Football

January 19, 201114 yr

You're a class act, Michael and I certainly would never want to come across as smug, nor condescending about your club. Hell, an awful lot of what you just said mirrors my own views about Villa. That being said, I think it would take a lot for me to feel blind sided about any transfer at this point, possibly because every time we sell a player it takes bloody ages, but also because there don't seem to be any players in the Premiership that you can clutch on to as noble exceptions. Its not that the 'olden days' weren't dictated by money as well, its just that the broo ha ha around individual players was much less intense then, whereas now we're fed the same rhetoric from an analogue age at a time when we know much, much better.

I still get surprised by certain managerial sackings, though. Which is silly.

P.S: 10,000 posts in this thread. As Ric Ocasek once said, let the good times roll!

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January 20, 201114 yr

Very true - I'm usually fairly realistic with regard to these things, but I think what caught me off guard was the sheer speed at which it was all done and dusted. We're all getting used to protracted Fabregas-esque transfer sagas simmering in the background for weeks and months - indeed, Bruce, Quinn and Short's very public and somewhat misguided "if we receive a silly offer" policy has had us bracing ourselves for Jordan Henderson's eventual exit for the better part of a year, almost to the point of fans virtually wishing him away just to get it over and done with. This one literally went from a whisper about Bent being unsettled to a done deal in 24 hours - fast work by anyone's standards.

So I guess attention now turns to who'll be coming in. We were already short on numbers with Fraizer Campbell out long-term, and the news that Welbeck will be missing for a further six weeks has turned a pressing concern into an all-out panic. If one of the new faces turns out to be Michael Owen I'll cry.

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January 20, 201114 yr

The pace at which the whole thing happened was indeed bizarre, I came home on Monday evening to a flood of (well, five) e-mails all about us possibly being in for Bent, and then less than 24 hours later I again came home only to find the whole deal complete. Growing up I was more used to watching us mess up signing Juninho, or having to hold a pound sign in protest over Doug's refusal to cough enough money to buy Juan Pablo Angel. Oh Randy, so brash, so fearless!

When Houllier came in I did have a teeny, tiny concern that Owen might surface here, though in reality I'm not sure if even Sven's Leicester would touch 'em. Oh who am I kidding, of course they would.

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January 26, 201114 yr

Speaking of crying, I'll cry tears of joy and laughter should Richard Keys join Andy Gray in being canned by Sky. Keys' self-serving arrogance has long been a source of irritation, while Gray was too busy trotting out the same tired old theories and banal catchphrases to realise that most of them were complete crap-ola even back in 1992. The pair of them are well past their sell-by dates.

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January 26, 201114 yr

Finally Keys and Gray, two oiky, self-satisfied toads who've spouted inane bollocks for nigh on twenty years, are gone. I don't know what I'll miss more, the pedantic non-stories whistled up for "The Last Word" or the elaborate sex toy style levers Gray relentlessly messed around with on Monday Night Football.

I maintain my position that broadcasters should put Tom & Jerry cartoons on instead of a pre-match show or any half-time analysis. Trust me, it would drastically reduce alcoholism, divorce and teen pregnancy levels across the country.

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January 27, 201114 yr

Caught a bit of the Keys TalkSport interview yesterday and it was positively cringeworthy, as if he was trying to do "humble" but at the same time, unable to stop his ego from kicking in at random intervals. I can only picture him now as Alan Partridge at the bar - "Cor! I'd like to have it off with her" :pinch: