According to Mat Kendrick, Aston Villa have signed a club-record-breaking £15m deal with Italian kit manufacturer Macron. This has been rumored for a few weeks now, and on the face of things looks to be a very favorable deal for Villa. Though £15m seems paltry in comparison to the £150m deal recently signed by Liverpool with football newcomers Warrior, it's still quite a haul for a club outside of the traditional Premier League elite. Though Macron manufactures the kits of several big Italian clubs, Villa will be one of their most high-profile clients in England with only Championship clubs West Ham and Leeds coming anywhere close in terms of name recognition. That will be a major contrast to Villa's also-ran status with current kit manufacturer Nike.

Continue reading this post »

Charles N'Zogbia must've realized that his tweet was foolish as soon as he pushed the "send" button, and deleted it immediately, but Aston Villa supporters who had their eyes on Twitter caught this anyway:

Well, let's see. Villa lost a lead to Arsenal to get knocked out of the FA Cup. Stupid defensive errors meant only a draw was possible against QPR. And today, despite the heroics of Robbie Keane, the team couldn't manage even a point against Newcastle.

Continue reading this post »

While watching the match today some harrowing thoughts went through my mind. (These thoughts happened before the two Villa goals, but I think this is relevant anyway.)

Someone I follow on Twitter, retweeted something about where you will be in five years. I'll probably have died from a bear tranquilizer overdose. (In lieu of flowers, send puppies!) (Just kidding no I won't.) (No I won't?)But this got me to thinking about Villa. Where the hell will the Villa be in five years?

Continue reading this post »

It's been over 24 hours since the final whistle sounded on the Aston Villa-Arsenal FA Cup clash and I'm still somewhat confused as to what I just watched. It goes without saying that this season has been filled with very few ups and a lot of downs - and yet no one who follows Aston Villa can say that they are as bad as they've looked at times. The victory at Stamford Bridge showed us that this team can indeed play with the big boys and with Arsenal on the bottom rung of the aforementioned big boy ladder, at least this season, fans took some hope into Sunday's match at the Emirates.

I don't think I was alone in watching the last half hour of the match with my jaw on the floor. The turnaround was stunning. Over the past year or so we've grown accustomed to watching Aston Villa throw away points from a winning position but this was a level of incompetence I've come to expect from the Chicago Cubs. I have a hard time blaming Alex McLeish for the collapse as I hardly doubt his half time speech consisted of telling the team to concede two penalties and send in a clearance attempt off Theo Walcott's thorax.

That said there was some interesting deflection going on after the match through the mouth of manager McLeish. He seemed to be most upset with Robin van Persie's elbow to the handsomely bearded jaw of Villa defender Carlos Cuellar which sent the Spaniard to the deck. No foul was called on the elbow. I understand that van Persie has a reputation as a man who knows how to get away with special manuevers when in a scrum and this play will only add to his legend.

The story now is that referee Mike Jones saw the incident and as such there will be no punishment handed down by the FA. I sincerely hope this is the last we hear about this from McLeish and Villa. Getting elbowed in the chops sucks but in no way did it have anything to do with the meltdown that saw Villa's 2-0 lead disappear quicker than you can scream, "BUT MCLEISH WAS SUPPOSED TO IMPROVE OUR DEFENDING!" I understand the idea of deflecting blame - if the team is of fragile mind right now, what good is it going to do to blast them to the press after such a deflating loss? I'm certainly no expert on man management but I can't believe any player in the locker room needed any kind of reminder as to just how embarrassing that was. Perhaps that's what McLeish's intention was and if so it might actually have been the right play.

Now I'm going to get a little bit random so bear with me.

Continue reading this post »

After The Guardian reported today that Liverpool has offered Manchester City Andy Carroll in exchange for Carlos Tevez, erstwhile Villa reporter Mat Kendrick noted on Twitter that Aston Villa were planning on adding Andy Carroll before Liverpool snapped him up last January. Obviously, the club ended up with Darren Bent, who has notched nearly three times as many goals for Aston Villa as the misfiring Carroll has since going to Liverpool. However, it's worth noting that while Bent was vastly better suited to the Aston Villa of one year ago than Andy Carroll would have been, we've been through a lot in a year. Could it be that a big man up front like Carroll would give Villa more options than a poacher starved for decent service? After all, Alex McLeish won the Carling Cup last year with Nikola Zigic who—much like Carroll—is a lumbering oaf that isn't all that good at football.

So let your voice be heard! Do you think Aston Villa would be better off with Andy Carroll or Darren Bent?

In the haze of jet-lag that is my life, I missed Wednesday's story that Fabian Delph is set to go on loan to Leeds United (also, check out the amazing photo of him in the Express and Star). Aston Villa did buy the midfielder from Leeds, so perhaps Delph is homesick? Is that why he's under-performing?

Considering the sorts of matches that Delph has had over the course of the season, I doubt there are many Villa fans who would be sad to see him go on loan to a Championship side. He had such potential when he joined the club, and although flashes of brilliance have been seen, they've often been obscured by thoughtless passes and mistimed challenges.

Continue reading this post »

There's been many an article written today (the majority of them with a title that is some variation on "SHAY'S PLACE IN TEAM NO GIVEN" which is terrible) about the possibility of Brad Guzan's performances over the past month having been enough to earn him a permanent place in goal with Given being relegated to the bench. All of them focus pretty closely on this quotes from Alex McLeish:

(Given) is training with the group and it's a case of how sharp he's feeling and how confident he's feeling before we make a decision about him coming back into the team. There are no guarantees of that, obviously, because of the way Brad has played. Brad has been fantastic.

So there we have it. Alex McLeish himself, the man ostensibly in charge of making these decisions, has come right out and said Given has no guarantee of taking his place back from Guzan. Shouldn't that be enough proof?

Well, no. Not really.

Continue reading this post »

According to the inimitable Jack Woodward, Aston Villa goalkeeper Shay Given has returned to training more than a month after suffering an injury against Manchester United. No word on when he's expected to be fit and ready for action, but we'll likely know more later today; I'd personally be shocked if he's in goal this weekend but I'm also not a physio, nor have I ever even met Shay Given let alone examined him. It would be pretty weird if I had, though.

It's safe to say that once Given returns, Brad Guzan's time as Villa's starting keeper will be at an end. Guzan did very well for himself while given the opportunity, making some excellent saves and making only one major error so far as I can recall. He's not on Given's level, but he's clearly good enough to be starting for a top flight club somewhere. It will be interesting to see how this progresses; Guzan had a spell on loan with Hull City last season, but after the way he's performed this past month there will almost certainly be some interest from teams looking to bring him in on a permanent deal. If Villa can secure a replacement for an affordable sum, it's entirely possible we might see him leave. But with Shay Given being just a few months shy of his 36th birthday and not exactly having the cleanest injury history, Alex McLeish may well decide it's just not worth the risk.

In any case, as well as Guzan performed it will be nice to have Shay Given back. He was one of the few bright spots of the first half of the season, and having good, healthy players is certainly preferable to having good, injured players.