The week for Villa in a nutshell

By: Martini Extra Dry | July 26th, 2008

Strangely enough, the world didn’t stop and wait while my baby was being born, so stuff has been happening in and around Villa Park that I haven’t given my tuppence worth on. So here it is in brief…

Brad Friedel: The US international goalie seems set to move to Villa in the next few days. Fridel, Blackburn and Villa had already agreed the deal but Blackburn weren’t allowing it to go through until they had secured themselves a replacement. Well, now that Paul Robinson, another one of Villa’s options, has signed on the dotted line at Ewood Park, we should see the American packing his bags and finding a house in Sutton Coldfield anytime now.

Odense BK: Villa hope to improve on the first leg performance in the home leg tonight and seal their place in the UEFA Cup. After a disappointing display in Denmark, we really need to tighten up and play like the impressive Premiership outfit that we were last season. The game is at 5.15pm on Setanta Sports, so if you don’t have it at home then I expect you all to be in the pub watching and cheering us on (and drinking!). The team appear to be fired up; Click here for Agbonlahor’s thoughts And here for O’Neill’s, so fingers crossed they do us proud.

Gareth Barry: Unbelievably, this one hasn’t actually gone anywhere this week. Liverpool have gone silent on the subject and O’Neill is as perplexed as me and you as to what will happen with last season’s captain. The prospect of him remaining with us is beginning to look possible again, for the first time since May. I don’t advise anyone to get their hopes up though because Liverpool have a habit of popping up out of nowhere and also there are other teams eager for his signature.

Annual Walsall friendly: Villa took the win 3 goals to 2 against Walsall this year with Shaun Maloney netting twice and Wayne Routledge getting the winner at the Bescot Stadium. Villa twice went behind buth both times came back level and finally took the lead in the dying minutes thanks to Wayne Routledge’s screamer. Both the goal scorers will be hoping that they have done enough to get into MON’s starting line-up tonight. The team against the Saddlers featured many young boys who O’Neill clearly wants to see in action before the season kicks off and much to everyone’s surprise it also included Gareth Barry. Barry was subjected to ‘Judas’ and ‘You’re not fit to wear the shirt’ chants from the Villa fans, which I find very counter-productive, but if that’s what Barry is making the fans think of him then it should tell him that he maybe handled some of this saga wrongly.

David Bentley: Another Blackburn player rumoured to be a Villa target is the England right winger David Bentley. This doesn’t look overly likely to come to fruitition but it can’t do us any harm if we do get him.

Kaboul: The man who stole a point for Tottenham against us last season is another possible target for us, but we are up against Portsmouth and Sunderland, who both seem confident of winning the race. Extra padding at the back certinly wouldn’t do us any harm but Kaboul isn’t exactly excellent. He is capable of playing solidly at the back but doesn’t seem to do it consistently.