..also, why are Villa fans on our site?!!! Keep your noses out!

It’s like the “big 4″ bite just now and the others just bark - at each other most of the time, though I think we (Toon) have more current potential than Villa, who are more solid than interesting. I like O’Neill though.

Friends and myself always have a small wager at the start of a season on how the Premiership will finish, and I put us 6th and Villa 8th. Oh, and Mackems 15th. I don’t at all hate Sunderland though (having not grown up in the North East) though I do think Keane is a t”"”"”r. This post is pretty random isn’t it!

I think Barry would be useful to us, by the way, but I’d mostly rather Sam bought from abroad…..

Villa fan here.

Very good article, this. Not really anything to argue about, to be honest, which most people who have commented seem to have realised.

Just to reiterate one small thing to all the Villa fans who are jumping around ranting and raving because they are clearly incapable of reading:

“it is hard to see why any good Villa player would want to jump ship to Newcastle and effectively find themselves back on the same boat”

So our good man is NOT saying what you presumed -that Villa don’t have any good players - but is in fact saying that although we (NUFC) may be improving, the number of good players Villa have that would make a difference at St James would either be too expensive or not be willing to gamble what looks like a good future at Villa for something of an unknown quantity in the North East.

Therefore several of you are unknowingly protesting compliments.

Good one.

VILLA FANS
are u seriously telling me u would prefer carew and agbondahor to viduka and owen

u have got to be kidding me…
every1 think agbondahor is fuckin good but hes overrated..hes a one trick pony he cant finish for shit either..

your defence isnt much better than ours currently.. and when we bring in some new faces like rozenhal and baines and taylor matures u wont even be able to compare the back lines..the ageing smellberg and laursen will be shite next season..

as for ashley young.. he looks good.. i’d swap him for duff maybe but milner… well he looks better…

barton altho a thug is better than barry.. barry is useful but really hasnt proved himself to be top class after many seasons in the prem.. and thats honestly what i think..

u;d better hope that yank puts his money where his mouth is or ur looking at another bottom half finish.. when was the last time villa came top 6… top 10 for that matter?

toon army all the way

The bottom line is that, for whatever reason, we just never sign Villa players. Apart from Nobby who was the last one? It definately hasnt been in the last 15 years.

Dean, none of them have exactly set the world alight have they, perhaps except Taylor who is future England captain, granted. Plus you bought Milner from Leeds anyway. The likes of Owen and Duff were once genuinely world class players, but now all they do is get injured and put in some very mediocre performances. If you don’t want any Villa players in your team then they are obviously not up to your standards. This is evident as you finished below us in the league.

Why would you not want the best defense outside the top four in Villa’s to replace one of the worst in the league in Newcastle’s. You must be another Geordie blinded by the ‘Newcastle is the best team ever’ syndrome.

Ive been reading the first few comments made hear and its clear u Geordies dont have a clue. Our stadium holds 42,00 not 35,000. Martin oneil is one of the most respected managers in club football and is not ‘AVERAGE’ which has been shown by the great runs of form we had at the beginning and end of the season with someone elses squad, the only reason we tailed off was cos of injuries. we have a fair few players who would walk into the newcastle side, laursen who has been screwed over with injuries will prove himself as on of the best defenders in the prem next season and genuinely world class, (stats showed we were twice as likely to keep a clean sheet when he played, Gareth Barry, GabrielAgbonglahor,Ashley Young, Olaf Mellberg, and Luke Moore (who also had a bad run of injusries) would all easily make your first team, if we get a few decent players in over the summer we will be a better side that you without a doubt.

Milner is from Leeds. You paid 5m. Remember?

Oh dear dear ‘Scott Parker’, Hughes never puts in a bad performance. The man is a joke of a player. Sorry, scratch that, just a joke. Appauling.

Very good article and read, and I would agree both Villa and you geordies will be up challengin for UEFA cup next season.

In relation to taking players from you lot I’d have Given and Martins. That is it. IMO all of our other players would walk into your team.

John and Oohh Ahh Paul McGrath where are you getting these supposed facts from, i have never said that you lot are a smaller club than us and that we are a bigger club than you, and i didnt mentioned anything to do with trophies.

If your going to come out with an argument base it on something substantial or an opinion at least, not some random comments like our club is bigger than yours or anything else like that.

I agree that Newcastle fans expectations are blown up way out of proportion to what actually happens on the pitch, but i am not one of those people, all i said at the start of all this moaning from villa fans is that i didn’t think any of your players would be suited to our team, and that you may need some new ones next season.

And Joe, not once did I say that any of the Villa players are better than Newcastle’s, I said I wouldn’t have any of them in my team.

And if Newcastle is a graveyard for once upon a time players then how do you explain, Milner, Taylor, Ameobi, Ramage, Edgar, Huntington, Carroll, all homegrown players?

