can kick off the changes immediately, but fans must be appreciative that any transformation is only going to occur over the course of multiple seasons, not multiple weeks.

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Matt Turvey
Matt is the owner of, and chief writer for, Aston Villa Life. He is also a columnist for the Wolverhampton Express & Star, appearing in the Kick Off pullout on Saturdays and the Final Whistle pullout the Monday after Aston Villa play, as well as every Thursday as a blogger on their website. He has previously been featured as a writer on Football365 and Life's A Pitch, and was a regular pundit for Sports Tonight TV on Sky.

Comments 438

  2. Jenny Truman

    Hello again all ! Great article Matt – I agree entirely with your conclusions .
    Few things happening at AV but so far
    The very good -Micah Richards – love him
    Ray Wilkins great choice
    DM reporting we have been sold subject to contract ..
    The not so good – Benteke – seems hell bent on going but no surprise there . Delph is more of a body blow but surely he won’t go and be a bench warmer at Man City – just can’t see it . Surprised the buy out clause so low – did his ppl negotiate that to make it easy for him to leave if he wanted to .
    With all our departures – necessary – who is coming in ??!!!!!

    Anyway , watched a bit of Glastenbury and the high light late last night , the Mothership Returns, George Clinton, Parliament, Funkadelic and the Family Stone.
    Great to see those masters of funk still enjoying the music and creating great sounds …maybe Kanye West could learn a few things from these greats !
    Hope everyone enjoying the break !! Xx

  3. Costa del Kieran

    Hi all, hope everyone’s well. I think Delphs 10 mil clause was more about him being able to leave & get the club a few quid only if we were relegated. He comes across as a decent lad that would rather play week in week out than earn double & sit on the bench for half a season. He also seems like a player that enjoys playing for his country & if he’s not playing every week I think it would affect his form, when he comes back from injury it takes him a couple of games to get back up to speed. Anyway here’s to a spine of Begovic, Clarke, Delph & Tekkers next season, Cheers

  4. B62 Villa

    Just when you think humanity can’t get any lower, there is a stupid bitch on Twitter saying that the victims of the Tunisian terror massacre ,are no loss as they are Villa fans. Typical of the classless morons from down the road, people like this are the reason incest is illegal as it throws up fucktards that need putting down.

  6. Trinity

    Hello, B62

    Given its name, Twitter was invented for twits. Don’t worry about those miscreants.

    Jenny

    George Clinton and Parliament are amazing, saw them in NYC back in February.

    John

    I hope a turnround is possible soon. Who wants to hear more excuses and witness further decades of mediocrity?

  7. Mark King

    Delph wont go and certainly not for £10m. ronaldo might have one for £50m but he sure as hell wouldn’t go for that.

    http://www.myoldmansaid.com/football-spy-james-nursey-fabian-delph-release-clause/?

    B62- you have to wonder, just got back from turkey and saw a kid about 5 months old on the plane with sunburn, the skin on top of his head peeling. His parents who couldn’t stop him crying had not one bit of sunburn, in fact not much of a tan at all? go figure.

  8. B62 Villa

    Mark,
    There are some real bell ends in this world, Trinity yes mate Twitter is overflowing with keyboard warriors and knobs, but it does have some uses and good stuff on there, you just have to sort through the dross.
    I hope this takeover comes off soon, we have been linked to some real shite in the papers again today ie Kyle Bartley

  9. steamers75

    just got back from norfolk and saw what that twat has put , god help her when someone puts where she lives , and the wifes had a call today that 2 of her team were victims of the shootings , and just read Marc Albrighton has lost a family member as well , terrible times …

  11. southwestvillan

    It beggars belief but there is no surprise that some idiots can post stuff like, lots of people from the Midlands lost their lives including some Walsall lads and Marcs mother in law, thoughts go out to all the family and friends of those that went on holiday only to be killed in a act of senseless violence, the world is truly a mad place.

    RIP

  12. Graham O'Gara

    It really is silly season…. I’ve watched Delphs “message to the fans” again and it just confirms to me that he won’t be going anywhere this summer… the whole thing is mutually beneficial to all parties for him to stay. He’s the main man at Villa now, he’s just broken in to the England team and has a real chance of going to the world cup as an important member of the team not just squad. Why would he risk all that and move to a team like Citeh and Chelsea? I have no doubt that Delph will want to move on next summer if Villa aren’t showing significant improvements. But for now I can’t see him going anywhere.

    Benteke situation was always going to come…. What I can stand is this media insistence that he should be allowed to move to Liverpool… and the media’s willingness to promote it…. Where to I start? The endless stream of Liverpool players saying Villa should “Let him go”? or the fact that Liverpool are being eternally gracious and are actually “Willing to negotiate” with Villa – How Generous of them… God Bless the bin dippers for taking pity on us….

    Is there a member of the Spurs squad that we haven’t been linked too yet? I can’t for the life of me think why all these players from North Londons second team are being linked? Maybe they’re good players… or just maybe is the press being dependably predictable in their guessing games…. Maybe if they link every player to every club they’ll get a few right eh?

    Anyway I would like to think Sherwood isn’t stupid enough to burn bridges with anyone in the squad, sure he’s not going to mince his words with them, but as some stage he may need to call on them, I still think there is a role for Gil at the club… and I may just be that Sherwoods hand will be forced in to playing him and he doesn’t look back from that point… Remember how Redknapp didn’t play Bale, didn’t rate him said he had a lot to learn, but in one game his squad was thread bare and he needed Bale to play left wing…. what happened next was Redknapp taking the credit for Bales revival – when in truth he wouldn’t have played if anyone else had been fit… its a funny old game… true story.

    I hoping for a big season from Sanchez, I think Clark and Baker really stepped up their games last season, with addition of Richards and Okore now having a full season we look well stocked through the middle of defence.

    We just need to security and certainty of new owners now, and injection of cash and a few quality players. Austin for me would be a shoe in, £15m is a snip for him IMO. A player like Redmond or Townsend. Couple of Full backs and a Keeper as it would seem Sherwood doesn’t fancy Guzan.

    I’d try a cheeky bid of Ospina at Arsenal – looked decent to me last decent.

  13. Andrew P

    Hello people. I try not to get too excited about the media transfer circus. You end up getting worked up about media speculation which as Go’G suggests is more likely to be fictitious then factual.

    I imagine Benteke’s future is pivotal: if he does leave we desperately need a top quality striker, but if we don’t get £32 mill for him I doubt if we’ve got the money to sign a player like Charlie Austin, unless the Chinese, Americans, Arabs or whoever have got deep pockets, if indeed the Chinese, Americans, Arabs or whoever actually exist at all. (Obviously, I know they exist because I’ve seen them on the tele, but I don’t know if any of them are really interested in buying Villa.)

    Anyone catch any of the Glastonbury coverage on BBC? What a load of shite. If I’d been there I’d have left at 4 p.m. on Friday after Catfish played the Other Stage. Lionel Richie and Kanye bloody West, FFS!

  14. Mark King

    Andrew P- don’t be hard on Lionel he needs the money for some more plastic surgery and a £165,000 a month divorce settlement. should stop spending on his face and go for singing lessons he sounded way out of tune.

  15. B62 Villa

    I think the reality is we are in limbo until this alleged takeover is resolved. The transfer window opens this week and will indicate what future we have in store, if we end up buying some of the shite linked to us like Serie B strikers or Swansea reserves we know it’s very much a struggle once again, but if we actually pull off purchasing Austin, Townsend, Claise tetchy we have hope. I agree with G’OG re the bin dippers, today’s chip war appears have a swap deal of Borini, Lambert and cash for Benteke , the answer should be spelled out for these shitheads, the price is £32.5m, we are not here to help you get rid of your shite, pay up or fuck off you self pitying bunch of shite.
    I watched two acts at Glastonbury , Weller and The Who, nothing else watching unless they show Jo Whiley being mounted on the pyramid stage 😉

  17. runtings

    Hi Matt and crew

    it’s been a long time coming but a change is gonna come

    I have a good feeling about things – even if a takeover collapses it is clear that the club now realise that the squad we currently have is no were near good enough to either take the club forward or inspire the good players to stay

    the kull has begun and is moving at a pace so early in the window – 4 gone and at least another 4 wanted means the out going players may not be good enough for us but are good enough to improve other clubs abroad or mostly in the championship

    Glastonbury is so not a TV festival and you wont get the fullness of the event without being there — so many stages and the best bands are useally not well know to all and in a smaller tent somewhere – plus all the crafts , comerdy . theature , kids areas . amuesments , dance village ect ect — it is the most amazing festival on the planet barr non

  18. Andrew P

    Hello Runtings. Sam Cooke! I suspect, or hope at least, that you’re right about a change coming at VP. You’re probably right as well about Glastonbury not being a TV event. Seems to me Glastonbury used to be one thing but it seems to have changed into something else altogether, at least in terms of the headliners, and for all of us armchair punters I would have hoped they they could have served up a better line up than Kanye, Lionel Richie and Florence and the Machine …either that or stop giving it blanket coverage on the BBC. That said, after 2 days of Wimbledon I’ll be scrambling for the remote to catch up anything from Glastonbury.

  21. runtings

    Andy P

    last time i went was 3yrs ago – my afternoon was watching the wombles 🙂 then two hours in the pussy parlor , playing jazz funk and soul with some amazing singer from new zeland – then everything everything – then the streets then paul simon then beyoince then coldplay – i wasnt a fan of coldplay until that night but they were awesome live which is something that came across as boring when i had seen there gigs on tv – oh a the small matter of some of radiohead on the surprise guests stage — what a day that was

    saying all that i wouldnt watch kanye or flournce – Lional has a back catolouge that will be played forever thou

  23. runtings

    Agreed Mark – Lional was never blessed with the vocals or a stevie wonder or marvin gaye but he has written some fantastic songs all the same

  24. Andrew P

    Sorry Runtings, you still haven’t sold it to me – I bet it wasn’t even the original Wombles line-up. I’ve just caught up Motorhead’s set. I saw them at the Birmingham Odeon in 1982 and Lemmy was looking a bit tired then – now he looks like he’s been dug up.

  25. runtings

    🙂 Andy P it was bleedin hot and they had those fluffy costumes on – but there was about 20.000 fourty something having a sing along – really set up the day

    Motorhead classic mate

  30. steamer

    Must admit that i think Ray Wilkins is crepe, crepe player and crepe coach, he thinks Aston Villa should be in the top ten in the country, probably behind Chelsea, Arsenal, WHU, Spurs, Orient, Millwall, Brentford and all the other London clubs as well as the usual media fave clubs, he has no knowledge at all about our potential and status in the game. I don’t like the Southern emphasis at all, they don’t produce good players at all, they lack Northern grit to coin a cliche.

  31. steamer

    Runtingz,
    I remember the first time i saw that on TOGWT, boggled me marlies, i know you aren’t into rock but if you can have a squint of AC/DC Live at the River Plate, probably the best rock DVD ever.

  32. runtings

    Steamer i too was mind boggled by a number of acts on TOGWT and i am a lover of good music and thankfully i become open minded enough to find some timeless qaulity in all forms of music including the classics from both bands above

    i grew up like you in a great era to be in UK rock , punk , ska -uk soul which for me is bowie ,weller,sting ,costello , van the man and many other — also lovers rock was born here from the change in lifestyle the west indians were experiencing –sir john peel

    anyway 🙂 if you ever get a chance to go see D’Angelo please do it – seen so many live acts n this guys was 2nd too none – but its one of those you have too experience by going to the gig

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ywZ-71W-uiA

  33. Ian

    Without this sounding like a very trite statement, can anyone explain the point of the Premier League anymore?

    With the spending power of the top 4-6 it’s an absolute impossibility that anyone outside of those teams are ever going to win the league nowadays.

    The next tier down dream of Europe, but when they get there they don’t really show the ambition to try to win it just in case you lose focus on the PL.
    Even the cups seem out of the reach of the lesser team. Yes we made the final but look what happened when we got there.

    So now essentially we are playing to either at best finish 6th / 7th in the league, finish mid table so we can relax by April or, as so often is the case now, go through relegation battle after relegation battle until one season the fight is lost…

    Seems an odd thing to me that now we have to rely on surprise results in a game to keep us interested… Otherwise it’s very difficult to see what the point is of the PL anymore….

  35. Clive Evans

    Ian – a bit like the Scottish Premier League was for years until the Rangers fiasco.
    Maybe the time is right for the so-called big clubs to peel off and form a European Super League and leave the rest of us to enjoy the game again.

  36. southwestvillan

    Ian,

    Nail on head this has been happening for years and the Sky 4 will only get richer and move further away, which again asks the question of why any rich person out there should plough millions upon millions into a club to even secure a Europa cup place, if I had that type of money I would rather buy Greek Drachma which looks a sounder investment.

    AVFC

  37. steamer

    Blimey Runtingz, he shares Dick Dastardly’s wardrobe, bet he was sweating like a navvies armpit doing that gig. Had pains in me chest just watching him. D’Angelo ? didn’t look Italian to me. Just jesting mate.
    Believe it or not this bloke was massive in the late 60’s and early seventies, if you want to borrow his LP’s St75 has got the full set.
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zcSlcNfThUA

  38. steamer

    Hope the papers are on a wind up, the 20 or so supposed named targets for TS are relegation fodder, not one can improve on what we’ve got now by much. Adeybayor is not only tripe, he’s trouble, Carroll’s been to a few clubs on loan and was dropped by all of them, Bartley ? whats that all about ? Same lack of quality as last season only more expensive.
    SWV,
    Drachmas finished at top level, too old.

    Ian,
    They still push this best league in the World bull don’t they ?

  39. Ian

    The frustrating thing now about the PL is that essentially we have all become feeder clubs for the top 4-6’s exploits in the Champions League / UEFA.

    Most good players say ‘we want European Football’ as a way of getting out and, unless you can realistically challenge which most now can’t, then you will only have a good player at a club for 1 maybe 2 seasons until the inevitable acrimonious split with the club when they force a move.

    I love AVFC but the league we play in is becoming more and more irrelevant as the seasons roll on….

  41. Jenny Truman

    Morning all
    Just got to stick up for Lionel – I thought he was fantastic on Sunday . Great entertainer who gave the crowd what they wanted – lots of commodores stuff – amazing band with him – base , lead, sax , drummer immense . Loved brick house one if my faves , cheesy or not , Happy happy music . Love him . For a 66 year old , his physique and energy ain’t bad either ! Extraordinary

  42. DarrenO

    Really at the end of my newsnow tether, wish the Benteke situation would end and someone if they value him as much as us just stumps up the cash, player swaps are pointless because you never get like for like, if Benteke went to Spuds he’d improve them if Adebayor came to us he’d do nothing.

    It’s sooooooo time for new owners, for new owners to want to make a statement with us Villa fans by securing Benteke, Delph and getting in quality players. Fed up with the lazy journalism of ex-Spuds boss wants to reunite with a Spuds player.

    Also, one step forward Quickbook, two steps back betting companies back involved

    UTV

  43. Haggis

    I nearly Sh17 myself when I seen this on the oficial website

    Villa announce two partners

    Aston Villa is delighted to announce two new club partners.

    Betfair and bet365 will become official partners of the club at the beginning of next month and both companies will have co-exclusive rights in the betting category.

    Both will have the right to be associated with Aston Villa and activate the partnerships globally and both will appear on the club’s LED screens and interview backdrops.

    Aston Villa chief commercial officer, Charlie Wijeratna, commented: “I am very pleased that we have got two top betting brands on board as partners for next season.

    “Commercially the club has two aims – we want to partner with good brands that will activate extensively and we want to increase our commercial revenues so we can compete with the best on the pitch.

    “These two deals represent a very significant commercial increase on last year’s betting partnership and taken together with the recent announcement of an enhanced shirt sponsorship deal with a top US brand, demonstrate significant progress towards those goals.”

  46. runtings

    🙂 blimey mark – female body builders has always been a turn of for me but hey rooney might be interested in this one

    i am with the delectable Jen – people like Lional are legends in my book and can’t do much wrong

  47. steamer

    Yes Runtingz, a beautiful song…………..being butchered.
    Apparently DD will be completed any time now, predicted to be tomorrow, so we’ll soon know who the lucky people are.

