John

If he was the only person involved then they have closure JulieB. I doubt they will see it in that way tonight and I think Knox thought the appeal was a very long shot.

Gabby's form (should he sustain it) has made it 2 players other teams may look at during the next window or the one after that. I would love to think that both Bent and Bent will be Villa players at the start of next season or at worst half way through this one but every player has his price and it seems that every player will make a move if it doubles his wages. I would love Gabby to be the one that shows he would put loyalty above wages and winning medals (the old excuse for leaving) but for me if he performs like he has been doing of late consistently and we continue to look to profitable player trading as a club then it is a question of when he may go rather than if. :cry:

I think her reaction said it all tonight and previously. She may not have been the killer but the evidence suggests she is not free of some sort of guilt whether it may involve her directly or Sollecito. This has a touch of the OJ decision for me and the Kercher family have no closure as things stand.

Let us not forget why we "harrassed" him. He came to us from the Small Heath board and called us merely "the men of the terraces". He turned EC winners into a relegated team in 5 years and ignored the best team we have had during the last century during his time at the club because he was not at the helm when they were at their peak. He took a huge amount of money out of the club in salary and when he sold to RL and he was also happy to name a stand after himself. Does he buy a ticket like we do to go to the games? HDE had a passion for money and the status that being our chairman gave him. His most recent claim was that he hand picked our new owner and MON. But enough of our former ruler. What makes it so sad for me now is that our bright future appears to have been allowed to become a bleak one so soon.

Yes, AVFC Bristol I see where you are coming from and I found myself wondering how long it had been since we turned out such an inept performance and I was thinking back to the days of DOL as well. I also looked back to the days of GT(2) when the lack of investment in the team led to the same sort of performances. I had hoped for more from him given a second start inside a week but felt he did not do as much as he might have done. I know he and others are young lads who are being expected to do a lot very soon and to fill big boots but like Albrighton I consider this is a big season for him the understudy and I agree he had the better game of the two by some way. 110% my concerns as well Richard!

I think getting in the positions to miss them swayed me but I take your point and I was very close to giving him a 5.

It is all about opinions KHV and I can appreciate where you are coming from. Delph and N'Zogbia both got a rating that is less than the 6 that represents an acceptable or average performance but I did not think they were quite 4s and Hutton's performance was OK for me given it was his second game for us.

I can see that theunderstudy and I thought the same myself particularly when I looked at our options on the bench when looking to winning the game in the last half hour as I can also appreciate the reaction from jasethevillain. We have to work with what we have available now and when we are a player or more down it has a big impact on a squad of the sort and size we are now left with.

We need all 3 points from this one. There was a time not so long ago that we would expect the 3 points at home against a team that are going to end the season bottom half. We now hope for the 3 points but we are hard to beat away and now need to become hard to get a point from at home. I think we will maintain our unbeaten start and hope it will be with a win. :winkold: 1-0 or at best 2-0 for me.

I enjoyed the last series although I agree he is not likely to be as dumb as the role he plays I can think of people who would react as he does at times to the situations he finds himself in. But he has a lot of competition now as there will be more than one idiot abroad in the next few weeks in Bruges and Braga for example...

Will Bent and Hutton be fit to start? If not I would go Herd for Hutton and Bannan for Bent and push Gabby into the lone striker role with N'Zog playing a free role behind him: Given, Herd (Hutton), Collins, Dunne, Warnock, Petrov, Jenas, Delph, N'Zog, Gabby, Bent (Bannan). Everton is always a tough game at their place and their mood will not be far from our own at this stage of the season so I would be happy with a point in what I anticipate will be a tight game as it so often is.

Not too long at all Naz. Thanks for a great read and it brought back a lot of memories particulary as a lad when I walked as you did towards what was such an impressive stand that had history written all over it until a former chairman decided it needed to be torn down. By the way, we refer to the stand that faces it that was once the Witton Lane as the "Scottish" stand. For the same reason it is bad luck to mention the Scottish Play. :winkold:

By the way good luck at Villa Park Enda your name alone puts you well on the way to being another Holte End hero!

Was Charlie Aitken involved in the signing? :winkold: Nice to still be considered "one of England's biggest clubs" :winkold:

Its nice to know a player would still prefer to play for us than to stay in London. Big Eck will no doubt have been the deciding factor in that decision and I look forward to seeing what he can do in our shirt with a manager who rates him and with Jenas to keep him company.

We need to get this done without further delay so we can try to get others in before the window slams shut or do they know there is no rush as there are no other irons in the fire?

We really are wafer thin squad wise now and when injury and suspensions bite I think we will hear DO'Ls lament on squad size ringing in our ears once again but what we will have left then will be a good honest bunch of lads... :winkold:

£18 on Raileasy for a New Street to Lime Street return.

Who next Cuellar to Rangers on loan? The way things are going the wage bill will be zero soon. One new player will not be enough given the players that have left but I worry if we will even get that... :cry:

I hope he does not score against us this season or ever TRS-T. I guess there will be celebrations of a muted kind if he does particularly if he scores at Villa Park and I trust he will have learned something from the reaction to badge kissing Yorke but as steve-67 has said he like Barry, Milner and Downing have left us now so any medals they may get or any progress they may make is of no odds to me but does I must admit sting more than a little bit.

A very well thought out, detailed and well reasoned post thanks for that Pete. He has them now though having made millions out of our football club Woodytom. I wondered if that term would crop up again some time soon Ironsid!

I take your well made point BB but this was Hereford at home and I think if we had started with 2 strikers we may have not taken 80 minutes to score our first. It also did not seem to me that we pushed our midfield players up as much as we might have done in the first half to make this one striker option work.

Worth signing him up again so we can get his son on board? :winkold:

Agreed Coops and that is the risk of having an even smaller squad than we had last season.

My thoughts exactly Coops. I had thought with a pre season he would be ready to hit the ground running but he seems as likely to get a game as Ireland now for some reason. As far as the wages go it feels like even 40k would be too much for us to be paying to someone we now see as a bench warmer for some reason and I like yourself am looking for that reason.