Eames

Scratch all that. It wasn't Emilia Clarke. It was the actress who played Ros hence the characters slightly jarring departure from the series. Are you sure? I vaguely remember reading something about Emilia Clarke having a agreement after S1 not to show her breasts. Wrong actress.

Breaking news..... In a shock development my fountain pen needed a new ink cartridge on a day that isn't a Friday.

Limpid is parting with VT?

Scratch all that. It wasn't Emilia Clarke. It was the actress who played Ros hence the characters slightly jarring departure from the series.

Howard Hodgson.... author of the ever so slightly self-servicing "Hodgson Report" He runs some sort of sports agency and goes on holiday a lot. He used to sit the directors box and tweeted inside/not for general consumption information. The club let it slide until he tweeted something about an injury that wasn't in the public domain (IIRC). The club said stop or leave the box and so he left the box. He's been openly hostle to the club, management and ownership since, haven't quite made up my mind about him as yet.... if its sour grapes or genuine. Still, if you do twitter if you @ him something nice about him its an easy RT.

Is there? I read an article that selling the club would be very difficult due to the debt that Lerner owns. What do make of this? http://www.expressandstar.com/sport/aston-villa-fc/2013/03/15/blog-what-if-randy-lerner-sells-aston-villa/ The article is dated March 2013. The financial situation of the club has changed with Lerner doing the complicated financial transaction thingy he did with the £90m. Nothing to see here.

Yes let's not post any speculation out of respect.

Sorry to hear your news Mike.

Not at all. Nel is being deliberately provocative and emotional. He wants to make Oscar uncomfortable. To make him emotional and to provoke him. Angry upset people dont stick to the script. NRL is looking for chinks in the story....any difference in boring mundane details like the number of fans on the balcony, will help prove Oscar's version is inconsistent and therefore lies. This is the first thing the prosecution have really got right.

Zzzzzzzzzzzzz

It seems fairly clear there's a lack of balance from all directions. To me, at least, it seems blatantly clear that the record at home is indefensible. It's abysmal. For that alone, anyone calling for the manager is on firm ground. The you can add in the oft cited record thrashing, the Bradford debacle and the rest and it's an entirely valid view to hold. Equally, there are some good points in defence of keeping the manager in his job. And these are not all based on blind faith or head in the clouds optimism or delusion. It seems clear that a club that keeps changing it's manager is setting itself up for continued expense and disruption. If we accept there;'s a plan in place to have the club sustainable, then whether we like it or not, we also have to accept that getting to that position from one where it clearly isn't and wan't is going to be a bumpy ride at best, and one in which performances and results fluctuate wildly. You cannot go from a squad of mostly end of their career, low resale value players to one of younger. lower cost inexperienced players without that ride. It never happens anywhere. The managers involved in that transition are going to get the stick that comes as a result of that. It's a heck of a job. How do you rebuild a squad, on a budget, while having few if any players of any value to sell to use the money to get better and cheaper players? You can't. Not consistently. Results will be poor to average while that transition goes on. As human beings, no-one is perfect. Mistakes will be made. Buys will fail, players you depend on will get injured, or lose form, or get suspended, or take longer to settle than you hope. Some will look bargains. Others won't. You'll look smart if you have 2 players bought to cover a position and one gets injured. You'll look unlucky if they both get injured, and you'll look daft if you don't buy cover or replacements where the squad is already weak. That's your lot. And for only some of that if much can anyone really with full justice say "you deserve the sack". No body with Villa connections likes where we are. Not a soul. Personally, the threat of further upheaval and disruption just about tips the balance towards keeping him on to at least next Chrtistmas time to see if a pattern of play, some experience and an significant improvement inhome results and performances can emerge. It's a fairly close thing, though. The board need to back him properly in the summer, injured players need to get fit and the whole place needs a lift. Blandy has spoken. [\thread]

Fair criticism on this occasion. Temper got the best of me. Apologies to BJ10.

Culpable homicide is what it will be then.

Don't you be coming in here with your logic. It's not welcome. If you haven't brought a pitchfork you can eff off back to Off Topic. If the conditions he has to work under justify club record lows then does that mean the owner who is responsible for these conditions is one of the worst in the clubs history? You could make a pretty good argument for that, yes. You could, by the same token argue he was a responsible owner because he is trying to ensure the club is financially sustainable. (Granted he is completely responsible for the instability in the first place)

That picture being shown was no accident Nel is trying to break Oscar.

Cheer for the heads up on the podcast Rev. Excellent discussion....and insight.

So you'll be happy if we increase our points total by 1 point each year and finish above 50 in around 9 years? Thats clearly not what he has said at all. Selective quoting doesn't help your arguement. It makes you look idiotic and narrow minded. What he said was:

If there is no progress BEFORE christmas - ie persistent terrible football, no improvement in results and performances. We should be around 10th in the league playing something that represents positive attacking football. BUT there are other factors that will affect this. The fans need to get behind him, as difficult as it maybe nothing will change with the undercurrent of whining and moaning. Lerner needs to put some significant investment into the club in the summer. The books are balanced now, there is no excuse not to put in at least £40m into the playing squad.

Thats a shit apology.

I demand you repay it in full and resign. Its spivs and shysters like you that give everyone with an expense account a bad name. (We've all been there)

A league table shows how you're doing compared to everyone else. It shows he's been here longer than most. Its not proof he's been here for ages and ages but it does show that in modern football he's had a while in charge now. If the job was your usual premier league managers job then you'd have a point. Jeez, I was speaking to a Derby fan who understands what Lambert has had to do better than some on here do. That's probably due to not having to pay to watch the dross served up by Lambert and his team over the last two seasons. Was it dross when we beat Arsenal, Man City or Chelsea? When we smashed Sunderland 6-1? Yes there has been a great deal of dross but to say that the entirety of Lambert's tenure has been rubbish is ridiculous. Point out where I've said that.

A league table shows how you're doing compared to everyone else. It shows he's been here longer than most. Its not proof he's been here for ages and ages but it does show that in modern football he's had a while in charge now. If the job was your usual premier league managers job then you'd have a point. Jeez, I was speaking to a Derby fan who understands what Lambert has had to do better than some on here do. That's probably due to not having to pay to watch the dross served up by Lambert and his team over the last two seasons. Was it dross when we beat Arsenal, Man City or Chelsea? When we smashed Sunderland 6-1? Yes there has been a great deal of dross but to say that the entirety of Lambert's tenure has been rubbish is ridiculous.

I'm not sure its a quesiton of "defending" Lambert some of his tactics have not been defensible. Its more a question of trying to add balance or context to his situation. The is so much more WRONG at Villa than the manager, he is not the priority change.

The vast majority of resignations as a result of scandals/poor behaviour react in this way. Dragged from office by an evil media. Cameron has shown nothing but weakness over this issue from start to finish. He isn't going to reverse himself now.

It says only four mangers in the premier league and looking at it further 21 managers in the whole football league have had had more time in the job than Paul Lambert. Is a debate for another time/thread whether mangers get the sack to soon, so I'm still failing to grasp how using a statistic which compares how long a football manger has been in a job compared to his peers is out of context when used in a football forum. Edit...misread the post. Too tired to give a shit anymore today. Night all.