  49. runtings

    Mark pistols along with many from that era couldnt sing or play in tune but it still produced some legendery bands/music — saying that your point is not lost on me

    hope your right steamer – i have been thinking with transfers clearly on hold at the club and the wndow about to open , surely any new owners would want to crack on within the next week maximum , or randy can go ahead and saction the bargin basement players he has allowed ts to sound out

  50. Mark King

    runtings- can’t see the pistols doing a Lionel tribute album any time soon either 🙂 horses for courses. Ever noticed on x factor that when they want a singer off the show they give them a song that doesn’t suit their voice, never fails to amaze me.

  53. Frem

    Do you guys still think we will be taken over ?

    I think the takerover collapsed, or there is nothing happening what so ever and the club are more than happy for fans to think something is. Why would they say Randy ain’t going anywhere, when they know fans would hate that ?

    Why would we be bidding peanuts for players if new ownership was close ? We’ve bid for three players the last 3 days, the most expensive being 3 mill. Pathetic attempt.

    Either Randy is staying, new owners are piss poor, or a takeover is many weeks away yet and we are still under Randys pathetic attempt at a budget. He’s waiting to sell Benteke and pocket 15 mill of it.

    Sherwood will know what’s going on won’t he ? If he knows owners are a week or two away, then why not wait for them to come in ? Why risk filling the squad with shit now, then finding out he could have spent 50 mill in two weeks time of new owners money ?

    Either way, what eve pr is going on, it’s not good at Villa

  54. runtings

    frem the other possibility is that randy has allowed TS to get a plan b together both in case the deal collapses or the new owner decide to keep tim on
    I reckon he has to act as if he is staying until told otherwise —- notice apart from a good fee player nothing more has been sanctioned and wont until an announcement one way or the other

    with 3 billionares kean to buy the club with one given the chance to aquire it – i would be shocked if vlla didnt see

    fingers crossed

  56. Paul Pears

    gree with Jenny, that the Lionel Ritchie set was an outstanding performance, and the sound quality was good. Still waiting to watch the Who and some other acts…bring them on..!!

  57. steamer

    Mark,
    Strange that the BM would write an article inviting footballers to come to Birmingham and then put a picture of the library under the headline.
    I think something will happen on the TO front today.
    The clubs PR is even more pathetic than the team, when they want your money its all BS,BS,, any other time they just ignore you.
    HTF its the Chinese.

  58. steamer

    Aston Villa have launched a £9m move for Lille midfielder Idrissa Gueye. The 25-year-old Senegal international was wanted by Southampton as a potential replacement for Morgan Schneiderlin. Their hopes looked dashed on Monday night when Marseille closed on a deal instead. However, that triggered a rush of fresh bids on Tuesday from Crystal Palace, West Ham and Southampton again who asked for Gueye to hold off making a decision. Villa director of recruitment Paddy Reilly though pushed to get a fee agreed last night and Lille are happy as they need to agree to sell the player by today for financial reasons. Gueye has been described by former France international and Senegal coach Alain Giresse as being ‘as good as Jean Tigana’.

  61. steamers75

    l dont listen to it but l just got a text saying on Talkshite , benteke will sign for the bin dippers today or tomorrow , hope Frem is on Hols .
    just come up on F/B as well ,

    not moving out the house today , cant stand this heat ,
    have a good day all ,

  62. Ian

    So Benteke’s off (confirmed from a lot of sources now) for under his buy out clause AND the bidder in due diligence has also pulled out of wanting to buy AVFC leaving us with Randy….

    Someone hide the razor blades… its going to be a long tough week for Villa fans

  63. John Lerwill

    In this time of distraction by the likes of Glastonbury and Wimbledon, it’s good to see that footie has not altogether lost it’s place in the news.

    However the news that CB may well be going to the ‘Pool is to me a great disappointment. If he was being lured by one of the Manchester or big London teams (not Spurs) I would have understood, but in Liverpool there lies something that smells of something wrong in his evaluation of the club. I cannot see Liverpool rising to great enough heights to get into the European Champions League, so what’s the point of he going there?

    Flummoxed of Hodge Hill.

  64. Andrew P

    Steams, Tigana could play. That team with him and Platini and Alain Giresse was brilliant.

    As for all of the speculation, how do we know what’s true and what’s been fed to the press from agents? Are we actually bidding for sub-standard players? I haven’t got a clue but I doubt it and I doubt if we’ll do much business until the outcome of the takeover is resolved. Micah Richards is the only signing so far – he’s the right class of player and he’s on relatively high wages so his signing is the only indicator we’ve got.

    I would expect the details of the takeover to be confidential until the deal is done. It’s how these sort of deals are done. How do we know the deal has collapsed?

    I can’t be doing with all the sunshine and with people getting unnecessarily worked up by rumours and speculation. It’s nearly all bollocks anyway.

    I’ll also let the yellow away kit for next season pass. I don’t care.

    I’m on Frem watch. His meltdown yesterday evening counts as his first of this transfer window.

    I’m still not having Lionel Richie was a serious headliner for Glastonbury. It’s got to be a Springsteen or a Stevie Wonder or a Neil Young or even a David Bowie if that’s your bag, not the Commodores lead singer whose solo career comprised the some of the blandest and most forgettable music ever recorded.

  65. Andrew P

    JL, if Benteke wants to go to the bin-dippers, let him go but not for a penny less than £32.5 million. First season he played well, then he angled for a transfer and was rewarded with an improved contract. Then he disappeared for a season and a half, until he remembered he was a professional footballer 10 games before the end of last season. He scored a dozen goals or however many it was and, who’d have guessed, he wants a transfer again. I’m pretty sure that half way through the second half of the FA Cup final a pigeon landed on him and fell asleep.

  66. steamer

    Ian, as John mentioned, Benteke knows there’s something negative happening ( or not ) at VP, there’s a few peeps saying that the TO has gone down the gurgler. I don’t know what we have to do to get rid of these rissoles but i’ll be having a few bob on us to be relegated and a few more on us to finish rock bottom because even Jose couldn’t get anything out of this shower, Lerner goes beyond stupid.

  67. steamer

    Andrew,
    What about Elvis ? all those hamburger stalls would be enticing.
    A lot of the folk who go to Glastonbury only go for the occasion, not the music, Metallica or AC/DC are obvious headliners and doing tours but we get Florence and Kanye and they still roll up, there wasn’t even any mud this year, at those prices too. Any time your in Brum take a trip to Mothers Cafe in Erdington, loads of memorabilia on the walls some advertising festivals in the 60’s & 70’s, a dozen TOP acts like the ABB, Van Morrison Pink Floyd etc for 6 quid. Florence arf, arf.

  69. Andrew P

    Cheers Steamer – I’ll have a look next time I’m over there. I’d rather listen to a half decent Elvis impersonator than to Lionel Richie or Floz&TM. I remember going to an Elvis tribute night in a pub in Manchester and there was a Chinese Elvis. That was a good night out. Like you say though, Glastonbury is about the occasion and the being there, rather than about the music.

  70. Ian

    I can only equate with the timing of both boys of news that Benteke found out that Randy is staying and has decided he’s had enough… Which suits Randy as he gets to make, what I’m sure he loves most in this world, money out of it….

  72. Andrew P

    Ian, I’m not having a pop and you could be right but there hasn’t been any news. At the moment we are dealing with speculation and unsubstantiated rumours. One or both or neither of those rumours may turn out to be nonsense.

    The Benteke to Liverpool rumour seems to have legs but I’d be amazed if he goes for less than £32.5 million, and my understanding is that now that the transfer window window is open if someone is prepared to pay £32.5 million for him we’re powerless to stop him leaving and we’ll probably have to throw in the Wembley pigeon which landed on him as part of the deal.

    The reason that the Benteke to Liverpool story has re-surfaced is probably more to do with the opening of the transfer window and less to do with the takeover, but now I’m speculating. Damn.

  76. steamer

    Borini doesn’t want to come and we don’t want him so whats the problem ? Bad as we are he wouldn’t get in the team.

    Does anyone remember a comedy detective series called Sledgehammer ? absolutely hilarious, all Detective Sledgehammer wanted to do was shoot crims, if they weren’t crims it didn’t matter, one episode was dedicated to someone killing Elvis impersonators, totally mad but nearly as good as the legendary Police Story.

  78. John Lerwill

    Benteke

    I think one or two have mis-read my words about his supposed move to ‘Pool.

    I am quite prepared to face the fact that CB may leave VP: I was just commenting that I found his attraction towards Liverpool a bit under-whelming. Potentially Villa next season could reach Liverpool’s level of the past season, so it’s no big move for CB i.m.o.

  79. Mark King

    JL like you say its just an incremental step, maybe that shows none of the big boys are interested and poo are ambitious at least? or its all a load of pony

  80. DarrenO

    Hope to god, the release clause is made of more concrete than Vlaar and that Fox and Sherwood have enough balls about them not to sanction any release until the valuation is met.

    We may be a selling club but we’re not a joke so the idea of Borini as a makeweight in the deal is laughable.

    Hopefully all the media focus on Benteke to Liverpool has meant any incoming player deals can be done under the radar and players like the quality of Richards follow in the doors soon.

    Need a little bit more sunshine in my Aston Villa life. Come on Villa PR do your job, promote Villa, get a story out to the media that DeBruyne grew up a Villa fan and will only move to us.

    UTV

  81. runtings

    London scoucer bindippers blowing up my phone all morning – i dislike them even more than a lot of AVL ers hate lionel richie — thats the beauty of music – one mans medicion is the next mans posion — but his album sales have soared since glasto gig to nice for him

    seeing tekkers in a pool shirt is my worst nightmare
    surely we have to be very close to a club statement weather it’s good or bad news ?

  83. John Clark

    If Benteke’s off, then he’s off…but we have to get ours. And I’m not buying the makeweight crap like Borini unless it’s something like £20m + Charlie Austin.

    But naturally the game being played is how high does the bidding team go if they figure he’s available next year for less? How intent are Villa on getting the full buyout amount, or was it set high so they could realistically pull in £25m–£30m.

    I wouldn’t be too bothered about all the other minor bids we seem to be involved in. I’m going to trust Sherwood’s eye for a player…Whatever they’ve got, I’m thinking they’ll at least have the right mentality and raw material to be good players. Villa do need some depth, so young ‘starlets’ from good set-ups make sense. A couple of marquee moves are really what’s needed, but as we’re all saying, probably not happening until the sale is settled, one way or another.

  84. runtings

    Re glastombury is not about the music – eh — really

    how many have been ? — you will not find a better , more varied and diverse music gig on this planet

  85. runtings

    but the headliners did leave a lot to be desired this year — hunreds of other stages thou — one of the best bands i have ever seen was an irish folk band called DA’AN there but could not find any recording of there music , talk about blow your socks off — and in a little tent with a few hundred watching

  87. runtings

    AH thank you so much DOR i was never sure of the exact name which clearly is why i could track down there stuff but i will now — 5 of them if i remember rightly all can play various instruments and they went from a classical piece to folk to blues to everything — thanks again awesome – i love AVL

  95. runtings

    how quickly the tables turn on the landan scoucers 🙂

    half the day they were mocking me about tekkers being shown around at that dunp – i mean anfield sorry

    when i the time he was sporting the new villa kit in a photo shoot 🙂 love it

    they are not replying to my banter now thou hahaaa

  97. Andrew P

    Runtings, that’s the thing with all of this press talk. If you listen to it, it just does your fruit in unnecessarily . This morningTalk Sport’s scouse reporter quoted a source saying it was a done deal, which became
    the accepted wisdom until Benteke is pictured in a Villa shirt and then a new spin develops. Benteke’s going, he’s staying at Villa, Villa are holing out for the full amount of his buy out clause? Take your pick, but I’m in the know on this one and I can reveal the truth is that Benteke wants to take his Wembley pigeon, who he has since named Janet, with him to Anfield, but Brendan Rogers and Janet still can’t agree personal terms.

  99. Andrew P

    Mark, you cheeky sod. I’m willing to admit when I’m wrong, so I’ve just revisited Lionel Richie via the magic of YouTube to see if memory had let me down and I was being unreasonably hard on him. Anyway, I’ve checked and I wasn’t: he is every bit as bad as I remember. He’s got a song called “I’m Not OK”, too right you’re not mate, you’re shit. Never mind not playing Glastonbury, he should have been booted by Customs at the airport for crimes against music. Shockingly bad. I can see how he earned the nickname ‘the Alan Hutton of cheesy pop soul’.

  100. Mark King

    Andrew p- I can take the cheesy pop in small doses but singing it badly NO!!!! I honestly think the plastic surgery is pulling on his vocal chords his face is that tight

  101. runtings

    Music , lovers , food , wine or whatever it’s all about prefference which is a good thng don’t let it upset you 🙂

    Feel free to check out our humble offerings to the music pool , be great if you kindly befriend our page as we plan to be fairly active in the coming months – mainly dance or soul thou

    would love to hear some of your stuff too guys , i know there are a few muzo;s on here

    https://www.facebook.com/#!/aureall.sounds

  102. steamer

    Funny on here tonight.

    Aureall seems a good idea, Matt does DJing so i think he’ll join in. Marks got his band on Youtube too, Jens a northern soulie so good variation.
    ST75 is an Al Bowley fan, great singer, dunno if he’s got any of his stuff though. Worth a listen.

  106. steamers75

    nothing wrong with Al Bowley Steamer l will put the cd in the car today , during my youth . was into Reggae and soul and went to wigan from 73 ,when it opened and the catacombs in wolves , and thats what l collected ,but l bought 5 other records which never went on the stereo if people were in our house . 1. back street love – Curved Air, 2, l know what l like in your wardrobe- Genesis, 3, silver machine -Hawkwind , Love – Virgin Sleep , 5. l’d rather go blind , chicken shack ,
    now l have allsorts of stuff , got hold of a cd last week of a Brum band called Fashion which l have on vinyl from around 81/2 , sorry but l cant stand Hip-hop maybe not taking drugs doesnt help , lm in the process of putting all my vinyl on disc as my daughter has started going through it and as you know it gets scratched ,
    never watched much of Glasto and didnt see lionel , but lm sure if the dj put a song of his on during a birthday or wedding in the 80+ we all got up to dance , although watching SWW dance to his Fav band and song- Dance yourself Dizzy-Liquid Gold , is not a great sight,
    on saturday in Norfolk l was at the sister-in laws 50th and they had this singer on who does a few slots every week for them in their pub, and he had the nerve to pick me out ,because he was told a villa fan was in the room and told me how crap they were last season, l said ” yea they were bad and you remind me of them being shit !, although 10 mins later someone had bought a dog in and it proceeded to howl through his songs , wish l’d videoed it ….

    Runtins whats the date of that festival ? as were away in August but l know the wife and daughter are going to the V festival when we get back , so l may be able to make it , and where abouts is it mate

  107. steamer

    Dog walker informed me that the TO has hit a problem with the Monopolies Commission and has got two months to sort it out. Must be a biggie and it Chinese.

  108. steamer

    Blimey, I used to have a couple of Curved Air albums, still got several versions of I’d rather Go Blind and a couple of Love albums, Arthur Lee was great.

  110. steamers75

    Read the post . the song is called “Love” by Virgin Sleep , ya bollox

    monopolies commission ? yeah right they want the same tax deals as vodaphone , starbucks , boots ect ect ect .

  114. runtings

    Hi ST75 ths is the venue http://www.yelp.co.uk/biz/mau-mau-bar-london
    it is useally the friday before carnival but dates and line up are not announced yet but i will email and post it on fb as soon as its announced =- hope you and brazil can make it as i am confident you will love it and that its a gig that stands apart

    the fact that gueye looks like he is going to sign for us along with the fact clubs doing much better want him suggests that things are a changing at villa

  115. OldVilla

    Steamer, didn’t expect to be talking about Love and Arthur Lee on here! Saw Love at Barberellas in the early 70’s, then a couple of times just before he died, playing with Baby Lemonade. Great gigs and Arthur was in superb form.
    the band Love revisited are touring next year – they include one of the founder members of Love, Johnnie Echolls ……. Should be worth seeing.
    And You Set The Scene was the best thing Love did on the Jools Holland show
    Anyway, back to football, does this impending signing mean that the Villa world is moving in the right direction now? it all seems to have gone very quiet on the alleged Citeh bid for Delph as well ………

  116. steamer

    OldVilla,
    As a fan i feared the worst when i saw him billed on Hollands show, what with his problems but i was astounded by his performance, he did a festival too while he was here ( its on Youtube ) then he died. I think Johnnie Echolls is the only survivor, Bryan McClean died a few years ago and he wrote the best material IMO. Massive fan of 60’s & 70’s US bands, Santana, ABB, Mountain, The Doobies, Grateful Dead, Canned Heat etc.

  119. Rags

    Runtz happy as Larry with the geuye signing just hope it’s not a Delph replacement! The pessimist in me is screaming that it is though pal!

  120. steamer

    Rags,
    Just watched a 7 min video of him, you can see the comparison with Tigana, same style of running but not as strong and can’t shoot. he makes runs from deep but is completely one footied. Dunno about 9m but hey its peanuts to our new owners, if they ever show. Its a good sign that we are about to get rid of this plank.

  121. Jenny Truman

    Evening all,
    Good news on the Bella front Steamer.
    ST75 – loving the red hair 🙂
    A final word on the Lionel Ritchie physique front and Mark’s photo of the 70 year old body builder – impressive yes – but had she just had a hip replacement like Lionel had when he did his Glastonberry as he called it .
    Like beauty is in the eye of the beholder – so is music – and if you reckon Lionel can’t sing – so be it – neither could Bob Dylan – Joe McEllry was pitch perfect (X factor winner) It’s all about the emotions they incite in you – and looks like its just going to be me and Runtingz dancing “all night long” (especially as ST75 has taken to coming out in clashing hair and tiarras – ready for his big weekend :-))
    Back to the football – we think we are hard done by – think of poor Leicester. Board sacking the manager who pulled off the best escape in prem league history – and wait for it, Paul Lambert is 20 to 1 to become their next manager – and they thought it couldn’t get any worse. Poor poor devils.

  123. steamer

    Jen,
    Many thanks, she’s almost back to her best now.

    Paul Lambert is 20 to 1 to become their next manager – and they thought it couldn’t get any worse. Poor poor devils.
    Curled me up.

  124. John Lerwill

    Jenny: ” Paul Lambert is 20 to 1 to become [Leicester’s] next manager – and they thought it couldn’t get any worse. Poor poor devils.”

    I wonder what Marc Albrighton’s thinking!! He’s already lost his mother-in-law I hear (Tunisia).

  126. steamers75

    Jenny
    lm ready any weekend . been told lm only half a stone over weight , and my cholestrol is 7.1 and needs to be 4 something so got some horrible marg stuff and some of them little plastic bottles of crap drink to bring it down,
    anyone else have this kind of thing ? info would be grateful , Dark cider which has blackberry ,raspberry . apple didnt go down to well as some of my 5 fruits a day (
    Poor poor Leics. Lamberk they must be nuts . pity leics wouldnt go for Rowett and the noses get lamberk , that would be Karma !

    Enjoy the sun (l wont) and have a good weekend All

  127. Mark King

    well Jen we’ve had some heated debate on here before but never thought Lionel Richie would be a bone of contention 😉
    Didn’t say he’s never been able to sing, just that he has lost it now, he’s out of tune a lot hence the getting the crowd involved continually. It happens to a lot of older singers (Elvis a prime example, his voice went from sublime to wobbly) especially if they have abused their bodies and hence their vocal chords. I’ve sang several of his songs in bands including hello, easy, brick house, running with the night and tonight I will be singing Slippery when wet so have no probs with the music 🙂
    For the record Bob Dylan isn’t out of tune just a different style. as you say its about Emotion, but its also about vibration and hitting the right ones (notes)makes your hairs on the back of your neck stand up, hitting the wrong ones is like fingernails on a blackboard to me.

    Poor old Albrighton, if Lambert turns up at Leicester its turning into a shit year for him.

  128. Mark King

    ST75- The whole outlook on saturated fat is changing as it doesn’t cause heart disease. for what its worth high cholesterol isn’t a bad thing mate, in studies people with high C live longer its the type that’s crucial and that is effected by carbs ( bread etc and trans fats). Its the general lifestyle that gets you too. My cholesterol is 6.1. my suggestion would be to cut out all man-made food (crap)and eat mainly meat, fish ,eggs, cheese, loads of veg and salad and the odd bit of fruit. use decent butter like Kerrygold and olive oil and cook with coconut oil or Lard not sunflower or seed oil as its not good when heated or in general, chuck that Marge in the bin. Go easy on the carbs especially grains and sugars stick to spuds/rice and have them later in the day with dinner.
    I know you like your booze so try and have at least 3 days without it in the week give your Liver a rest, and Vodka, Tequila and gin are the better than pints just not with too much fruit juice.
    Hope that helps.

  131. steamers75

    Thanks Mark ,

    it does make me wonder . l mean all these old folk living to late 80s/90s/100s and most would have eaten stuff fried in lard ect , l do realise that their veg would have been fresh stuff not tinned , but l dont eat tinned veg at all ,
    the sun will kill me , jessie was in hysterics looking at old holiday pics of me , lm under umbrellas and covered in towels and cant stand the beach , but will try it , (((

    on the music l think we all have our little quirks there and different hearing tones l mean some of them kids who go on these reality shows must be told by someone they sound great , you aint heard steamer s version on the England Dan song , now that made the hairs on our cats back stand up !! and l wont get onto SWW with dance yourself dizzy , god l feel a headache coming on just thinking about it , steve hickman in the hole in the wall loved that bloody song Oh Superman .Laurie Anderson , l turned the jukebox over one night as it was driving me mad , but the bloody thing carried on , so whats the real oddest song /group lifers like , l got cds by Aphex twin and stereolab to name a few ,

  132. Clive Evans

    Steve Madeley ‏@smadeley_star 7m7 minutes ago
    That last tweet was not a wind-up. Anelka has actually been given a manager’s job. As @thegoalzone would say, the game has gone!
    Nicolas Anelka is the new player-manager of Mumbai City FC.

  134. Mark King

    st75- Pleasure mate,
    it all changed in the 70’s remember the push for whole grains weetabix etc? well that came from a flawed study and now all we eat is carbs. look at the diabetes, cancer etc all gone through the roof. next time I see you you’ll be a racing snake and the same colour as Runtings, don’t go for dreads it doesn’t suit white people 😉

    Clive- WTF!!? 🙂

    this lad looks decent

    http://www.hitc.com/en-gb/2015/07/03/report-aston-villa-pursue-anderlecht-playmaker-dennis-praet-sher/?

  135. Andrew P

    Mark, S75, it’s interesting. 2 or 3 years ago Matt Turvey, who used to come on this site, ran a comp and the prize to be given to the site’s best looking contributor was a book called ‘the Meat Fix’.

    Anyway, I received and read the book and from memory the argument was that despite increasing health and diet awareness, levels of obesity and food intolerances, etc. are increasing exponentially.

    The author’s solution was to eat food that his grandparents would have recognised – which I think is what Mark is suggesting. My grandparents drank full cream milk, obviously only used butter – and my gran had to fetch these things daily because my grandad refused to have a fridge. They ate lard on bread and made bacon sandwiches with bread dipped in the bacon fat, and they lived long lives and weren’t overweight.

    I was at school 40 years ago and the fat kid was an exception and got suitably ripped into. My kids are just finishing school and most of their class mates are overweight. There is a health problem out there and it won’t be solved by swapping low fat spreads – which are an industrial product – for butter.

    The book’s definitely worth a read, if anyone wants my copy let me know and I’ll post it on.

  136. Mark King

    Andrew p – pretty much mate . i call ut eating real food some call the ancesteral diet. There are differences between peoples as we have evolved with our food sources but you cant go too far wrong if its not been doctored by industry. Can reccomend chris chresser s book . dripping us the best joint food known to man. Great for bones joints skin and hair they call it bone broth . our ancesters waisted nothing and ate the whole animal an important part missing from our diets.

  137. John Lerwill

    ST75/Mark,

    Totally agree with Mark. The lighter the food you consume the better, avoiding as much as possible man-made sources. I’d say if you really fancy a fish-and-chips once-in-awhile then go for it, but don’t make it a weekly part of your diet. Also be choosy about you chippy – that he uses the right oil. I find Greek and Asian chippies the best. There used to be a chippy in Sparkhill that was once recommended by Esther Rantzen’s show ‘That’s Life’, and it was Asian-run as I recall. And avoid red meat as much as poss.

    Also … an apple a day keeps the doctor away. I’ve found that old adage pretty accurate.

  139. bibulus

    Morning,
    Fudge me – Andrew P giving food advice – i must still be tipsy after the huge effort put in to staying hydrated in the heatwave whilst at Wimbledon on Wednesday.
    Seriously if you are interested in the health of our kids take a look at this https://www.designedtomove.org/
    Our kids are the first generation ever to have a lower life expectancy than the one before them.
    Meanwhile what happened to this takeover – Was it B62 who called it as a load of nonsense to flog a few more season tickets a few weeks back.

  140. Mark King

    Jl I’d add that any source of meat needs to of been fed an appropriate diet. Grass fed beef without antibiotics for instance is very good for you. GMO Grain fed drug riddled chicken is not. Also fruit and vedge needs to be organic to avoid pestacides or you wont get the true benefits of the food as your gut will be compromised. Seems complucated but basically avoid crap and foods with chemicals and drugs in them.

  142. Mark King

    I think that depends on what the animal has eaten Jl plus the amount vedge you are eating. If your plate is 3/4 vedge thats about right but it rarely is. Some can go full vegan but for a lot of people meat brings something to the diet vedge cant and they can get I’ll without it.

  143. John Lerwill

    Mark,

    In fact I’m vegetarian and don’t eat any meat nor fish. It’s been 15 years not eating meat and 3 years not eating fish. But I do that because I don’t like the idea of creatures suffering – and many/most do in the slaughtering process.

    Although I continue to eat some eggs, some cheese and drink some milk, it’s not a reality that you can’t do without meat or dairy products. There have been many people (particularly Asians) who have lived well without any kind of such intake.

    Further, it’s not admitted scientifically, but meat affects the personality of the individual as well, apart from potential harmful physical affects if too much consumed.

  144. John Doyle

    fish and chips now there a subject close to my heart cannot beat Bedders best by a long long way others my come and others may go but Bedders is the best still

  146. steamer

    Absolutely correct John about meat affecting the personality, everyone heard about angry folk being fed raw meat, its true, iv’e been meat free for over thirty years, and have virtually no temper, stand any old crepe and very few things get me riled, Villa, Blues, Conservatives fake Socialists and thats about it. I take milk in my tea and coffee and have a weakness for cheese thats it, I’m now 63, no knees or hips walk around in a daze not knowing what day it is, talk crepe for fun but i’m still contenent so life could be worse.

  147. steamer

    JD,
    Mickey Arison had better get a move on before i go doolally with this takeover. John Percy said that Lerners funding the signings until its completed.
    Olbyon in DD with the Chinese mob who Lerner turned away, i think we’ll live to regret that deed.

  148. steamer

    I have a nasty feeling that Lerner will have turned down Wanda in favour of one of his colonial chums. Herbert turned down Sheik Mahmood for Lerner, is it history repeating itself ? spooky.

  151. OldVilla

    Food – it’s everything in moderation surely? I probably only have red meat twice a month and it has to be good quality. Eat plenty of good quality chicken, fish (not farmed), veggies, rice, pasta, make my own hotspots using veggies, various beans and chicken. My Weakness is belly pork lol ….. And bacon ……… Beer and wine ………
    But generally I eat well and sensibly, plus go to the gym and walk a lot. Exercise will reduce cholesterol as well as a good diet.
    ST75 – have they put you on statins for your high cholesterol? Every bugger seems to be on them these days.
    This business about raw meat and angry people – PtG must have had quite a diet lol!

  152. Mark King

    JL you can do without lots of foods but doesn’t mean its optimum. A lot of vegetarianism is based on religious concepts too.

    The way I see it is all tribes still living in the wild eat some meat, in fact they eat what they can get and are very healthy. If you and I were out in the country trying to survive would we be chewing dandelion leaves or would we Kill an animal to survive? calories are hard to come by in nature not so with agriculture.

    In a study a group of aborigines eating western food had all our diseases, when asked to go back to their ancestral diet which was mostly meat and fat from crocs, kangaroo’s etc they reversed all their bio markers.

    Some do ok on a vegan diet most find after a while they feel worse, its an individual thing and dangerous to lump everyone in the same boat from a genetic standpoint. Quality of food is paramount as is the soil It/they are raised on or in.

    as for Asians they don’t do well as far as heart disease is concerned but do well in cancer rates, mostly because they use a lot of spices Turmeric etc I suspect. Its a complicated subject and I suspect has a lot to do with what you are eating has eaten and what is eating your food for you in your gut 🙂

    http://www.worldlifeexpectancy.com/cause-of-death/coronary-heart-disease/by-country/

  153. John Clark

    Steamer,

    Lerner may well feel he ‘understands’ a fellow yank’s motivations/intentions moreso than a Chinese consortium’s. Could be entirely irrelevant, but if he’s thinking about that stewardship thing in passing on the club, he may think it’s a better cultural fit.

    As long as it doesn’t hamstring the spending, I’d probably agree (no changing the kit, name, whatever). Lerner will be acutely aware now what spending it takes, what spending is allowed and whether the bidders can carry that weight.

  154. Mark King

    Old villa- spot on mate

    personally I wouldn’t touch statins with a barge pole, they actually mimic the action of VitD so why not get some sunshine instead? they also lower CO Q10 a vital part of your energy cycle and can bring on heart attacks, nice.

  156. John Lerwill

    Mark: “A lot of vegetarianism is based on religious concepts too. ”

    Suffice to say that “religious concepts” have to come from somewhere and are not just the product of imaginative thinking. This source of ideas for vegetarianism is *not* based on religion itself but on issues raised out of spiritual science.

    Our modern science has a long way yet to catch up with it – it’s still in a primitive state. Notions of what is “optimum” is according to *current* modern thinking – but modern science still doesn’t know all the parameters in creation that exist. Modern science doesn’t admit that the knowledge of what *really is* is already available – for those that care to try to “seek and thou shalt find”.

  158. Mark King

    jl -no but they can correlate data and that points to excess carbs/sugars as the drivers in modern disease whether you eat meat or not.

    I’d say civilization became possible through agriculture, and brought with it many diseases. Vegetarianism in the colder climbs would be bloody hard to do without agriculture regardless of your religious or spiritual mindset. somewhere like India with a vast population and climate to grow foods makes sense and lets them support such numbers of people. they now unfortunately have one of the highest incidence of Diabetes too. modern food and farming practices are lacking and fight against not with nature

  160. Mark King

    I know John and I wasn’t implying you did, I was just pointing out that there is something more sinister afoot with the way foods of all kinds are produced vs one type or another being bad for you. The article shows cancer rising in an area known for low cancer rates (India) with the introduction of modern farming and pollution. I certainly think the likes of monsanto are happy for people to argue the veggy vs meat thing while they slowly poison the food chain.

  162. steamers75

    Jl . steamer is just cabbaged look at that tripe of a record he’s put on here and heaven forbid you ever have to listen to him sing it in person,
    last night l had my fav , lamb chops , but l still dipped my bread in the frying pan after,
    some interesting stuff on here ,
    Andrew l wouldnt mid a read of that book , l will admit we had a problem with my daughter and after all the stuff from doctors and hospitals we bit the bullet and had a look at this advert in the evening mail , took blood samples and found out she couldnt eat dairy, and yeast which meant about nearly all foods , but we got through and she hasnt suffered since , she still does indulge sometimes but can put up with the days discomfort , but hey presto some bright spark has come out with a pill that she can take after eating such foods , but we have put our foot down and will only let her do that once every so often ,
    Oldvilla
    no they havent put me on statins which lm glad of ,but you never know , l have got to try and sort my intake out and go back in 6 months mate , with the readings she took l was on the verge of diabetes . l will admit lm not a good eater . in nearly 60 odd years lv probably had about 30 sunday dinners , never appealed to me , caused ructions though with family members . and lv got steamer searching all the charity shops for a west indian menu book , god l wished l had watched my mother cook it , and my dad had a restaurant , but jokingly with my Irish mate TC (the bogtrotter) he calls me , the only paki who cant cook a curry !! although l do remind him my dad was bangla desh, and m y mom was from walsall , lv never had stomach complaints so dont really know whats best at the moment but l really do appreciate the comments on here , anyway got to go order my chinese )))

  163. steamer

    JD,
    Just a few observations about Arison –

    Carnival completely disregards US labor and wages laws, taxes and regulations. They do not pay Social Security or Medicare for their shipboard US employees, while the US employees have to pay income tax on their earnings at Carnival. At the same time all of their revenues come from the US. Talk about double draining the US people to the advantage of the few on the top… And now when the oil prices are so low did they lower the cruise prices or did they use this extra cost savings to raise wages or at least give bonuses to those that work the hardest – the answer is No and No. This is pure and shameless greed.

    i work with carnival for 24yrs as a team head waiter with the salary of 4$ $ a month and all income comes from the tips?im from the philippines?im retired since 2009.

    Carnival-owned Costa paid just a little over $1,000,000 in fines after the Costa Concordia disaster, which killed 32 people, in order to escape accountability in the criminal trial of Captain Schettino.
    Who says that money can’t justice?

    He is possibly on course to take over Aston Villa to be confirmed in July.

    A real piece of work, so much for twatty Lerner being a decent bloke and selling us to the best he could find.

  167. Andrew P

    S75, no problem. Text me your address to 07929 526008 and I’ll post it to you.

    On the subject of nutrition and health, can anyone explain the benefits of eating a meat pie upside down? A close friend of mine who works in the fitness industry will only eat pies this way. It’s the pie that’s upside down by the way and not the person eating it.

  169. runtings

    The Delph to citeh story would suprise me

    i have a feeling this 8mil clause was set in case we were relegated and as we havent it has no barring or surely 7 or 8 clubs would just bid at that price

    background on poss new owner is a bit scary — then again who are the sweet hearted billionares of this world ?

  170. Mark King

    I think the Delph rumour is a load of rubbish but if we have signed a defensive mid what about, Westwood, Sanchez, Gardner who have all played their recently? Gardner can definitely play further forward can the other two/

  173. John Lerwill

    The ladies have been showing us up of late!

    First the Lionesses in Canada and now Heather Watson, who has turned the tables on Serena!

    There’s a way to go though…

  176. steamer

    Mark,
    I’d describe the French bloke as more of a playmaker than DM, he has a good range of passes and like Praet he has an exceptional work ethic, neither stops moving. When i watched the Gueye vid though i thought he was playing in JG’s position most of the time. Praet, Gardner, Gueye and Grealish and Delph with CB and Hernandez up front will do nicely.

  177. Mark King

    JL that’s what I don’t get? I know you feel animals are abused so do I but eating a meat substitute that is made to supposedly taste like meat? tells me you miss meat 😉
    there are plenty of halal butchers that kill animals as humanely as you can without waiting for it to die of old age, and farmers that raise the cattle humanely too 🙂

  178. Mark King

    steamer- yes I’ve heard he can pass but most seem to describe him as a DM can tackle apparently a miracle today. that line up looks good to me mate

  180. steamers75

    your right there mark about the asian thing , as the nurse asked where l’d been on hols and explained (which l have to do so often) l do have asian blood in me , and she said “thats why then !!” its a big problem ,

    JD
    you know bedders got took over and a few comments on the page are saying its different , but it was and probably still is , silly l know but l find it hard going there at moment, as on fridays l used to get a call off my mom asking if lm passing would l get her a fish and chips supper with the onion vinegar , i’ll get steamer to go in next week and see if its still the same ,

  181. John Lerwill

    Mark,

    No … you’re wrong in your assumption there: Quorn Shepherd’s Pie tastes nothing like meat, nor does any other substitute that I eat. There are some substitutes that do vaguely taste like meat I know, but not the ones I get.

    As for humane killing of animals, perhaps it does exist in places – but reports of fear in the animals is common, and chicken sheds are vile i.m.o.

  182. Jenny Truman

    Evening all. Thought I’d logged on to Woman’s Hour not AVL for a moment with all the excellent contributions on diet etc 🙂
    I thought the Mediterranean diet was best for longevity . I’ve recently bought a ninja smoothie maker and every morning have coconut milk , spinach leaves , banana , frozen blueberries, apple , orange , carrot , ginger, mint , and anything from Sharon fruit to strawberries or red pepper It’s prob got loads of sucrose (is this bad?) but I just feel I get my five a day out of the way . (Often sux or seven ) Because it’s not a juicer , it’s easier to clean and you keep the fibre. Tastes fantastic too. But blow me down, I read today that ppl who eat or drink orange juice everyday have 3 times more chance of getting skin cancer. You just can’t win !
    Being a great believer of the power of the mind – I remind myself of Dr Raj Persaud’s observations of aging and fitness (even if he is a plagiariser:-)
    The only thing stopping ppl being fit is their belief . He then names a tribe in Africa who reach their physical fitness peak and their fastest at , wait for it , their mid sixties . We live in a culture where “retirement ” represents slowing down and this attitude towards age is unhelpful . So when I’m huffing and puffing round in my jog round the race course I think of the Adejuku Indians (something like that I will check ) !!!!

    Yes John – the lionesses did us proud didn’t they .

  183. Jenny Truman

    You might try one if these smoothie makers st75 if you haven’t got one – it’s a much easier way if taking fruit and veg IMO . I’m now waiting fur someone to tell me the vitimjns are lost in the blending ! Mine doesn’t get hot , which I think was the reason some research declared the process reduced the goodness .

  184. Mark King

    yes Jl the factory farming of pigs and chickens is terrible but thankfully more people want an alternative and farmers are responding. luckily this country is way better than most in animal welfare.

    Jen- blending is OK just don’t overdo the fruit to much fructose is not good. young kids who drink to much pop with high fructose corn syrup in them develop fatty liver disease as the body produces alcohol from sugars.
    Most modern fruit is bred to contain a lot more sugar than it used to. stick to berries and heirloom fruit if poss and the organic stuff means your not drinking pesticides if not most pesticides are in the skins. look for a book on green smoothies as things in the wrong proportion can taste rank. carrot and apple are both good for sweetening a smoothie but have plenty of fibre. Hope that’s useful.
    Exercise is essential, but everyday movement even more so, sitting is deadly if done in excess even if you exercise for an hour everyday you can’t undo the damage sitting causes.

  185. rogermuffin

    ok so we now sigining some players.

    http://www.hitc.com/en-gb/2015/07/03/aston-villa-transfer-round-up-idrissa-gueye-passes-medical-in/?

    and these boys will be in soon the way things look1

    http://www.hitc.com/en-gb/2015/07/03/aston-villa-transfer-round-up-idrissa-gueye-passes-medical-in/?

    http://vilr.tumblr.com/post/123110002964/news-praet-10m-link-gueye-9m-in-chery-3-5m

    these links are consistently popup up her ad there.

    and according to some peoples , we have owners with some big ball parKs so why not !

    but for some reason robie trowler is desperate i tells ya –

    http://www.sportsmole.co.uk/football/liverpool/transfer-talk/news/fowler-desperate-for-benteke-signing_231736.html

  187. Haggis

    Hello all. Sorry I don’t comment much but I am always reading. I have been a veggie for over thirty years. It started when I was always I’ll and the doctor recommended I cut out certain things. And when cutting out meat I became better. There has been times when I have eaten out and had stomach pains. This I feel could be there was meat substance in the food and whether it is still an issue or the fact it has been so long that I haven’t ate meat.

    Both me and my wife are veggies but I have never pushed this on our children. I have even talked my daughter out of becoming a vegetarian. I am happy to eat the quorn and certain meat free stuff and friends and family who are meat eaters. When they come around to eat and there is a meat option will prefer a veggie meal.

    Some of the quorn stuff does taste like meat especially the steak and gravy pies. Weird thing on a earlier post. I have my pie upside down on the plate while my wife who is from Harrogate will only have it upright. Us this a midland thing.

    Regarding the villa I’m quite worried about Frem as for years on this and the other site was our transfer guru. I doubt Benteke or Delph will go but with Delph as captain not being on the new kit promo does give me some concern.

  188. John Lerwill

    Jenny: “We live in a culture where “retirement ” represents slowing down and this attitude towards age is unhelpful . ”

    Well Vedanta is quite clear about that. According to its precepts the last ‘age of man’ *is* intended to be focused on quietude. But that doesn’t mean simply sitting down and being waited on … or, worse, giving up – unless it really is the time to.

    So, “Woman’s Hour” huh? I should’ve worn me skirt! 🙂

    Clearly there are no tennis fans here … I thought our Heather was magnificent yesterday. She just needed a tad more self belief and she’d have won, no doubt. Jenny – perhaps she should be a client of yours?!

  190. steamers75

    No Steamer l wont and l dont have to as he’s putting it all in his new book .

    Jenny
    no l havent got a juicer , l tried one of the concoctions our Chris drinks every morning , jeez l felt ill after it .
    lm drinking one of these little plastic bottle things every morning now , well the last 2 days anyway , tastes alright but how long it lasts l dont know , lm useless at regimes ,

    the 60s retirement reminded me of the conversation l had with steamer on wedsnesday (true story) he said he couldnt wait till he reached 60 as he wanted to be a lollipop man , but he’s on a waiting list at the moment , not good as he doesnt need a car for road rage so l cant see that job lasting ,
    JL
    l think my mate could let you use a few of his dresses if needed and anyone else feel free,
    seriously though l look at the males now and l think some of them have a bigger fucking make -up bag than the women ,
    and the haircuts nowadays , are their friends scared to tell them what cnuts they look like and when has it been cool to look like BEAKER out of the muppets,

    oh well off to throw a tennant out of my neices house … and he’s a nose , double pleasure methinks ))

  191. Mark King

    ST75- the make up might be to do with the amount of oestrogen we have the world today, birth control in the water, pesticides mimic oestrogen, soya unless fermented does the same as does plastic of all kinds which we drink, eat and wrap our foods in, worst of all its in beer.
    Its amazing we are not all Larry Graysoned up. Excess Oestrogen makes you angrier by the way testosterone is more calming for a bloke.

  193. John Lerwill

    Mark: “yes Jl the factory farming of pigs and chickens is terrible but thankfully more people want an alternative and farmers are responding. luckily this country is way better than most in animal welfare.”

    The people can pressurise for more and more humane treatment as much as you like, but if *you* realised you were just about to be end up as pork sausages, would you be too happy?

    It is extremely difficult to eradicate fear in animals as many realise what’s going to happen to them … and what many people do not realise is that the fear creates a chemical reaction in the animal which by itself can harm the meat to be subsequently consumed.

    There’s in fact much more about food to know about …

    Be *very* careful in what you eat is the basic credo that makes sense, even to the extent of the attitude of the person who cooks it for you.

  194. steamers75

    l remember reading an item on the oestregen in the water due to the birth pill, thats why l stopped drinking water , but l suppose it explained the strange way Steamer and SWW started walking funny and why sww always insisted on throwing his football bag into the middle of dance floor and we all danced round it but I DID draw the line when he asked me if l wanted to go to the toilet with him , like the girlies used to : it explains it all !!!

  195. Mark King

    Jl fear does cause changes in chemistry in the animal but i dont suppose being eaten by a lion would be a step up however natural. Experiments with plants have shown they react to being attacked and produce chemicals to defend themselves some good for us some not. They have been shown to react to intention too, responding to love and hate, even music affects them. At what point do you stop at ? All life has feelings IMO.the exchange of energy that eating provides is part of being alive in this world, energy doesnt die it just changes . I like the red Indian idea of thanking the animal and not so long ago that happened at every dinner table when grace was said

  196. John Lerwill

    Mark,

    Yes, of course, all life *does* have feelings. But I was of course alluding to more advanced forms – there are differences in their levels of experience and awareness.

    All of what you state is true, but it doesn’t get away from the fact that more advanced creatures are usually treated as being no more advanced than plants when it comes to them being viewed as food, added to the issue of the affect of their slaughter on the human body.

    Your last sentence is very important as a practice, but still does not mean that the killing of animals is what we should aspire to when there is an alternative.

  197. Mark King

    Jl im not convinced of the alternative as vegetarianism doesnt suit everyones biology. The japanese have best health overall despite smoking a lot and they’re not vegan . some nutrients are hard to find in the plant world b12 being the obvious one. Im am increasingly convinced that the creatures living inside our gut hold the real key. Anti biotucs and pestacides are massive problems because we rely on our gut biome to produce so many components of health for us and we regularly drop bombs on them

  200. Mark King

    Jl on tip of that agriculture is and has destroyed the soil biome herds are part of the soils cycle. The plains in america have deteriorated since the buffalos were culled and our soils are 60 years from collapse

  201. steamer

    How can you expect animals to be treated humanely when you get the Buck House mob killin’ and shootin’ for pleasure and the Tories demanding a vote on whether to re-introduce huntin’ with dogs, lets hunt these peasants down they’re sick.

  204. steamer

    All over on Wednesday, staff meeting at Holte Suite at 4pm, new owner announced, in fact the owner may be announced on Tuesday, but no more suffering under this knob.
    Favourite is Arison but the bloke who’s just left Nike, Phil Knight, has been mentioned, $23b, but i think thats wild speculation, he’s 77.

  208. John Lerwill

    Steamer: “(wanted)… new North Stand with museum”

    Trouble is I’m soon to leave Brum! 😉

    No matter I’m sure they can find someone to totally misrepresent Villa’ history … as they usually do, sorry to say.

  209. Heroes-and-Villans

    I thought ts would do an oneil and buy british. Likeing the links so far though!!

    Id make begavic top priority. Would be an immense signing.

    Off camping tomoz for 7 days…no phones, tv ipad etc…..so guaranteed takeover will happen!!!!

  210. steamer

    Bloke on another site reckons his brother was listening to his happy box and they were talking takeovers, they said that Olbyon was going Chinese but Villans will be surprised that our mob are American and Venezuelan oil barons, where’s me ten gallon hat, time for a gargle.

  211. Mark King

    I think paddy reilly is having a say in the targets seems similar to lamberts links but higher price. No doubt ts gets the final say in the buys

  212. steamer

    B62,
    Did you know that you’re being compared to Frem in the misery stakes on TBAR ? Frems taking some major hits.

    Villa reserves at Boldmere St Mikes on Friday 7-30 and 1st team at Fulham on Saturday 6-30.

  213. B62 Villa

    Steamer
    I did notice, it’s an ok site when there’s not much traffic on here, I only really use it for the takeover stuff, but they are very precious about being overly positive regards the takeover. I don’t think it will happen anytime soon, and have posted this explaining why( basically because Lerner is an idiot when it comes to business and all things Villa, and hasn’t made a decent decision in his tenure yet). Frem is given a fair bit of stick on there, due to his downbeat view on all things villa, which is understandable given the last 5 years.
    I don’t think the meeting weds will reveal a takeover, more of a restructure and general staff meeting for the upcoming season. I’d love Micky Arison to take over but can’t see why either him or the Nike guy would want to buy us.

  214. runtings

    good morning all

    b62 i really do understand why you would think randy would mess up the sale

    But lets not forget we support a massive club that only needs good management and investment

    its been like a bad dream the best part od 6yrs but things can change very quickly in football – it wasnt so long ago we were feeling sorry for cteh fans as the fell out of the top flight

    i have a feeling our time is finally coming

  215. steamers75

    Steamer
    check your bloody phone ,lv been ringing you since yesterday have you sat on the silence button again, dont make anything for tea ,lm getting you a seabass . was told about this shop last week its on the coventry road by the old Plough and harrow , see you laters . its called Grillz if anybody interested , pity you dont eat steaks though steamer , had one last night , l wont be eating again till tea time

  216. RichardS

    Regarding Benteke and Liverpool The following quote really pisses me off.

    ‘Benteke remains of interest but there has been no dialogue with Villa or bid and that is likely to remain the case unless the Midlands club show a willingness to reduce their valuation’

    Why should we lower our valuation? The fact is we don’t want to sell Benteke. So Brendon why don’t you put up or shut up.

    And it is beyond me why Benteke would consider Liverpool. With the average signings they have made and the disastrous end to their season Rodgers is under serious pressure. There is no way they will finish in the top 4.

  218. steamer

    Richard,
    Exactly, they expect us to lower the fee unreasonably and probably drive him to binland, they should realise that they’re no longer a prime destination. They know the clause so either pay the ee or STFU. Bizarre that they pay stupid money for crepe and yet won’t pay the rate for a proven goalscorer.
    B62,
    Yes, they seem a good bunch on there, good humour too.
    It maybe someone quite unexpected if it happens, i emailed my mate Vlad Putin and asked him to buy us but he’d down to his last 70b. I think it is happening although a few folk seem to think that the idiot will appoint Fox as chairman and stay in the background, can’t see that one happening.
    Runtingz,
    like you, i can’t see what the problem is, possibly bad press by the London media about Brum as well as Villa. Probably just Lerner being a twat.

  219. RichardS

    The audacity of Liverpool – they place a 50 million price on Sterling and are sticking to their valuation. They then appear to be ‘losing patience’ with Villa because we will not lower our release clause of 32million for Benteke? Try and work that out? The release clause is 32 million – not a penny less.

    Who scored more goals last season? I believe it was Benteke and he has a 1 on 2 games scoring ratio, he is also a young talent so has future value to any club.

    I think we should retain the services of Benteke for one more season. It is the European Champs next season and a good showing from Benteke will retain his valuation regardless of how many goals he will score for Villa. And he will score goals.

  220. steamer

    100% agree Richard.

    Been thinking, and it bloody hurts, a big what if, Collymore talking about changing infrastructure, Wanda don’t take part in decision making at Atletico and talk of Fox becoming Chairman, right ….. Wanda buy Villa install Fox as Chairman and stay a silent owner just topping up funds with a few million here and there. Could happen….in my World.
    One other thing, Phil Knight who’s just retired from Nike employed Fox once, although i don’t expect him to enter.

  221. Jenny Truman

    For all you foodies on here – Mary Berry Bake Off is on as I type 🙂
    With all the talk of vegetarian diets – and seeing the amount of fat I had on the BBQ drip tray from cooking meat , I decided to cook quorn burgers and Linda McCartney sausages on the BBQ yesterday instead – verdict very tasty . Then thus morning the girls beautiful lop eared rabbit Bertie ,died in his sleep , In going to have a go at being a veggy . Enjoyed reading your story Haggis and of course all the evidence from John and Mark . It’s for love of animal reasons more than health tbh-.
    Benteke – agree Richard S – infuriating listening to Talk S and reading the stories assuming AV want to sell him and we will have to lower our price – no we won’t because we don’t want him to go !

  222. Mark King

    Jen- Be careful in assuming saturated fat is the villain it is a false assumption. Sugars from all carbs in excess cause far more systemic damage, as do high omega 6 fats (sunflower etc) especially when heated as in most pre-packaged foods veggie or not. From a health stand point nothing that has been tampered with by industry and packaged is much good.
    A lot of information we use today is taken as fact is based on bad science and swayed by commercial concerns. Its no surprise the rise in obesity has come with increasing access to these type of suedo foods and high fructose corn syrup in pop and most packaged food. After all this is how they fatten cattle and chickens in the states

    http://www.marksdailyapple.com/saturated-fat-healthy/#axzz3f5pbmNxZ

  223. Mark King

    PS. By all means try veggie but do it with real foods and consider adding organic free range eggs and wild caught fish occasionally plus kerrygold (grass fed)butter on your vedge ( you will absorb more vits etc). Most veggies I see eat convenience foods and Pasta a lot it doesn’t end well.

  226. Mark King

    steamer- sorry about bertie, fructose goes direct to the liver then on your harris if not burn’t off immediately. Its the ideal fat storage fuel, in colder climbs fruit appears in autumn and is great for fat storage to see you through winter. Not so good in a huge fruit juice or pop or food 24/7 all year 🙂

  229. steamer

    Some sites are saying that the takeover has fallen thru’, i don’t think it has but then again i know bugger all.
    The papers seem united in as much as CB and Fabia are off.
    Disgraceful PR by AVFC yet again,they surely realise that folk have to commit to season tickets, or not. Lerner hasn’t a clue about anything, he just lives in his own bubble, sod everyone else.

  230. Mark King

    steamer its bloody frustrating is what it is, not one release of intent on any front. just crap about how much the players love each other, the club, their wage.

  232. Haggis

    As mentioned I have been a veggie for over thirty years and touch wood, rarely get ill. I cook mainly from scratch ( no processed sauces etc ). I was given a Breville Halo heath fryer for xmas and for someone who prides themselves on their culinary skills. I use it all the while, not only for health but convenience. I tend to put my veg in there a couple of sprays of olive oil and done. As it has a stirrer it evenly cooks the food. It as been brilliant for making antipasti. Chips are brilliant in there but only for a treat now and then.

  233. Mark King

    If we are to take anything from this I’d say it points to a takeover, many players have been sold/ released we have bought a £9m player ( who was being looked at by much higher placed teams) and we are looking at and are being linked to similar priced players as well as quality youngsters. On top of that there doesn’t seem much panic over season ticket sales that usually happens? this at least gives some hope

  235. Rags

    I wonder if the delay in the TO has anything to do with the Benteke transfer. I’ve no idea how it works but if I’m selling a club I might wanna cash in on the prize asset first and take a percentage of the fee with me. On the other hand you’d think whoever is in prime position to takeover would want to push the deal through before the benteke transfer. Also if benteke is sold for a 5th of the clubs value does the market value change? Im probably thinking about this a little too much, I’m going to lie down.

  236. Andrew P

    Haggis “Weird thing on a earlier post. I have my pie upside down on the plate…”. This is bad. It’s the morris dancer who eats his pies upside down and it’s not a good thing.

    MK, most important culinary question, where do you stand on Scotch eggs?

  237. Mark King

    Andrew P- I would stand on the fat end its easier to balance 😉
    but otherwise if its home made would be better and not full of
    preservatives but otherwise not in the same league as Crisps and coke etc in the shit stakes

    Rags- good point but so would all the other players leaving to a lesser extent. not sure what percentage the players are as part of buy out. business’s are bought and work forces sacked. usually it goes on turnover? assets I’m sure account for some but how much?

  240. Haggis

    Thanks Mark. Been having coconut milk as a health alternative lately, so will try out coconut oil.

    Andrew P it is only the pukka size Pie, you have to turn it upside down to get it out of the foil, I find it a pain to then have to turn it around for the missus.

    How long as it been since it was made official that one contender of the take over had exclusive rights. It said it would be 6 weeks

  243. Andrew P

    JL, I ignored that one. As you know a scotch egg isn’t Scottish which is bonus and it’s not really egg-shaped either, because by the time it’s been wrapped in sausage meat it’s becomes more spherical and less ovoid.

  246. Mark King

    andrew P- shame the scotch egg isn’t Scottish it would have more chance
    of getting its objectives through in parliament and a cushy life

  247. Andrew P

    MK, it wouldn’t work though because jock food is all deep fried and heart disease inducing and scotch eggs are … oh, hang one, yeah.

  250. Mark King

    runtings where from? although if you read the book I just posted up it probably isn’t good news, this moral stuff is bloody difficult 🙂

  251. Jenny Truman

    My head is spinning now – what do I do right for doing wrong or something like that .
    Thanks a Steamer for condolences re Bertie . Whilst he was only a rabbit , I can’t believe how upset I am. Whilst there are majorly bigger tragedies of course , his passing was so sudden

    Re veggie ism and pesticides . I an dud trustful of this so called ‘organic ‘ stuff. How do we know they don’t use pesticides . I would prefer my fruit and veg not covered in poison of course but bar growing my own ( tried and the slugs and weeds won) i just wonder if were not being taken for a ride . Can washing and rinsing remove them?
    I don’t eat ready meals but what’s this about olive oil mark ? I thought it was this element of the med diet that made it so healthy ?
    I always hear up olive oil for stir fries etc ???? Also , didn’t even knkw you could get grass fed Kerry gold . We use the spreadable butter – I am suspecting it has loads of bad things in it now . Off to order vegetarian cook book – any recommendations ?

  252. Mark King

    jen its a minefield I know. No you cant be 100% certain on organics but they are pretty well regulated, far more than standard stuff that has 100% been grown on poorer soil with pesticides. there are some delivery services that deliver in season stuff from local sources and they are cheaper than store bought veg. £17 ish for a family size box for the week.
    Olive oil is very good but when over heated as in frying it spoils rapidly and forms trans fats the stuff in marge, I use it as dressing for salads, veg etc.
    most beef/milk products from Ireland are pretty much grass fed as there’s so much grass its cheap. Even the Uk is pretty much for the same reason. gives the meat/dairy a whole different fat type, more omega 3 than 6.
    Grain actually makes cattle ill and that’s part of the reason they get so many anti-biotics in the states.

    some fruit and veg have less or no pesticides even though they are not organic

    http://www.ewg.org/foodnews/

  254. DarrenO

    Thank god, pre-season kicked off, it means TS is around to answer questions and will replace some of the media bullshite created in the vacuum of actual news.

    So when asked directly does he want to keep Benteke the answer is yes, now we are all clever enough to know everything has a price but where has Villa PR been to say Benteke will remain a Villa player until the manager/board has agreed to the sale and we get an opportunity to bring in a replacement for example. Beyond Lerner, Villa PR have my focus as part of the current ineptitude of this club.

    All this food talk has gone over my head, I’ve no knowledge around it and have only recently started to eat based on an approach around healthiness as opposed to an approach based on if its in front of me. I’ve cut out a lot of processed food but economics plays a part in what I pick as much as whether my chicken was allowed roam a large field filled with insects, seeds etc.

    I get that animals have basic instincts of hunger, tiredness, survival etc but I find the transference of fear as a contaminate to be highly subjective, the human diet has survived an omnivorous approach for 1000s of years without once being called into question so I’ll never get the vegan doctrine around healthy eating or the sanctity of the animal. There is only one diet and that is a balanced one, the right amount of vegetables, fruit, meat and dairy combined with activity.

  255. Jenny Truman

    And another question – I have a room humidity fragrance diffuser which uses very diluted fragrance oils – the sort you get to burn in oil burners . I’ve looked on bottle and no list of ingredients. But after the scate on scented candies I’m now wondering whether I am pumping more poison into the air . Mark ??? Fresh mint and grapefruit , my current choice is preferable to wet doggie smells !
    Sorry for the detour from football – but it sums up what’s happening at our club !

  257. Jenny Truman

    Thanks for the links Mark – I will take a look at the vegan book .

    I agree DOR – this failure to come out and say “hands off Delph and Benteke – they are going nowhere ” whilst difficult maybe in Benteke’s case as he has said he wants to move , would at least be more encouraging for new players to join – as currently it appears that our best players are moving . Who is going to want to join a 17th struggler , with the players that kept them up all being sold on the media . I wish Delph would come out and make his intentions known as strongly as he did when he signed in May. Too much to ask I know but poor old Micah Richards must be wondering what he’s signing up to .

  258. Mark King

    I’d say it would be better than the commercial fresheners jen but not really looked into it, I doubt its at a very high heat though for safety reasons.

    might have to start Astonvillahealth at this rate with JL as our spiritual guide 😉

  264. John Lerwill

    Organic Stuff

    Well I’ve got a cuz who ran an organic smallholding for some years as well as an organic shop in Shropshire. He now just runs the shop but checks the quality of the stuff he retails.

    Incidentally, I eat very little “organic stuff” as I’ve always reckoned that the metal-plated stomach I’ve developed over the decades isn’t now too bothered about extra healthy food, and I often get good Indian food cooked by my wife with all the right herbal ingredients.

    But I will say that I much prefer organic milk over the normal. My wife – who has got a touchy stomach at he best of times – is very comfortable with organic milk (as sold in the supermarkets). Costs more, but worth it i.m.o.

  266. steamers75

    well l went in the caff and ordered a full english and asked brendan if the bacon, sos,blackpudding , eggs , beans , toms , bread n Butter was organic , and if the tea was de-caf and if the milk was soya or organic , l cant put on here what he said as l know matt is very busy and would have took ages to delete the expletives , so l dont think its going to work for me , although l have started slicing my corned beef with a razor blade to get a thinner cut ,
    only take over l have heard about lately is our chippie ….oh hum

  267. runtings

    🙂 Mark – Sally James and felicity Kendall are two of my all time fave women so watch out if your going to be felicity 🙂

    the links to the spending war chest are surfacing mainly on facebook , but from some of the good sources on there also on twitter

  268. Mark King

    JL it could be your the lucky bugger who can smoke 40 and day drink loads and dance until dawn or you could just have good detoxifying pathways 😉

    Also being one of if not the oldest member on the site your grandmother on your mothers side would of eaten pretty unadulterated foods and given you a decent head start. The kids of today will not be so lucky as the rates of disease are climbing, if your kid isn’t autistic these days your the odd one out

  270. runtings

    hahaa – i am pretty sure there are thousands of guys out there that had there hormones doing cartwheels on a satuday morning because of sally 🙂

    great show – nothing in the same class since and so many stars born from the show – including dawn french who was a producer and lenny henry who she pulled

  272. Haggis

    I was on Tiswas twice and sat next to Sally James.

    One of my claims to fame was being told to f**k off by Joe strummer when the Clash were on Tiswas. I was a 11 year old plastic punk at the time.

  273. Haggis

    Tim Sherwood arrived at Bodymoor Heath for the start of pre-season training today and roared out the message: “We have to do better.”

    Sherwood will oversee his first pre-season as a manager as he looks to get his players in shape ahead of the 2015/16 campaign.

    Villa boss Sherwood will this morning run the rule over his troops – including new boy Micah Richards, who joined this summer on a free transfer from Man City.

    The claret and blue chief will be demanding progress this term, after finishing the last campaign in 17th position in the Barclays Premier League.

    He also admitted he’d love another FA Cup final appearance.

    Talking to Sky Sports, he said: “We’re looking for an improvement on last season obviously.

    “It would be great to go to Wembley twice again, like we did last season and improve on our league position.

    “We’re looking to push up that league and not be in a relegation battle.”

    Sherwood said it wasn’t easy over the summer to forget about the frustration of a Wembley defeat to Arsenal in the showpiece at Wembley.

    But he stressed it’s onwards and upwards now.

    He added: “It’s not easy because what everyone remembers out there is the cup final. They forget that Villa haven’t been in the final for a long time.

    “It was a case that we didn’t perform when we went there and we have to take that on the chin.

    “Overall we have to do better. But I think our fans will take another couple of appearances at Wembley Stadium this season.”

  274. John Lerwill

    Mark: “Also being one of if not the oldest member on the site your grandmother on your mothers side would of eaten pretty unadulterated foods and given you a decent head start.”

    You’re not daft are you… ? 😉

    Yes, my grandmother (on my Father’s side) in fact effectively brought me up during most of my first 7 years and she was the mistress of the house when it came to knowing what was right for her family. She was definitely out to get all that was needed to get her 6 six sons started in life and then her grandchildren.

    When she first moved to Billesley (Yardley Wood Road) the old farm still stood (pre-1925) and off she would skip over the fields to get her fresh dairy products. But the family first lived in the Billesley area around 1902 and she mostly got her fresh produce from the local farms from that date.

    My maternal grandmother was also on the ball but a bit more poorly off. I suspect they did not eat quite so well on that (Alum Rock) side of the family. But I’ve been very lucky with both sides of the family so far as the basis of upbringing is concerned.

  276. Andrew P

    Haggis, that’s a good story. What had you done to upset Joe Strummer? I got told to fuck off by Lee Hendrie once, but your Strummer wins all hands down. Do you still listen to The Clash?

  277. runtings

    love that story Haggis

    my claim to fame is many moons ago i attended a match at Telford utd vs England 66 team when gordon banks was the manager and he arranged the match to raise funds

    all us kids ran onto the pitch at the final whistle and i ran staright towards bobby and jackie charlton – jackie gave me an almighty clip around the ear and told me to get off the pitch – bobby was laughing his head off — didnt wash my ear for years 🙂

  278. Haggis

    I was just being an annoying 11 year old shouting Joe, Joe, Joe. I haven’t listened to The Clash much lately but think they are brilliant, although I did put some Mikey Dread on last weeked while having a Fifa night at my mates ( winner chooses the music ).

