If Villa can stay up this season, which I think they will, then they're on the up. They've got some brilliant young players. Blues, no idea what's going on there. Right I've just seen the Championship table, oh dear :(

On the subject of Villa, it's always surprised me how no rich oil tycoon has bought them ala City/Chelsea, you think of the history they've got, they are top 4, arguably top 3 in terms of honours in England, the catchment area they have is massive and if an investor took them over there is some serious potential with them, all the groundwork is there. The fans are a bit annoying but you can't deny they're a great club. Massive club, dwarfs the likes of City and Chelsea.

Nice to hear, for sure, but the trouble with Villa is we always seem to fall short of our potential. Apart from that one glorious season (may have been 2005/6/7, not sure) when we were at the top for a little while, we always seem to aim for about mid-table and seem satisfied with that. Successive bad managers have not helped: I mean, why oh why did they give Alex McLeish the job? Hi! I'm Alex McLeish. CV? Oh yeah, well, I just got the other big club in Birmingham relegated. Sure, I think I could do the same with Villa! Where do I sign? :yikes:

And who among our team could you ever pick out, recently, as a really good player? People like Yorke, Hitzlberger, Young, Milner, all bright young talents who were sold on. Even people like Delfonseo and Warnock have been loaned out, instead of trying to get their best potential out of them. It seems once a player starts doing well in Villa he's on the shopping list, don't understand it. What we could be like now if we had kept Milner and Ashley Young...

Maybe Lambert's the man to change all that, but why isn't he playing Darren Bent? Or rather, why wasn't he: now he pulled his hamstring so will probably be out over Xmas... :(

Didn't realise you were a Villa fan. Are you from Brum?

I think you're on about 08/09, that season and the previous one Villa were great to watch. Agbonlahor, Barry, Milner, Young, Carew, Petrov... very good squad. Worst decision O'Neill made was to play the 2nd string in the Europa and kill the momentum, 10 points ahead of Arsenal at one point and then after that game they threw it away. CL football would have been brilliant for Villa.

It's not all bad for Villa at the moment though, they're playing great football. Bannan, Benteke, Vlaar and Wiemann are all as good as anyone who's been at Villa in recent years imo. They're young too, Villa are in safe hands.

Also there's a rumour regarding Bent that Villa can't afford the add-on fees after a certain amount of appearances, I think Bent has got 44 and on 50 they are due to pay an installment to Sunderland, something like that anyway. So that would explain why he's not being played.

OH and yeah, hiring McLeish was ridiculous. Terrible decision from Lerner there.

Hah, no I'm not from the UK even: Irishman here! But I got into supporting Villa when I had to pick a team having finally got interested in football around Italia '90, and the Villa team had more Irish players in it than any other, plus they weren't universally hated, like Man U, or made me feel like I was jumping on an easy bandwagon like Chelsea, Liverpool, Arsenal etc. Just seemed like a good fit. Nothing too out there, no terribly high expectations and the odd compliment when they (occasionally) beat a higher-placed team.

Course, all the Irish guys are gone now, but you pick your team and you stick with them, so even if they got relegated I'd still be a Villa fan.

Yeah I hear you mate.

Can't imagine them being relegated though, would be surreal. Also forgot to ask, what's BHX mean?

Oh sorry, that's the old plane-spotter in me peeking through!
BHX is the code for Birmingham Airport. It's just easier to write than the full name! :)

Seconded. However this is no reason not to continue feverishly supporting them, my cousin supports West Ham (despite having never actually visited London before) and promised me they'd be promoted for this year, Nigel Reo Coker would never leave, Dean Ashton was going to be more important in the England squad than Wayne Rooney, Paul Koncheskey was one of the best defenders in the league etc.
Not wanting to be mean, but I really am not too impressed with the League/Carling cup as a competition. I know it still gets coverage, but up our way we do tend to call it "the mickey mouse cup". No offense intended.
Ah I do have a soft spot for the Baggies. However, my last post was just a slight dig at Birmingham's massive population ratio to top class football teams. Don't take it personally.

No offense taken mate. I'm assuming you're a Derby fan? Anyway it seemed alright for Liverpool when they won it last season. I think barring United and City, every club in England would be delighted to win it.

Could be applied to the Midlands as a whole in fairness, however in recent years if there is one city that's brought success to the Midlands, it would be Birmingham. I know what you're saying though. The North West has a plethora of football clubs as does Greater London but there's not really much in Greater Birmingham.

BBC Sport - Liverpool boss Brendan Rodgers sets his sights on a top-two finish

The gift that keeps on giving. Liverpool have been a fantastic source of comedy for a while now and it doesn't look like ending any time soon.

Brendan needs to keep his mouth shut to the media regarding everything.

Player performance, team selection, contracts, transfers, just shut up, these snippets he's come up with for team perception or whatever he things it is it always comes out either sounding overly negative or borderline delusional.

I like what he's doing with the team, but stop with the soundbites.