Dean, are you one of those deluded Geordie fans who is always featured in a match of the day end-of-the season montage crying???

Seriously, the problem with Newcastle is that you have an unwaivering fanbase regardless of how the team is doing on the pitch (an all testament to you.) However, the expectations at Newcastle are blown so much out of proportion, you are always seen to be underachieving. Reality Check: What have you ever won??? You finished second in the league one year, so did we but that doesn’t justify being a big club.

I dont want to sound provocative as I reckon the initial article was a very well balanced piece, however, until you begin to stop signing controversial players(Dyer, Bowyer, Barton and Emre) and focus on establishing a nucleus to the team which is young and homegrown, Newcastle will forever be a middle of the road team.

How can the villa fan say he would only take milner. What about duff, emre, taylor, given, Viduka etc. They haven’t got a good enough sqaud to challenge for top 6, and wouldthey improve Villa’s sqaud? Too right they would.
dd_villa, you talk about injuries, we topped the injured player poll on physioroom all season, having 13 first team players out at one point, including Owen, Duff, Given, Dyer, Ameobi all for most of the season. We also had a totally incompetant manager who was way out his depth in charge, and having lost our inspirational skipper and talisman at the end of last season with out replacing him properly. This coupled with the shambolic running of the club from the chairman meant a disasterous season.
I don’t think Villa are a selling club, or that we really want anybody from them. Young, Agbonlohor, Barry are all excellent players, but we’ve got milner, martins, taylor and Barton. Yes Carew is class, but we’ve just signed Viduka.

They have some very good players, but so have we and I don’t think it would either financial or of particular gain to buy from them.
I think with the right investment ourselves, villa, west ham and Man City can all challenge Spurs for 5th place, but thats as much as we can hope for in the short term.

As for Hughes, a decent squad player who is a model pro, plays in many positions, but probably best at centre half. If he cost peanus I’d take him back, nothing more than a sqaud player IMO.

Congratulations James on rising above the usual knocking copy and writing an excellent well balanced article. In response I would say that Villa are now clearly moving in the right direction and with players like Barry, Carew, Ashley Young, Mellberg, Laursen, Bouma, and Petrov we now have a solid base of quality players. The real excitement is in the sheer talent that has emerged from our youth team, Agbonlahor, Luke Moore, Craig “Crash” Gardner and Gary Cahill are all technically good players and each has something outstanding about them, whether it be pace, skill, strength or attitude. We also have the likes of Davis, Ridgewell and Osbourne who are excellent young players but may well struggle to get first team opportunities. Add to this players like the tricky Maloney, the skillful Berger and the reliable utility of Hughes and there are plenty of possible transfer targets for you at Newcastle, but whether they would take you on to the level that your new owner and manager would appear to be capable of is another thing. I would expect you to be raising your sights higher than the (excellent} players who are sadly now on the fringes of our first team squad. Good luck in your search.

You lot aren’t up to much at all ? If I was a decent player I’d only be looking at Newcastle for a nice fat pay cheque.. just ask Mr Owen, you don’t really think he enjoys playing for you do you ? We have done nothing for 25 years and youve done nothing for longer. You haven’t exactly done alot in footballing terms anyway have you ? Mention Newcastle United and people only praise your fan base, which I have to agree is brilliant, but footballing wise is shyte.
I think Carew would be good for you lot. He quick, strong and can finish. Aaron Hughes I felt sorry for, he was miles better than that bag of s*%t Bardsley ! Although he wasn’t brilliant and could get done easily sometimes he didnt seem that bad. BTW Barry is wasted at left back, hes better left midfield.

I think we have a few good players who would get into your team although i agree that hughes is probably not one of them! Laursen is our best defender and last year bouma was great. Barry and young in midfield are ace, young is going to be some player!! Up front probably carew to play with one of your pacey strikers which looks more like martins. Gabby is good but hes still young and not the finished product. Just my opinions. From you i would take martins or owen up front for the same reasons as you need carew!! Milner was good for us and you but i feel Young is better and hopefully we may get SWP to play on the right. As your man said you need better players to move on! I also have to comment on what dean said theres no way we would get relegated next year, did you not see how we played the last 9 games of the season!!!

Martin O’Neill……Oh no that’s right he rejected you before and ultimately came to the Villa!

In all seriousness though id think the article was pretty accurate but id say a lot of our players would get into your team, but it is true we aren’t a selling club and as such not many would be available to you.

Despite being good players Davis and Ridgewell didnt play much in the latter stages of last season and as such i think MON might be willing to offload them. Both would be good additions to your squad, especially the ridge who i rate highly but it seems MON disagrees so ill trust him on that.

Id say if we received the right offer for Mellberg we would sell also. I’m talking £5mil plus and that would depend on an adequate replacement id imagine.