  279. DarrenO

    I think therein lies a problem for me in terms of my extremely fast paced lifestyle (please note sarcasm) and not having time to read the label, so the balanced diet I referred to earlier bar fruit which was a luxury and not as much meat as freely/cheaply (not mentioning quality) available as it is today, that balanced diet existed up to the 1960s in terms of Ireland. As per a previous post on another thread Irish men were very popular recruits to the British Army and mostly because of outdoor lifestyle and diet when so many British privates were working in industrialised areas and not eating as well as a previous generations and in difficult living/working conditions.

    Ireland today remains a country dominated by the agricultural industry and service industries in the cities, large scale manufacturing is the preserve of multinationals located in Ireland for EU and tax break reasons so while there is a propensity to follow the Western childhood obesity issues, it won’t truly manifest itself until after the UK has already suffered this and of course the US is particularly well known for this issue.

  281. Andrew P

    Nice one Haggis. How did Mikey Dread go down with your FIFA mates? He died a few years ago didn’t he? I know it’s all subjective but I’ll take Mikey Dread over Lionel Richie any day of the week, and the Clash were the best band ever bar none.

  283. Haggis

    My mates parents are jamacan. He does love his reaggie but hasn’t listen much to Mikey Dread. Ilove my 70/80,s reaggie but struggle with sound clashes. I mean play a record for 5 seconds then slag off the other competitors for half hour.

    I can,t argue that The Clash are the best band bar none.

  284. steamers75

    Tiswas nearly caused a riot in Liverpool . 6 of us got into scouseland at about 10 am and went in the anfield pub and we asked the gaffer if we could put the telly on , we put Tiswas on and sat there , then about 10 scousers came in and after a while one of them wanted to turn it over , and we said no way and he asked the gaffer who told them that they were here first so its up to them but he persisted that this was their pub , but fair play to the gaffer he said no , and we were’nt changing , pissed him off but we took no notice then more and more came in and it started to get a bit hairy but we stood our ground still , and watched it to the end , then we said here your are and gave him the remote , it was beginning to kick off a bit and JB said one onto one if you want it , nothing happened l think we would have got killed really , but thats my Tiswas story , 20 mins later about nother 20 of the steamers came in and the Tiswas song came out and the dying fly was performed on the floors and tables , who said scousers have a sense of humour , its a fucking myth

  287. steamer

    Isn’t Lionel Ritchie the new no1 in the charts ?

    The Clash could have been very good if they’d learned how to play their instruments and sing.

  288. steamer

    Runtingz,
    Telford had Banks and followed him with Geoff Hurst didn’t they ? they were both crepe, Stan Storton followed them and built probably the best non-lge team iv’e seen, Colin Williams, Eddie Hogan etc. Used to be in a couple of teams with the captain, Tony Turner.and Paul Coton lived round the corner.

  291. steamer

    Mark,
    You could earn a fortune on Chelmsley Wood shopping centre selling your dietary tips and giving advice, they must be the fattest gits on the planet, everyone i saw today had a pie shoved in their odge and a spare for later. I thought there was an audition for Sumo wrestling.

  294. Mark King

    precisely why I don’t steamer, most think the word fast should only come before the word food mate. Maybe as TS is a cockanee these foreign lads think we’re in London by the pond

  296. Paul Pears

    You missed out Ginola Steamer…..

    and I am in competition with JL for being the oldest here, and brought up on fresh produce, milk,eggs etc, in the days when you took a jug to the milkman on hois horse and trap and he drew the milk from the churn. In those days all the milk and bread floats were horse drawn, and my Dad then had the droppings for his veg in the garden. we also had our own hens and ducks, when Acocks Green was still a village…….Everyone was healthy..and there were no vegetarians, or womens libbers….etc…and we had a golliwog on our jam jars..!!…and of course football was played with a leather caseball with football boots that could crack shins…

  297. southwestvillan

    Just watched the video of the first training session, blimey talking about diets and health foods take a look at Wilkins I reckon he has been on the seafood diet, either that or he is lodging at Gabbys gaff, makes me wonder who ties his boot laces.

    AVFC

  298. runtings

    wow steamer you actuallly played at a good level of the game then — telford’s ground has to be the best outside the football lge now

    mark loving the Avani video – he looks like a real talent – would be buzzing if he signs for us

  299. Mark King

    paul p- that’s how it should be mate, these days our food has more air miles than Michael Palin. A return to local produce would work wonders. Unfortunately the discovery that they could sell you some cornflakes (which cost them less than than the box to make) and make 80% profit has ruined the world.

    The obsession with mono-crops and expanding agriculture is largely at fault for global warming, extinctions etc by destroying habitat. Of course sun cycles etc play a part but carbon can be laid at the feet of industrial agriculture. Growing these crops takes massive amounts of oil for fertilizers, tractors, transport and ruins the soils ability to contain carbon. The run off fills our rivers and Oceans with chemicals, you have to ask is the price worth paying? is that bowl of mainly health destroying grain worth a global catastrophe. Life is actually “life and death” a cycle with each creature playing their part to support others, we seem determined to cut the death bit out as its unpalatable and in doing so are dying sooner and taking the rest with us.

    morning rant over have we been bought yet?

  300. Mark King

    runtingz- another £9m rumoured purchase, that £90m could be right mate
    he looks good for that money though, richards, Amavi, gueye the quality is climbing. Will be great to see how they gel with delph, gardner, Grealish and others

  301. John Lerwill

    Mark: “The obsession with mono-crops and expanding agriculture is largely at fault for global warming, extinctions etc by destroying habitat. Of course sun cycles etc play a part but carbon can be laid at the feet of industrial agriculture. … we seem determined to cut the death bit out as its unpalatable and in doing so are dying sooner and taking the rest with us. ”

    Well, that’s how you see it as it is! As I keep on saying, the world is coming rapidly towards a big change that will see a new dimension and all the material arguments will disappear.

    If you were to think back, people got very excited about December 21, 2012 – remember? The so-called end of the Mayan calendar.

    That date actually in fact signalled the start of a much more pronounced change in the universe and the affect of that on mankind is its spiritual “uplifting”.

    The author John Major Jenkins wrote the following (some 15 years ago):

    The Mayan civilisation decided to end a great period of time on December 21, 2012. This will be the end of the ‘13th baktun’ in their Long Count calendar. The solution to the enigma involves the precession of the equinoxes. In the years around 2012, the December solstice sun will be aligned with the centre of the Milky Way galaxy. This Galactic Centre is located between Sagittarius and Scorpio, and was thought of by the ancient Maya as the Creation Place in the Sky, the Womb of the Great Mother. This alignment of the solstice sun with Galactic Centre occurs once every 13,000 years. It is equivalent to the moments of noon and midnight. The alignment of 13,000 years ago that was responsible for the Golden Age of light involved the June solstice sun and the Galactic Centre. However, the alignment that culminates in the years around 2012 involves the December solstice sun, the solstice of death and rebirth.

    Thus, we are experiencing galactic midnight. For human beings on earth, the period of increasing spiritual darkness is about to end. We are going to ‘turn the corner’ and enter a phase of ascension toward the next Golden Age, when spiritual light and consciousness will dawn into the world again. The coming galactic alignment is a cosmic event that invites us to grow spiritually. It is built into the Divine Plan and identifies the time we live in as a time of rare opportunity for our growth.

    We can identify this period of shift, the Global Shift, as stretching between 1980 and 2016. It is fascinating how the Maya insightfully encoded knowledge of this future alignment into their calendar. They also encoded this galactic alignment into their basic institutions. For example, the Mayan ballgame is a metaphor for the sun (the game-ball) moving into Galactic Centre (the goal-ring). …

    Human beings living today have a special destiny, as Divine Plan works through the cycles of nature. But the renewal of humanity is not determined by the stars, for free will is an essential component of the spiritual evolution of consciousness. Our willing participation in these great energy shifts is required. To open up to the galactic energy of change is difficult and will transform us. But we have an opportunity to move into closer relationship with the source and centre of Life. The astronomical alignment does not ‘cause’ us to grow; rather, it corresponds to a process of awakening happening in the depths of our inner being. It is the outer symbol of an essentially spiritual revolution.

    Nevertheless, the galactic alignment of era-2012 is an open door, inviting us to grow spiritually. To do so we must sacrifice the illusions that keep us bound to dark and limited realms of existence. Let us open to the light within and stretch our souls to the stars!

  302. John Lerwill

    PP “I am in competition with JL for being the oldest here”

    Well, *one* of us has to be the oldest!!!! 😉

    I’m 71 – born April, 1944, just in time to see Villa win the wartime League Cup (North).

  303. steamers75

    Hope our mate Ians ok , big fires over in canada at the moment,

    Runtins
    Telford was just having the footings put in when steamer started a kick about down there mate ,

  304. Mark King

    JL this sentence says it all for me.

    ” But the renewal of humanity is not determined by the stars, for free will is an essential component of the spiritual evolution of consciousness.”

    basically it will all be wonderful if we don’t act like knob heads, I look around and its not that encouraging. people need to be lead it seems or given hope, where is that hope? where’s the collective push toward something greater? For instance Russell Brand may be an unpalatable person for most people but he is trying to do something and all he gets is ridicule and disdain, his message is a spiritually based one.

  305. southwestvillan

    ST75,

    I remember that goal Steamer scored that day at Telford it was a beauty from 40 yards came off the arse of a Stegosaurus and straight into the top corner.

    AVFC

  306. steamer

    Thank you for those kind words SSW.
    Runtingz,
    Telfords pitch is superb, i felt sorry for their former owner ( Villa fan ) he got carried away with the spending on the new stands and went bump.
    Always thought Worcester should have made it to the FL, they missed out when they had a great team because you had to be voted in and then went into decline.
    The great non-lge clubs, Enfield etc, have died, not many left who could exist in the Lge.

  307. John Lerwill

    Mark,

    Yep, agreed about Brand – I find every individual interesting as we’re all a product of the same Father, so to speak.

    The “free will” issue is one, of course, that we’ve all been using as our way out clause for millennia, but the issue of free will is not such an open one as people might think. Mis-use free-will and we accumulate karma in ways that will cause us to either blame others or to realise that maybe there’s less free-will than we thought to get somewhere really meaningful.

  308. John Lerwill

    Mark: “people need to be lead it seems or given hope, where is that hope? where’s the collective push toward something greater?”

    You can’t lead a horse to water and make it drink. It’s an old adage that remains ever true.

    You can’t be led from outside (by other people) and hope to come to understand wisdom … it can only come from within you.

  309. steamer

    PP,
    Happy days, the rag & bone man, ice cream vendors on bikes, the old Bull Ring.
    Ah, Ginola, another one of Herberts signings to follow on from Steve Hunt and Collymore where the manager didn’t know about them arriving, the blokes a total dickhead.

  312. steamer

    Well today could be the day we rid ourselves of the idiot, kit launch at 5pm, fee on AVT. What makes me think that something more important could happen is that Jim White and the Sky mob will be doing it. Staff meeting tomorrow too.
    My worries are that Colly and Taylor are talking about ‘changes in the infrastructure’ rather than a full takeover. I expect Fox to become the big frog but is Lerner just selling a % of his shares to get investment ? Lerner has no part to play in the future of AVFC so for me its unacceptable that someone who has done so much damage could hang around any longer.
    If Peace can get 150m for that two bob club and Lerner can’t/won’t sell Villa is pathetic.

  314. Mark King

    JL it does seem a lot of spiritual advice is very vague on how to get there. And it always seems like the good times are in the future, around the corner so to speak .. the question “If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?” comes to mind because if people are oblivious to the changes has anything changed? meditation is becoming more widespread are you saying we need to look inside and wait for the tango man to appear slap our faces so to speak? that light bulb moment. Lifes and our purpose is difficult one, we tend to place ourselves above nature /creation as the chosen ones but are we really?

  316. John Lerwill

    Mark,

    I can’t (or, rather, won’t) say much more on the issue of “spirituality” as I do not regard myself as the one to say this is right or that is right *except* to say that most of what should be done comes from conscience and commonsense.

    Spirituality doesn’t provide clear-cut answers because it all depends on time and circumstance. What anyone should do at any given time depends on where they live and the circumstances pertaining to that situation. But whatever it is, the objective has to be towards the arrival of peace.

    Meditation, by the way, doesn’t do any more than provide a technique for controlling the wayward mind. Unless the mind is under control you won’t (normally) get very far spiritually so meditation is important simply from that standpoint – but no other.

  317. Clive Evans

    I logged on for news about Aston Villa and found a health clinic, a music forum and no end of stuff unrelated but interesting.
    On the age theme, for the benefit of JL and PP, I was born 13 days before Singapore surrendered to the Japanese and at the age of 15 watched a game at Wembley in May 1957.
    Anyway, I guess all this speculation about who we are or are not buying or selling is normal for this time of year. As I have commented before – I wait to see who turns out for the first match. Admittedly, this year there is added speculation regarding who will own the club.
    I trust the rate of contribution will increase to save paging down for 5 minutes to find the latest comments. You used to be able to click on the latest on the right hand side and ho straight there but not now. I still have to refresh after logging in but I’ve given up on that one.

  318. Mark King

    Its a dilemma JL, most people feel they need to be going somewhere to feel alive.
    If you are at peace what more do you need? but we are very curious beings and seek adventure and knowledge? as in all life there are opposites.

    My last question is as this golden age arrives will it arrive for all and what will it bring? like everything in nature its in a cycle but we tend to look forward to gain the final knowing or destination when in reality (or this reality) there doesn’t seem to be anything really final except being?

  319. Andrew P

    Mark, “there doesn’t seem to be anything really final except being”. I agree with you and it only gets difficult when you started looking for something beyond that.

  320. Mark King

    Just been watching 2 young pigeons fresh out of the nest, this morning they were copying there father in what he ate on my lawn and pestering him for food. since then I put out some of the Mrs stale bread and they have walked around and over it but they haven’t got a clue they can eat it?! saw an article recently that the quickest way to learn something is to see it and just copy what you saw straight away or mimicry as its known. As I write this the dad comes back and starts necking the bread followed by juniors trying to be fed, he in true pigeon fashion is trying to eat it all, well one minute of this and they now eating the bread independently 🙂

    thought I’d broaden the topics further Clive 😉

  321. Mark King

    Andrew P- its like the happy ending to a film, what next? usually more problems and the next cycle begins. Unless you take a back seat a watch it without emotion? but are you then refusing to participate in your own life which you create? I think this is why drink and drugs are popular 🙂

  322. DarrenO

    Human greed will put pay to any mass spiritual awakening, if the currency of the world was inner peace, someone would invent away to sell it and in turn have the bigger house on the hill and justify that their inner peace requires 3 internal bathrooms instead of one at the end of the back garden.

    Westernisation of the world or the thought process that greed is good and a measure of existence is the number plate on your car, how big your house is or what your job is, is ruining the world, the unfortunate drive based on advertising that is directed to second/third world countries propogates the race to greed as the 1st world is saturated and the idea that any move in the opposite direction around subsistance/eco friendly living is the preserve of hippies will mean any re-adjustment will only ever be gradual, there is too much money to lose by not selling products or services.

    I’d be killed on any return to a barter system as i’ve nothing to offer in return for a loaf of bread so while someone employees me and the money pays bills, puts food on the table and clothes on my family’s back i’m bound to the existing system.

    I don’t believe in god, god is the preserve of the dying and giving hope that at the end of life there is something more, religion is the justification of a private army pulled together in the name of a superior being’s on-earth representative aka ego maniac. I believe in humans and human decency, there are many examples of failed humans at every level but in an hour of need only other humans support each other. Belief in good humans should be promoted/honoured and not in antiquated titles but as beacons and examples to replicate, it’s only by replicating goodness can society change. If we celebrated good deeds from history as much as we celebrate/commerate bad deeds, the world would be very different, we don’t have National Penicillin Day or McGregor Day (to bring it back to Villa)

    Good news Benteke held a meeting with Sherwood just after reading Jovetic was now top of the bindippers wanted list, he now wants to play for Villa on half his salary

  323. Mark King

    Dor- some say we are here to learn so you have to assume someone has the answer. If so why not spill the beans? Every year theres more of us who are non the wiser must be a crap school

  325. Andrew P

    A bloke on TalkSport (yeah, I know, has just claimed that Villa and Spurs are close to a deal on Adebayor. Also and more interestingly they reckon that the Spaniard is going nowhere and will be back in the fold next season. It’s probably all bollocks but we shall see.

  326. John Lerwill

    Mark: “My last question is as this golden age arrives will it arrive for all and what will it bring? like everything in nature its in a cycle but we tend to look forward to gain the final knowing or destination when in reality (or this reality) there doesn’t seem to be anything really final except being?”

    There’s no answer I wish to suggest except the biblical statement: “Seek and thou shalt find”.

    The answers *are* there but have to be found through one’s own experience.

  327. Paul Pears

    Well Jl and Clive,

    You have both beaten me, just, not sure about Steamer.

    Some great players played for Telford, remember there was a great guy who they loaned to Llanidloes, when I lived there back in the late 70’s.

    Well hopefully we shall all know what is going on this time tomorrow, whether we have been organically fed or not.

  328. John Lerwill

    Mark: “… some say we are here to learn so you have to assume someone has the answer. If so why not spill the beans?”

    No, we’re not here merely to learn except to learn to know where we’re really going and to know how to practice for that.

    And as far as the beans being spilled are concerned, they *have* already been spilled many times, but clearly the beans have not been of the right taste. 😉 When you develop the palette the beans will taste better…

  329. steamer

    Only ever heard negative comments about AVTV, now i see why, typical of this club, rubbish, the admin and commercial departments ought to be booted when the idiot goes.

  330. steamer

    Suggestion to Tom Fox, anything beyond balloons and streamers obviously needs a higher degree of competence than was shown tonight, stick with the pop groups.

  331. Mark King

    that’s my point Jl its all so secret hush hush, you’ll find out if you look, why not put a big arrow over the top of whatever it is we are supposed to find?
    better still tell us in plain language anyone can understand? I have read a fair few books on this subject by various authors and none of them can explain what it is we are trying to achieve but they seem to tell it in a we know we’ve experienced it way but we are not telling you. Its like when you know you have got a surprise present and everyone else knows and wont tell 😉

  332. John Lerwill

    Mark: “why not put a big arrow over the top of whatever it is we are supposed to find?
    better still tell us in plain language anyone can understand?”

    OK, let’s put it another way. If there is a buried treasure hoard to find, do you put placards all over saying where it’s buried? No, you don’t. It’s a simple issue and leaves it to the *sincere* seeker to find the answer. No sincerity, then no answer. You want to find it to satisfy intellectual curiousity? Again then no answer will be found.

    That’s as much as I will say.

  333. Mark King

    JL- If you genuinely cared about those who don’t have your wisdom maybe you would? there are many ways to be sincere but if you do not know what it is that you seek only that something is missing or not quite right a straight answer would be handy. If I dealt with my customers questions as the spiritual world seems to do I wouldn’t have any 😉 Thanks for your patience but I’m still none the wiser

  335. proxopera

    John /Mark , have either of you read the chimp paradox yet ? Its a little bit Desmond Morris but its quite a good handle on behaviour control/ change .

    DOR ,
    With you on a lot of the above but not all of it . We are essentially high functioning monkeys and our actions/thoughts in every facet of our lives are repeated to a greater or lesser extent by every other member of our species . We will be replaced as the dominant another species sooner or later .

  336. Mark King

    Prox is that the sports psychiatrist chap think I have it somewhere, on the to do list. the way we are attacking the soil and its creatures we will be replaced by fungus I shit you not

  337. proxopera

    Yup , that’s him . The first couple of chapters struck me as low quality self-help self-evidence but as it goes on , there’s some interesting ways to review difficult situations and strategies to deal with them.

    Do you think fungi will also invent deities and supernatural entities to delude themselves that they are somehow more special than every other species on the planet?

  339. John Lerwill

    Mark: “If you genuinely cared about those who don’t have your wisdom maybe you would?”

    Only the Almighty knows how much wisdom I have and I am *certain* he/she will put me right when I pass from this life as to the errors I’ve made, and one big error I would be making is to pass on conclusions that I have learnt from my own experience when *your* life experience is specific to you and from which you have to come to your *own* conclusions – in this lifetime or a future lifetime.

    Mark: “there are many ways to be sincere but if you do not know what it is that you seek only that something is missing or not quite right a straight answer would be handy. If I dealt with my customers questions as the spiritual world seems to do I wouldn’t have any Thanks for your patience but I’m still none the wiser”

    No, there are not many ways to be sincere. There might be many practices (perhaps you mean that) but there is only one way to be truly sincere.

    The clues on what is to be done are there already in scripture – even in the New Testament. Quieten the mind by meditation if you will and meditate on those clues – or at least one of them. Such as Matt. 22:37-40.

  340. Trinity

    Mark-“better still tell us in plain language anyone can understand? I have read a fair few books on this subject by various authors and none of them can explain what it is we are trying to achieve but they seem to tell it in a we know we’ve experienced it way but we are not telling you. Its like when you know you have got a surprise present and everyone else knows and wont tell ”

    I know exactly what you mean. Their verbosity astounds me.
    I have mates who claim they know the Lord. They claim His existence to be a fact. How do they honestly know that?

  341. Trinity

    Sherwood still has a long way to get a competitive squad together, doesn’t he?
    It’ll be more of the same with the current players.

  342. Mark King

    Mark: “If you genuinely cared about those who don’t have your wisdom maybe you would?”
    JL
    I wasn’t meaning you personally unless you are the originator of theses truths John 😉
    I could be sincere in my need to know if sincere means
    ” free from pretence or deceit; proceeding from genuine feelings.”
    I will have a look at that passage mate.

    Trin- not just me then, on TS I think the quality level is rising, not by loads but rising

  345. southwestvillan

    John/Mark get a room FFS.

    Am I the only one who has not got a clue what these two are banging on about and I went to a grammar school there ought to be bans handed out for talking drivel.

    AVFC

  346. Andrew P

    SWV, “there ought to be bans handed out for talking drivel”. That would mark the end of football blogs, most sports commentary and 90% of political debate, and Bibulus would have to take a vow of silence.

  348. DarrenO

    Clearly Joe Hart has been bending Delph’s ear in the England camp and everyone knows they need their home grown quota.

    Obviously, Delph has sounded out Richards but no better player to explain the concept of dropping down the pecking order and being frozen out as far as Italy only to hopefully get his career back on track with Villa.

    Delph has to look at Milner to see the medal potential and the lack of game time, Delph appears to have his head screwed on when it comes to wanting to play football, the big problem is the money being dangled, now his family is secure for life on his current wage but why stop there why not secure his grandchildren as well, avarice is too powerful a feeling to ignore when joining an England camp that goes up to 200k a week or whatever Rooney is on.

    New owners, new revenues/investment and wage structure are needed fast to attract and keep the best. The competition is financial more so than it is about football, if our hopes of mid-table obscurity and avoiding relegation battles then we need to compete at that level.

    UTV

  349. Mark King

    DOR- odd that Richards should make the conversation public? maybe he wants to put pressure on Delph as he would obviously prefer him to stay, helps his own potential England return and Villas prospects. Not sure the management will like it but fair play for being honest at least someone is.

  351. southwestvillan

    DOR,

    In all honesty what has Delph got to lose other than playing football week in week out, he probably doubles his salary to play a bit part at Citeh but still retains his England place because it does not seem to harm Milner, Townsend etc, that’s why England are so shit we are full of premier reserve players but build St.Georges park and we will win the next World Cup, did I miss anything.

    AVFC

  352. Lionheart

    Isn’t today the BIG day of the BIG announcement..

    Let’s face facts.. we aren’t getting sold in the next few weeks..

    The Chinese consortium probably were interested but didn’t play Ball with how they will pay for Lerners debt/shares or whatever you may call it.. so they have done one down the road to the Baggies and leaving us with maybe a new Chairman coming in yet the guy who pulls the strings still not given the club a long overdue pot to spend..

    With all the cost cutting last three seasons.. you would think Lerner would give TS 35M plus any sales.. yeah right..!!

  353. southwestvillan

    On another site a comment from jonny gould who seems to be ITK says it looks like Lerner is staying for longer than he anticipated but is still looking for a new chairman to replace him, no takeover then and looks as if the Chinese prefer the baggies.

    AVFC

  354. DarrenO

    I don’t get the idea of Lerner appointing a chairman, he can’t be given free reign as it’s not his money going into the pot and clearly our ability to generate new revenues is curtailed by an awful Villa side for the last 5 years so there will be no autonomy in the role just another layer of bureaucracy until Lerner makes a decision to sanction ground development or player sales/purchases. It can’t be good for CEO Fox to have to report to someone else on his responsibilities.

    This is not good,in my opinion as that is all i can offer, the staff meeting today is just that a staff meeting to gee the troops up for the season ahead. Interesting tweets from Collymore/Taylor around short term developments but this transfer window is worse than all previous because there is a chance of new ownership in the offing and a new beginning for Villa, but that could all be ripped away by Randolph Lerner.

    Villa PR can you announce the official signing of Gueye just for some relief from Benteke/Delph

    UTV

  355. runtings

    I think delph would be making a huge mistake going to citeh as he will lose his england place just the way milner , barry and rodwell did — saying that i can’t see him going with what looks like a bright new future at the club

    with the likes of geuye , richards poss Amavi — these are deffo not randy lerner buys and i cant see anything than the club has already virtually changed hands

    UTV

  356. Jenny Truman

    Big day today as Benteke meeting with Sherwod to find out whether he can be released. Meanwhile , Sterling refuses to go on pre season your so looks like Pool may he forced into meeting the 32-5 mill buy out . Hopefully it will be sorted now one way or another because if Big Ben is off as he desires we need to buy his replacement without delay,. Seems like AV and Pool just waiting to see whose resolve breaks first and that’s not helping anyone . At least they know if they meet the 32-5 mill they have got a player . If this goes on until the last day we will be in an impossible situation.

    Like wise Delph .

  357. steamer

    Nothings changed from last season, the club is still a joke and the fans are still treated like crepe. Whats wrong with telling us whether we’re being sold or not ? you don’t have to mention names, just let us know one way or another, does this invade Lerners privacy ? of course not. Imo we still need a clean sweep of the admin.

  358. runtings

    West brom in big takeover talks too but nothing announced there yet either – so i won’t start panoing until tesco’s made an announcement before we do

  360. steamers75

    Steamer
    coogs granson has signed for the baggies and you wanna see the fucking picture they are using to take the piss out of us villa fans , l know my 6 fingered gloves didnt go down to well , but l took a pic of it and will put it up as my avatar , the cheeky fucks ,

    someone on here put ” an apple a day keeps the doc away ” well lv had 6 this week and got to go see mine on the 20th , (
    and today lv drank 8 diet cokes and still have’nt lost any weight , another myth !!!

  361. John Lerwill

    S75,

    Sorry apples didn’t stop you from seeing the Doc, mate. Oh dear.

    But I also should have said that eating fruit should be done either before meals or well after a meal. And you have to eat ’em regularly for some time … a sudden rush of 6 apples in 48 hours doesn’t help too much! 😉

  362. Jenny Truman

    St 75
    Forget apples , black currants are the future just like garlic bread was . Watched a programme last week in super foods and those there black currants have 100 times as many anti oxidants as blueberries . Next best is sweet potato for the vitamin stakes apparently . I’m on my way to sainsburys now to see if they do frozen black currants to put in my smoothies . Will report back . X

  363. John Lerwill

    Jenny,

    Sorry, apples will always be one of the great health providers.

    Even when an economic crisis occurs (which surely it will!) people in England can often find an apple tree to draw from!

  366. southwestvillan

    John,

    A glance at our shirt sponsors past and present will tell you where we are as a club, daffybet and quickbooks are hardly household names or bluechip companies are they, even our kit manufacturer Macron is purely second division.
    Our days among the elite have disappeared never to be seen again, we have become bottom feeders taking what scraps we can get left by the big boys Stoke,Everton etc, even watching the new kit launch I listened to our new commercial manager, his name escapes me, and I thought he sounded like he should be running a charity shop on the high street.

    AVFC

  368. Gareth Stevens

    Morning Lifers…

    I’ve not been on here for a while… was waiting for us to secure our premiership status but then after that FA Cup Final performance, I thought ‘SOD IT!’

    Not quite sure what to make of everything at the minute. Far too much silence on the take-over front, a kit launch hosted Jim White, a potentially good signing in Richards, links to a host of quality players… and then Mark Bunn???

    http://www.avfc.co.uk/page/NewsDetail/0,,10265~4851967,00.html?
    And what about this big meeting that supposedly went down yesterday? I heard all staff were sent home early?

    As for Benteke and Delph sagas, we’ll do well to keep one of them. Delph will have a lot of explaining to do if he does decide to move on but if Benteke wants to go and play for a top 4 team (or one of the chasing pack), then I have no problem provided his buy-out clause is met.

    Anyways it’s the start of a new season and my optimism levels have been restored to 75%, substantially more than when that idiot Lambert was in charge.

    I’m hoping for some positive takeover news, the completion of the Gueye transfer (and a few more like em), and some positive football… I might even buy myself a flash new Villa shirt to mark the start of new things at Villa (I refused to buy one after McLeish was hired).

    UTV…

  371. Mark King

    runtingz- the bunn transfer smacks of limited budget don’t you think, he’s not good enough for promoted Norwich but supposedly good enough to challenge Guzan and replace Given. He is known by Parkes the goalkeeping coach though.
    Meanwhile we are paying out decentish money for a midfielder, its a little confusing to say the least unless we are getting Begovic and are selling guzan? makes you wonder if the plan was that if we had kept Vlaar and cleverly on frees to add whatever quality we could on frees and buy a couple of £10m players?

  374. runtings

    Mark you could be right but my take on it as that you need an expierenced no.2 and as wec just lost one we need to replace him

    Guzan has had 2 motm in his last 3 USA outings so maybe we will keep him but like you i think we could do better

    it seems we are trying to compete with chelski for begovic but maybe he will choose to be a highly paid no.2 instead — but it shows we are looking to improve that position if possible

    if its true that TS has 90mil to spend there will be a few bargins in there – but geuye and amarvi or top class targets for sure

    still feeling optimistic here

  375. Mark King

    me too mate but they don’t make it easy for us, I’m itching to see how, Gardner, Gil, Robinson do in pre season, they are like 3 new signings if they come good. That’s on top of the new arrivals. The Bunn signing was out of the blue so Given must of been touted around or had the nod to look for a while

  376. southwestvillan

    I have been told by someone who works at Bristol City that Bunn was down here earlier in the week but failed a medical so they cut him loose, my source down here is very reliable.

    AVFC

  378. John Lerwill

    Gareth,

    Your AVFC link problem has appeared before – it’s called the ‘Mark King Syndrome’! 🙂

    It’s because of all the commas in the string of characters … there is a slightly technical way round it but otherwise readers have to do what Mark King says – just do a total copy and paste of the link.

  379. southwestvillan

    Gareth,

    Over the last 14 seasons Bunn has played 170 games and could not shift Ruddy at Norwich so to pick him up to give Guzan some competition when Guzan himself lost his place to Given tail end of last season smacks to me of desperation, we go from Begovic to Bunn although we all knew we had no bloody chance of getting Begovic but again it tells you where we are as a club, only good thing is Given was on a hell of a lot of money to be back up keeper.

    AVFC

  380. DarrenO

    Firstly thanks Given for the years of service, as someone else said not a Villa legend but an absolute professional and a credit to the Villa shirt.

    Bunn is clearly back up to Guzan but I don’t see any difference other than cheaper wages, we need need a keeper who can challenge Guzan for the number 1 spot or else it is pointless and if Guzan doesn’t have form early in the season, I can’t see Bunn being the safe pair of hands we’d need. Begovic would be a real statement of intent to fans, Guzan and the wider football public because there is a keeper who improves the team. If he wants his payday keeping the Chelski bench warm then his wife/partner and bank manager will be the happiest out of this, but a waste of a talent.

    Still optimistic of new owners and further improvements in player standards, plenty of time to get things right. Any inside track on why Delph didn’t go to Portugal????

