NY Villans Update - Premiership Week 10

Greetings Villa fans in the land of crap coverage. Yes we haven't had a sniff of live action for our last two games and the trend continues tomorrow as Setanta have dropped live coverage of our game against Blackburn in favour of Spurs vs Arsenal. No doubt a result of 'onest 'arrys first golden handshake as the new Tottenham manager. Instead Setanta pushes the game to a delayed broadcast at the reasonable hour of 11.15pm, hold on did I say reasonable? Yeah in a batshit crazy world perhaps. Now Setanta could have been decent and shown the game at 9:30 but instead they are replaying Liverpool vs Portsmouth a game they already had shown Live, who knows maybe 'arry also had that one "arranged" before moving jobs. Anyway as you have probably guessed I'm a little annoyed by the situation not that I have ever had anything other than loathing for the cretins that run Setanta so moving on they currently have Monday's clash away to Newcastle down for Live coverage, which is rubbish since most of us will be in work. The game will be reshown at 7:45pm for those of us on the East coast, Nevada's crew we will see about having the tape put on around 6pm for that one. 
Once again I'll point everyone in the direction of www.justin.tv where you will probably be able to grab a stream of tomorrows game, I was able to catch the full Ajax game and the 2nd half of Wigan on it. Speaking of...


2 games, two wins both in Europe and at home. Not a bad week for the Villa. Granted it would have been better had Liverpool gone bankrupt, Abramovich sent to Gitmo, Wenger caught on the 'town' with Gary Glitter, Spurs not fired Ramos, Man City moved to Dubai, the Glazers replaced Sir Alex with Glenn Roeder and 'onest 'arry checking himself into an lunatic asylum convinced that every 50p piece in circulation has his name on it. The athmosphere on Thursday night was simply incredible, supposedly the best at Villa Park in 10 years and yet another reminder if one was needed of how far we have come under Randy Lerner and Martin 'Hussein' O'Neill. Sunday's game was a goal fest with the boys knocking in 4 on the road. A goal in each game sees Garreth Barry returning to form, meanwhile the Cuellar Laursen defence looks positively airtight which is a lot more than we can say about the team curfew the night before the Ajax game. 

As is customary the night before a game the squad checks into a hotel so that the coaching staff can ensure they aren't out on a bender with Paul McGrath, unfortunately the ferrets forgot to check on John Carew's room the night prior to the Ajax game. Carew is no stranger to hotels choosing to live permanently in a suite rather than buy a house or flat so one would expect he is also and expert in escaping from such locations. Now this is pure speculation but the manager likes to tuck the boys in on the night before the game upon entering John Carew's room all he found of him was a muddy set of training clothes, a bar of soap, and an old rock hammer, damn near worn down to the nub.

With the alarm raised it was only a matter of time before Carew would be found little did we expect that his actual location would be a rather pricey strip joint called The Rocket Club down on Broad Street. John was nicely tucked away in the corner with some bird who it is believed didn't work at the establishment, perhaps the blondie he was sitting beside in the stands on Thursday night? Who knows, what is known is that Carews blood test the next morning came back clean for alcohol so it hardly appears to have been a wild night on the tiles. More like a quiet night in the corner of the tittie bar. Believe it or not Carew had the audacity to tell the manager that there were "mitigating circumstances", we do not know what excuses he tried to pull but are happy to imagine:

"Gaffer I'm actually an undercover agent posing as a world class footballer to break up an international money laundering operation based out of that very strip joint".

"Gaffer, I received an urgent call from one of the girls, it appears she had given Marco Van Basten a lap dance 20 minutes prior during which he disclosed the Ajax strategy they planned to use against us, she was terrified and would only give me the information in person."

"Gaffer, bad news, looks like Gabby has gotten another stripper pregnant, I went to the club to pay her off per our usual agreement."

Whatever the excuse was the manager didn't buy it and Carew was left out of the Ajax game and fined 2 weeks wages or £100,000. A lot of money to mere mortals like us, money that the big Norwegian striker could have done a lot with....

Things John Carew could have spent his £100,000 in fined wages on:
1. His own personal lapdancer for one year following him where ever he wanted to go and dancing on demand.
2. At least five players of the calibre of Titus Bramble.
3. A 3-bedroom terraced house on Witton Road.
4. 3,000 Villa replica shirts with sorry on the back.
5. His own private Cliff Richard concert.
6. 200,000 Dairy Milk bars to bulk up Zoltan Steiber.
7. $173,000 Monday at 8am but only $153,000 on Friday at 5pm of last week following the pound plummeting against the dollar.
8. Andrews plastic surgery bill.
9. A private satellite linkup to Nevada Smiths so we could actually watch a game live for a change.
10. 250,783,986,568,564,122 Zimbabwean dollars or the equivalent of a loaf of bread in Zimbabwe using the same money next week.

There were some brilliant quotes to come out of this 'incident' notably the manager:
“John thinks there is mitigating circumstances and I am always prepared to listen. I listened to what John was saying and then I made a decision that he was wrong."


Best of all Stillyan Petrov takes the piss after Carew bounces back with a fine display against Wigan:
'I think we should let him go out every night if he plays like that,' said Petrov. 

'We all motivate ourselves in different ways and maybe that is his way - he should go lap-dancing more often. We don't worry about each other's private lives - it is what is done on the pitch that matters.'

For those of you who missed the games.
Ajax Goals: http://www.sportizo.com/football/aston-villa-vs-ajax-amsterdam-highlights/ -be sure to turn down your volume on this one
MOTD Wigan highlights: http://vids.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids.individual&videoid=45324602

Before I finish I would like to take this opportunity to Wish Steve Lanham Chairman of the NYVillans the best of luck as he runs in the New York City Marathon this Sunday you can sponsor his race by throwing a couple of dollars here : http://www.livestrong.org/grassroots2008/stevesmarathon?faf=1&e=1970922893 organic vegetarian Steve has pledged to vote John McCain and eat a half dozen Big Mac's if he raises $1,000 or finishes the race in under 4 hours.


The guy on the right is not Steven Lanham and will not be running in the marathon this Sunday

Last and probably least, we had a photo taken of all those gathered at the Portsmouth game which I have attached, note Bob flashing some gang signal front and center, if anyone knows what it means please let me know as I'm concerned it may be some subliminal vote Republican messaging.