According to Forbes.com, which includes DeLoitte and Touche as it's sources, Aston Villa were valued at $120m last June. That's about £64m - and it's probably dwindled a bit since then.

Hmm, I know it sounds a hell of a lot of money to us guys, but in Premiership football it probably isn't anything too amazing. I remember in 1998, Blackburn Rovers were valued at £36m. My guess is that figure has risen to somewhere around the £45m mark. I don't know how much these guys are actually buying Aston Villa for, but I have doubts whether their financial clout is anywhere near Gaydamak's at Portsmouth, never mind Abramovich's billions at Chelsea.

WE 8 BSTARDS

Why is everybody making such a big deal about this game? It's a pre-season game for crying out loud. We didn't look particularly good against Accy either. The players aren't at full fitness, and the results are meaningless. Doncaster beat Middlesbrough, and even Bumley beat Wankies. Forget it, and move on.

It's OK - Pedersen will have to do. It probably was me Bellers - skin head, good-looking chap! I got a chipped-tooth and a bloody shirt. Should I sue the club like that Dingle tried to do a couple of years ago? :ph34r:

I was sat in the away end (the most populated away end ) just behind the goals. When I was walking along the bottom to find somewhere to stand, I got belted square on in the face with the ball! Did anyone see who hit it? If it was Tugay, my life is now complete!!!

Just got back. Obviously you can't take too much from the first pre-season game, but I thought Gallagher looked excellent and bossed the midfield, Agathe played well when going forward (I wouldn't play him at the back though), Roberts and Jeffers got on the score sheet, and both Peter and Kuqi looked lively when coming on in the second half. Agathe was quality for Jeffers' goal - I bet he took four players on. Good cross aswell. Sign him on because he impressed me more in a friendly against Stanley than Emerton has done in two years!

Huh? Either he thinks we are a small club that has reached the peak of its potential, or he thinks we can acheive more?!? Still, all very postive comments from our number one striker...

Don't get Revidge started on Damien Johnson.... Like Ricky said, I think a loan move for Dunn could benefit both parties. From what I've heard, David would love a return to the club and we are crying out for a bit of creativity in central midfield. If we could get Dunn on loan, put him through his paces in training and get him fit, then who knows - maybe he will eventually become the player he once was for us. He was excellent when on top of his game. He's still only 26, and his record of 30 goals in 120 games was excellent for us. A midfielder who can get one goal every four games could be priceless for a club like us.

Thenodrog you are my hero Sounding gay aside, I do actually agree with every word you said there.

I was actually only thinking today that we missed an oppurtunity with Scolari. I don't actually like the guy, but his motivational and unification techniques with Brazil and Portugal have been superb. With McClaren I was disappointed in the appointment, and now even more so. I fear with Steve we are going to get yet more of the same. Negative tactics with similar players, and minimal motivation from quite a reserved man. While Alladyce has questions over his experience, his motivational attributes and his tactical knowledge would prove a bonus - not to mention a totally fresh start. McClaren was a big mistake in my view.

MightyMax found LOADS of problems but wanted me to pay before it fixed them. Seemed very suspect.

Sorry TCJ I forgot you dealt personally with the contracts of our players. Even if the guy is on £10k a week, it's not exactly going to break the bank is it? I'm sure Hughesy will know exactly what role Jeffers is going to play next season, and will have advised the board on the appropriate contract offer. I'm also sure that if the club needs all the money it can for a potential 'big' signing, it wouldn't have offered a penny to a player like Franny Jeffers. We must have saved at least £50k a WEEK by flogging Dickov and Bellamy.

OK, well I've had a different error code on a blue screen this morning. DRIVER_IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL Technical Information: ***STOP: 0x000000D1(0xF9FFFEDD, 0x00000002, 0x00000000, 0xF9FFFEDD) This time the ParVdm.Sys part was missing, and there was no mention whatsoever of any datestamp or bases or other jargon. Hmmm. I'm getting very frustrated, and starting to accept the fact that I may just have to skint myself further and go and get a new computer altogether.