  383. steamer

    The clubs just saved 60k per week by replacing Given with Bunn.
    Gareth,
    Nice to see you again, great avatar.
    Mark,
    Dennis Praet will be a star mark my words, he doesn’t stand still and has all the skills, brilliant.
    I wouldn’t trust Lerner and Fox with SWV’s cheque book never mind mine, the idiot seems determined to sell us to another US mob and to say he’s looking for someone who shares his vision is just plain stupidity, the blokes an utter gobshite and will take us to the Championship unless a miracle occurs.

  384. steamer

    Sterling and his agent seem determined to destroy footy, two holidays mid season last year, “too tired” to play for England, refusing to go on tour with LFC and wagging training on the first day, bet his happy to pick up his wages though. Of course Gordon Taylor’s content to watch the proceedings from afar, the bloke is totally useless. I hope MCFC pull out of any deal and ‘Pool refuse to play him for the remaining two years on his contract and bugger up his career.

  386. Gareth Stevens

    JL – thanks for the heads up re: links.

    SWV – smacks of the Lambert era but it’s good to get Given off the books.

    Steamer – avatar is quite fitting don’t you think? Doh!!! As for Sterling, what a bloody disgrace!

  387. southwestvillan

    Steamer,

    Unfortunately the players and their agents have so much power they are killing the game, Sterling will get his way and will get his move just like Barry did all those years ago but at least we had decent service from GB, Sterling has done f all in the game and holds his club to ransom but will get his £200k a week from the Cite£, Liverpool will get their £50m and the game will just carry on, the poo fans will boo him for the first season and then forget all about him.

    The game is powerless to stop this sort of thing happening unless someone has the balls to remove this continuing trend and stench from the game, you can guarantee those Liverpool fans will be cheering Sterling on next time the toerag pulls on a England shirt, the game of football is rotten from top to bottom I am just glad I have had my day watching these overpaid morons.

    AVFC

  388. DarrenO

    Better quality of player being linked is great and even at ages where there is sell on value, I think we may have turned a corner and become professional like Southampton in who our targets are, that will improve player quality and performance levels but with one eye on the fact that we aren’t at the right level to retain so we will be a selling club but on our terms (see Benteke).

    Until we get to Cheski’s level if we ever do we will have bigger clubs coming in for our players. Even being considered first in line to sign Townsend is a step up from being first in line to sign Taarabt or some other relegated player.

    Planning a few day trips fly in the morning and fly out in the evening same day to remove hotel costs but happy to meet up with a few lifers given enough notice of which games are involved. Hurry up season 15/16.

    UTV

  389. Paul Pears

    Still struggling reading through all these posts.

    Can we not suggest to Matt that he needs help now running the site, and prerhaps people like JL, Steamer, MK, Jen and one or two other could act as a forum to assist with updating articles and content.

    Still hoping for a positive takeover, and a new future for the club.

  391. steamers75

    PP
    last time steamer presented a write up to Matt , after the editing there was only ” Once upon a time left ” ))

    D.O.R
    theres a steamers meet up at one of the lads new house (Big H) . pity l have a full car and its in Halesowen as you would’ve been most welcome mate .

  392. John Lerwill

    Delph

    He does seem to be packing his bags after all.

    I am a bit surprised, I have to admit. I genuinely thought he’d give Villa another season to see how it went. So, idealism takes another smack in the face. I should learn!

  393. steamer

    Can’t even raise the enthusiasm to drive ten minutes down the road to watch the reserve team at Boldmere, Lerner’s a leech who sucks the life blood out of everything that he comes into contact with. As proven, all his fine words on arrival were bs, he can take Tom the liar and sod off, i’m having a bet on us finally taking the drop this year.

  394. Andrew P

    Steams, finish 17th, lose your best player and also the only bloke in your side capable of getting more than 4 goals in a season. I’d say Wurzel has got his work cut out. I’m gutted by Delph.

  395. Gareth Stevens

    I was so looking forward to seeing Delph and Gueye together in the middle of the park but it’s now obvious that the lad from Lille is his replacement… Gutted really!

    I really hope Randy loosens those purse strings or we are in big trouble this season.

    Give me Praet, Amavi and Austin now!!!

  396. OldVilla

    Feel completely shattered by Delph leaving …… even if we do have this other guy coming in. Obviously Delph didn’t see anything worth hanging around for. Good luck to him, hope he isn’t given a bad time when he comes back to villa with Citeh.
    Almost pleased that I am moving over to Switzerland early next year …… A young lady seems to think that we should get married
    Steamer or ST75 – do you ever go to that Cotswold pub run by the golfing chap who has known the steamers for many years? If so, let me know when you will be there next and I’ll pop along and see you.

  398. steamer

    The effect on the remaining players won’t be good either, never mind the fans, other sites are going radio. To be honest i’m fed up of being fed bs and lies by Lerner and his lackeys we had 30 odd years of lies from Herbert, is it compulsory for Villa fans to be taken for mugs ?
    OV,
    Been once, very nice too, i can never remember the name of the place, i’ll have a word with S75 its a nice day out, have you seen his ( Warren ) badge collection ? his mate has every official badge bar two since the club was formed. Congrats on the engagement mate but how will you survive away from Brum.

  399. @RonnieBiggs

    Delph departure is the biggest disappointment I’ve felt as a Villa supporter in years… young, downing even Milner I could see coming but this one really felt like being stabbed in the back!
    Ouch. Not normally a bitter person but if he were to rot on the bench it would seem like just desserts after he took the high road then made a deal with the devil in secret. We move forward with the knowledge that football is broken and the economics of the game and it’s financial hierarchy make it impossible to compete on a fair playing field as things stand. UTV!

  401. OldVilla

    ST75 – yep, that’s the place, nice pub and Warren is a good man. Mate of mine used to run the pub over the road from the Bell.
    Steamer – love the inside of the pub, villa stuff everywhere.! That’s how I got talking to warren and found we had some common ground lol.
    if either of you are down that way let me know and I’ll book in and have a swift pint with you …… or maybe push it to a pint and a half. Good food at the pub as well and a storming brekkie.
    I don’t live in brum these days steamer, haven’t for about 30 years! But obviously used to get up to VP nearly every game and travelled away back in the day ………
    Still pi$$ed of about Delph though if it’s true …….

  402. steamer

    Remember Big Ron saying that Aston Villa was now “insignificant” well we’re now becoming insignificant to our own fans, read the blogs.

  403. James Gill

    sell benteke now give sherwood all his sale money plus delph s money plus normal 20m about 50m do like big ron build new team he sold platt cas for nearly 7 m
    rather strange sherwood would start given cup final then release him 6 weeks later,thats given vlar cleverly delph from starting 11 gone wiemen lowton from bench,but also we have been fighting relegation with same players for 3/4 years
    given 53 matches four years
    vlar only managed 2 out of 3
    bent poor return
    delph 103 matches in 6 seasons
    lerner you made some great choices there
    by the way delph will not make 20 starts at city not half player milner barry where some joke signing look at milner sinclair rodwell when big match was on they where off watching

  404. Rags

    Paul,

    If you are using chrome there should be a tab in the right hand corner that says ‘find in page’ press that and type in recent comments. That will take you to the bottom of the page.

    Gutted about Delph.

  405. Jenny Truman

    Delph

    The “I’m not that sort if guy I’m in it fur the long term ” was purely to keep the fans happy and I said at the time , the way it was staged at VP – the “exciting news in the big screen” you’d have thought we were signing Messi. I don’t blame him for going, he thinks it is the right thing to do in his short career , but we could have done without the histrionics surrounding the signing as it has made his exit more disappointing for those that believed him. I didn’t , for a moment . What is more important though is the fact that if Big Ben goes we are well and truly in the mire unless equal quality replacements are found quickly . Not easy when your best players can’t get out the door quick enough .

  406. John Clark

    Jenny-

    May have been a over the top, but at the time, it was about the only thing positive happening anywhere near Villa Park.

    If the words were put in his mouth, then he’s a muppet for repeating them. Don’t say things you don’t mean, especially when you can walk on a free in a few weeks. If you can’t speak for yourself, you’re not your own man. You can say a lot of positive things about signing a new deal without seeming to promise you’re in it for the long haul. He was the one that had Villa over the barrel, not the other way round.

    If they were indeed his own words, well…He’s made himself out to be a liar, simple as.

    We can talk about the modern game, fabulous wages, silverware, giving Villa a way to get some money back, and all the rest. But at the end of the day….He does end up being the sort of guy he very publicly declared he wasn’t. He must’ve figured a £2m return on a £6m investment (minus whatever sell-on fee Leeds might get) was doing right by the club.

    Villa put a lot of faith and patience into him, much more so than Downing. Perhaps we can all safely bury the notion of “loyalty” once and for all, and whenever we hear these things coming out of a player’s mouth simply accept you can’t trust a word being said. I know many of us have already got there.

    I’m anything but naive…However, I really was taken in, thought he would be our captain in the upcoming campaign. I must have really wanted to believe. I think most of us did. We had precious little left to cling to.

    But that’s the last time. It’s taken a while, but my cynicism is now in full bloom.

  407. John Clark

    And if I do the thought experiment, turn it round, put the blame on the club, you know: “C’mon, Fabian, we need a lift, sign a deal, there’s a cheap out, make the fans happy and give them some hope…You’ll be offski and we recoup our initial investment.”

    I still end up with Delph bleating out a bunch of crap he didn’t mean, and stuff he should have known could only reflect badly on him and ultimately be demoralizing for the club and supporters.

    I can raise my hand and say I was a fool. But I wasn’t the one speaking falsely.

    Ashley Young didn’t lie to us. He just put off a deal, as he had every right to, and moved on.

  408. Trinity

    Delph isn’t different to anyone else.
    Yep, could have done without the “histrionics”, but who can really blame him for moving to a big club when he’s got the opportunity there to play with world class players. He might even win something. Sure, he’ll play less, but his family will like the extra money.
    He did stay at Villa longer than he had to and did help Villa stay in the Prem, so good luck to him.

    My only concern, is that Villa need better players in, otherwise like Steamer, I’ll bet on Villa going down. I hardly look at the OS anymore because the propaganda irks me. It’s patronising.

  409. Jenny Truman

    I think Delph did the loyalty eulogy for Paul Lambert , it was the time when the fans had turned and like you say , it was the only positive thing coming from VP. The reason his words rang hollow to me was , unless you are at Man U or are a Stevie G dyer in the wool club supporting player, how can you commit your future to a club which has been battling relegation for three seasons. The club used Delph , played his new contract up to proportions never seen before . The “big announcement” . Delph went along with it more fool him . But he wasn’t so foolish as to make sure that his exit route was in place by having the ridiculously low £8 mill clause in. Pure propaganda and now villa fans won’t believe a word the club puts out . I remember Tom Ross and Ian Taylor at the time saying “isn’t it wonderful there are still people like Delph in football – how wonderful , a loyal player bla bla . It shows what depths Tom Fox et al were / are prepared to go to .

  410. steamer

    Tom Fox is slime. It must surely be obvious to everyone that the hierarchy at AVFC is not to be trusted.
    Just waiting to see who the next Chairman is, somethings happening as Lerners jet is currently in Birmingham, and then that’s it for m, 55 years of being lied to and creped on is enough.
    Still its not all bad, Tonev’s back.

  412. Mark King

    Logic says we can’t keep selling players there must be a load of players in the pipeline there is no way ts will start the season with half a squad

  413. Jenny Truman

    Not definite Mark but Darren Lewis of Mirror has put his neck on the line saying it will be announced 24 hours . Taking the misrepresentation and manipulation of the fans , Delph and Fox must be patting themselves for such a master stroke. AV get a few million they wouldn’t have got – Delph gets his exit route assured . Yet again the supporters taken for a ride. They could have got the same result without the Delph circus and lesson in insincerity . Maybe they will justify it to themselves as being for the good of the club because it stemmed the fans discontent temporarily . It’s not justifiable to deceive IMO

    Mark – I hope you are right – TS wants a good clear out he said – maybe there will be “exciting news ” to come but it will take a lot to convince me after being misled in the past . All these showing interests to get the season ticket sales up .
    Steamer – Tonev … I thought he’s been sent packing long ago ….. Oh hell !

  414. John Lerwill

    John Clark: “I’m anything but naive…However, I really was taken in, thought he would be our captain in the upcoming campaign. I must have really wanted to believe. I think most of us did. We had precious little left to cling to. ”

    I rather suspect the Cup Final performance has had a more profound affect than maybe we realise.

    It was really a “pits” performance which maybe left Delph wondering how many years it would take for Villa to get anywhere.

    Still expected him to give it another season, though, after what was said in January.

  415. Jenny Truman

    Well Collymore and Tayls have been tweeting there’s some exciting news for villa fans over the break . Meanwhile the goalposts have been extended to each corner for shooting practice to help Tonev 🙂

    John t – you could be right about the cup final – even though Delph said straight after that his thought were on the international game – best forgotten and all that .

  416. Jenny Truman

    That aside John , compared with Tecjers release clause at 32.5 mill, Delph’s grossly under valued one was there for a reason ie freedom to move as early as he wanted , which is at variance to the loyalty spiel published from every corner of VP.

  417. John Lerwill

    Jenny,

    Yes, the 8m release clause may well have been put in to make Delph’s stay until the season end more palatable. If we can think back to January, it seemed that he was on his way out then, but they somehow got him to stay … maybe they always knew he was probably out to leave this summer if Villa didn’t achieve much. If they’d tried to stick a value in there nearer Tekkers’ figure I reckon Delph would have gone in January.

  420. Jenny Truman

    @MatKendrick: He was due to join Man City, numerous journalists were briefed to that end, but the move has now been shelved. Things change

    Tweet by Matt Kendrick

  422. Jenny Truman

    Old Villa
    Delighted he is staying particularly as it was reported he went to City fir medical . Maybe he couldn’t love with himself after all and is a loyal soul – sorry Delph for doubting you 🙂 but I still wouldn’t trust the club and I have this sneaking feeling that games are being played yet again . But well done Fabian – your suspected departure certainly got us fans in a tiz !!!

  423. John Clark

    What an interesting turn of events…Like you, Jenny, I’ll probably wait til the window’s closed to really believe it, but that sounded pretty unambiguous.

    If it is what it it seems to be, well done Fabian. Now I have to dial back the cynicism to 9 from 11.

  424. Mark King

    There is no way city would guarantee him match time and he Isn’t the same player if not match fit, most of his game is about energy if indeed he was ever off he would of risked his England place and he seems to be about more than money. I do think he will go next season though if we don’t improve drastically

  425. Andrew P

    I’m with John on this one. I can’t blame him for having his head turned by City’s offer and despite all the conspiracy theories flying around, maybe, just maybe, Delph has more than a grain of honour and self respect. Never mind a new contract, I’d offer him a knighthood.

  426. Jenny Truman

    Villa reporter Bham Mail

    @greggevans40: Delph move to Man City was 100% on yesterday. Told he woke up this morning and had a complete change of heart #avfc
    Let’s hope to his he doesn’t have another one .

  427. Trinity

    “I’m not leaving. I’m staying at the football club and I can’t wait for the start of the season and captaining this great football club.”

    Amazing Grace!

  430. Mark King

    I’m wondering if it was ever on? yes he has definitely talked to them as Richards had advised him of the realities of joining city but the use of the words ” intense media speculation” may mean exactly that they were guessing and he has never actually said he’d sign for them.

  432. John Clark

    JL,

    It was a terrible moment indeed, the final. I wasn’t so worried about the winning and losing aspect, I just hated that it turned into such a soul-crushing debacle.

    We’ll learn more, but the City deal seemed to have really been on. Perhaps Delph was simply reminded of what he’d said and he couldn’t go through with it. Or maybe he figured he’d rather not be part of a rotation, didn’t like the feel of it.

    For now, I’d like to believe we’ve actually got a man who deserves to wear the captain’s armband. It could be a defining moment for Villa, whatever the real reason is, finally hanging on to someone whose gotten the England call-up and heard the siren’s call, but managed to somehow stay on board without being tied down.

  433. OldVilla

    Spot on JC. Or maybe there is also some news that he has heard from within VP regarding the future?
    Either way – well done Fabian (for now) and he is the man to wear the captains armband!
    Not so depressed now 🙂

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