Other than that i don’t think anyone else would be allowed to leave or even if an insane bid was received i doubt anyone would want to leave.

Off of you i would take Given who would be a huge upgrade on Sorensen, Milner who was great for us when on loan and is a good prospect and then Martins. Imagine a Martins and Carew partnership - Nice!!

re adam williams, no I wouldn’t want Carew, Young, Maloney, Mellberg, Laursen, Agbonlahor, Barry, Petrov etc playing for newcastle.

Why? because i simply dont rate a single one of those players, well maybe Gareth Barry but not as highly as some others do.

But thats what football is about, opinions!

I’m lonely.

Dean, you epitomise the jingoistic, blinkered barcode fan - you need to take your rose tinted glasses off to see whats going on. Although you may not have realised it due to Villa poor season, NUFC finished BELOW Villa this season, even with our pitiful squad and injuries, we ended the season on a long unbeaten run with the best form in the prem. Even with only a few key signings Villa will be competing for top 6, and I fear Big Sam will have a much bigger time of sorting out your rag tag under-achievers and overpaid squad, as well as fighting the fans (unwarranted) high expectations and impatience. Good luck, because you are a potentially a big club, but Barton, Dyer etc, and the names mentioned in the press, Owen will be gone by February and you will be the ones flirting with relegation, despite all your money. You wait until Monday 2nd July to see what Villa is all about….

Hughes played 19 games for us last season.
picked up no cards played ok but really is nothing more than a squad player.
If the likes of Villa and Newcastle really want to push on to the next level there is’nt really a place for players with such limited ability.
Seems like a really nice and honest player that may shine in a side with lesser ambitions and less money than our teams.
If your after a good young midfielder Steven Davis
is available for around 3-5 million & i’ll be gutted when he goes.

A brilliantly honest article overshadowed by a comment from ‘dean’ wearing rose tinted spectacles. Look at your club you plonker - Villa were in turmoil and the recent turn of fortune has put us on track to midtable stability and hopefully push towards top 6 maybe not next season but the season after. To say that Villa need new players or face relegation is ridiculous. Carew, Ashley Young, Petrov coupled with a fit again Laursen and Bouma puts us up there as a stable 10th place club. The youth coming through in the form of Gardner and Agbonlahor only compliments this stability. We need quality signings to get us to top six but stability is already here. Now look at yourselves and look at your last season. Bouma would be a brilliant addition to your squad and go someway to sorting your obvious defensive frailties. Gardner would be a good addition to your squad, certainly not the finished article but a great prospect. Carew would add a much needed holding player to your poor attack and would not be out of place in any club outside the top 5. So stop thinking you are a top five club and start realising that you are in the same position as we were 12 months ago - just avoided relegation but now have a forward thinking owner and a brilliant manager. Good times ahead for both clubs but not quite next season

decent article that speaks a lot of sense about 2 clubs in a similar stage of development.

As a Villa fan, i can tell you that our best players are: Barry, Carew (who oozes class & power), and Ashely Young, and we have the best crop of youngsters we’ve ever produced coming through in Agbonlahor, Moore, Cahill & Gardner.

You have done Barry a slight dis-service though. He plays anywhere, but has probably played at left back less than anywhere. He now plays in central midfield, and is our best player there too. He is good enough to play for the top 4.

gabriel agbonlahor is an outstanding talent ! although very unlikely they’d let him leave for cheat .. i wudnt mind cein aaron back in a toon top but i thought that about bernard !!!

Hughes is a good honest pro but the fact of the matter is he is a squad player only. He isnt good enough to start in a side if they have any aspirations of winning silverware

gareth barry offering something in dead ball situations? you’re having a laugh. unless fo course its a penalty

Nice honest article, Aaron Hughes,although a solid pro, is i dont think good enough for us any more and therefore if you want to move forward he wouldnt be good enough for you either, I think if he moves to Fulham he will have found his level

can we interest you in Djemba-Djemba (pleeeaaassseee!!!) what an awful buy he was. I think you would have a possibilty of getting a couple of our youngsters, Ridgewell and Davis, as they seem to be surplus to requirements i think that both would be solid additions to any squad outside the top 4 and could potentially be excellent I would prefer us to keep them to be honest, but other then that i dont see any realistic transfers that could happen between our two clubs

Good Luck with the takeover lads : )

I doubt Villa will go down, they got rid of the weakest link near the end of the season and did well (Gavin McCann’t).

Gabriel Agbonlahor probably wouldn’t come but is an awesome player. Barry is a superb midfielder and Ashley Young has got loads of potential.

However, as you said, would they really leave Villa Park for St James’ Park? Not at the moment I’m afraid.

Bring Hughes Back

got the crowd and players lifted never put in a bad performance

Bring Aaron home!