Exactly. We have absolutely nothing to lose by signing Francis Jeffers. He didn't cost us ANYTHING. If what I have read is to be correct, if he doesn't play he won't cost us ANYTHING. If Jeffers realises that this is probably his last chance at the bigtime, both parties could gain EVERYTHING.

I think that's what's going wrong here. Too many people are presuming. Why can't we sign another two quality strikers? If a striker in the quality of Mido is going for roughly £4m, then if we have a warchest of £10m we can look forward to the future. I would seriously doubt whether Roberts OR Jeffers are depended on as a regular started in our first eleven next season. Here's to Ruud and Mido with Roberts on the bench!!!

It doesn't really matter if he cost £2m or £3m does it? None of us will ever know. We don't even know what the bloody transfer budget is anyway - it could be £15m. I think £3m for a reasonably experienced Premiership striker that scored around 14 goals last season is a good deal in anybodys book. Every time I saw Jason Roberts last season he impressed me. He played well against us last year, and he almost single-handedly destroyed Manchester United. I still can't believe that people are seeing anything other than postitives out of yesterday. Roberts is better than any other striker we had last year barring Bellamy, Jeffers was free anyway, and we still allegedly have quite a large transfer fund left to get Bellers' replacement. Let's leave it to Mark Hughes and the board, because they really do know what they're doing.

Surely not? If it's true that we got Roberts for £2m, what's happened to the other £8/9/10m that we're supposed to have? We need to buy at least one more quality striker, and Mido would be an excellent choice. Even Mido would only cost £4/5m thus theoretically leaving us £5m ish to strengthen other areas. With Bellamy and Dickov gone, and Kuqi pretty much gone, let's not forget that yesterday we didn't own a recognised Premiership striker. Gallagher and Derbyshire should be fourth and fifth choice, or better still fifth and sixth respectively.

Good news. Hopefully our list of striker will look like this come Aug 19: 1) ? 2) ? 3) Roberts 4) Jeffers Mido would be excellent as our top striker, and we need a pacy striker to complement him. If we can't get another two strikers, it isn't the end of the world if we can only get in one top quality striker (such as Mido). There's always January if all else fails.

Thanks for the translation Biddy! No I haven't had a rebuild. I don't have any Windows software with which to re-install the computer from scratch. Otherwise I would.

Forgive me, but I really do not understand any of that! To be honest, the heating problem sounds more promising that any other. When it has crashed recently, the temperature display on the front has been a lot higher than what it was when it was running smoothly.

Yes, when I take the side panel off the fan clipped out of its connector. I think it's got two fans by the look of things. There's one on the side panel (which obviously isn't working when side panel is off) and then one internal one which works. And yeah its an AMD processor. What's a P4 fan?

Yeah I'll agree with that. Anyway, Accy Stanley is like our little brother. We have nurtured it and looked after it from it's evil half-sister 'Bumley'. Most clubs hate t'bastords more than they hate us. In fact they all do.

Windows XP. AMD Athlon XP 2800+ 2.25 GHz, 256 MB of RAM NVIDIA GeForce FX 5200 (I think that's my graphics card I'm not sure) As far as I can remember, the code is exactly as I said before. My computer seems to have temporarily stopped resetting itself/blue screening for now so sod's law I can't actually get hold of the code again for you. Is this enough information for you? I've taken the side panel off the tower as somebody suggested, which has coincided with (or solved the problem ) my computer running fine.

Right guys I'm having problems again. For some unknown reason it has started crashing again randomly and this time I'm getting blue screens more often than not! DRIVER_IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL Tech Info: ***STOP: 0x000000D1(0xF9FFFEDD,0x00000002,0x00000000,0xF9FFFEDD) ***ParVdm.SYS - Address F9FFFEDD base at F9FFE000, DateStamp 3b7d836d ***ParVdm.SYS - Address F9FFFEDD base at F9FFE000, DateStamp 3b7d836d Does this mean anything to anyone? Thanks people.