Aston Villa have revealed that they have agreed a fee for one of Glasgow Rangers' stand-out players who was part of the chase for four trophies last season. The Villans have activated the £7.8 million release clause in defender Carlos Cuellar's Ibrox contract, and he is now free to speak to the Midlands club, most probably [. Click to continue reading...

Aston Villa have revealed that they have agreed a fee for one of Glasgow Rangers' stand-out players who was part of the chase for four trophies last season. The Villans have activated the £7.8 million release clause in defender Carlos Cuellar's Ibrox contract, and he is now free to speak to the Midlands club, most probably [. Click to continue reading...

Aston Villa have revealed that they have agreed a fee for one of Glasgow Rangers' stand-out players who was part of the chase for four trophies last season. The Villans have activated the £7.8 million release clause in defender Carlos Cuellar's Ibrox contract, and he is now free to speak to the Midlands club, most probably [. Click to continue reading...

Aston Villa surprised many neutrals last season, and probably even some of their own supporters, with their 6th-place finish. In 2006-2007, the Villans checked in at a respectable 11th, a nice improvement from 16th the season before. Villa's emergence, led by manager Martin O'Neill, came with one of the smallest, if not THE smallest, [. Click to continue reading...

Aston Villa surprised many neutrals last season, and probably even some of their own supporters, with their 6th-place finish. In 2006-2007, the Villans checked in at a respectable 11th, a nice improvement from 16th the season before. Villa's emergence, led by manager Martin O'Neill, came with one of the smallest, if not THE smallest, first team rosters in the Premiership. Click to continue reading...

In one of my recent poll questions, which you can find on the left-hand side of the homepage underneath the blog archive, I asked which story you believed to be the biggest so far this summer. One of the choices was Gareth Barry and his desire to leave Aston Villa for Liverpool, and although I can't remember the exact number, it got its fair share of votes. Click to continue reading...

Martin O'Neill is confident that Aston Villa will be able to improve in the Intertoto cup. He said: "I'd expect by this time next week we'd be much fitter and that's important. "It was so important for us to stay in the competition. We've scored two goals and we'll be better for it next week. "I felt for [. Click to continue reading...

Photo from here.

I have to admit, when I got home yesterday and saw that Scott Carson had been sold to West Bromwich Albion for a grand total of 3.25 million pounds (depending on benchmarks, that fee can rise...to only 3.75 million), the lunch I had just enjoyed with Kartik Krishnaiyer of the American Soccer Show nearly escaped me.

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Aston Villa boss Martin O'Neill is looking to strengthen his squad on the defensive end which has him targetting a number of players, including three Americans.
The team needs a roster deep enough in quality to hold its own in League and European play this season. "I would hope for us to have a real proper squad, at least the size of, say, Everton. Click to continue reading...

Liverpool seem to have decided on a new transfer policy this summer which makes the same impact as Real Madrid's lovelorn chase for Ronaldo. Liverpool seem to be using their local paper, The Echo, to release transfer target information into the public domain to unsettle players at other clubs. Gareth Barry became the first and now it seems [. Click to continue reading...

Welcome to the latest chapter of "The Gareth Barry Saga" and this one's a cracker. It appears that Martin O'Neill has stopped taking the nicely nicely approach with his captain (or should that now be ex-skipper?) and banned the player from returning to pre-season training! According to CNN, the Aston Villa manager is furious that Barry [. Click to continue reading...

After losing his way through most of last season, Tottenham Hotspur's ex-number one is casting his eye elsewhere after the signing of Heurelho Gomes from PSV Eindhoven, with Aston Villa his preferred destination. Despite them not actually indicating they'd like to sign him, Paul Robinson has made it clear he wants to move to Villa Park [. Click to continue reading...

Is anyone else fed up with the speculation about Cristiano Ronaldo and whether he will leave the ManUre to go to Madrid?

Yes? Me too. So lets not talk about it.

Lets talk instead about last night's match.

I mean are those Italians spoilsports or what? Their style seemed to me to be characterised by a script along the lines of "We aren't actually going to put much effort into winning but we want to make sure you don't either". Click to continue reading...

Aston Villa are on the verge of taking in poor Chelsea reject Steve Sidwell. Having proved all the doubters right, sitting on the Stamford Bridge bench all season, the ginger dynamo is finally making moves towards trying to be a footballer once again, a la Scott Parker. Villa have apparently had an offer of £4. Click to continue reading...

The BBC have controversially given Aston Villa manager and Raymond Domenech lookalike, Martin O'Neill a written warning for breaking British broadcasting guidelines and stating that EURO 2008 has been ‘bloody brilliant' without England's talentless, overhyped, leaden footed, retards stinking up the tournament. Click to continue reading...

So it's here, the day the gets us all excited and begins the countdown to the new season starting on August 16th, a mere 61 days away. Everyone eagerly checks the fixtures, scanning to see when they've got that away trip to Old Trafford, Anfield, The Emirates and Stamford Bridge, who'll they'll be playing near their [. Click to continue reading...

It was a case of when, rather than if for Aston Villa and their crushing blow has now arrived, with Gareth Barry's agent confirming that the midfielder wants to sign for Liverpool and experience the delight of finishing fourth in the Premier League rather than sixth. The Sun reports that the opportunity of playing Champions [. Click to continue reading...

It's always nice to report something heart-warming on COS, away from all the usual transfer speculation and sniping between clubs, managers and players. The Times reports that Aston Villa have made a tremendous gesture by forsaking any shirt sponsorship next season and instead having 'Acorns' emblazoned across the claret and blue, which is the name [. Click to continue reading...

Will he or won't he? That's what Aston Villa fans are asking about whether Gareth Barry intends to stay at the club this summer or make the journey north to Anfield. Liverpool supporters seem pretty keen to land the England midfielder, none so more than their very own captain Steven Gerrard. The Daily Mirror reports [. Click to continue reading...

As we all know, the Reds are in the hunt for Gareth Barry, despite a more glaring need for some decent wide players in the team. Surely the Aston Villa captain is much of a muchness when you have the likes of Gerrard, Mascherano and upcoming Leiva in the squad. Nevertheless, Sky Sports report that [. Click to continue reading...

It's unclear as to whether Gareth Barry will be signing for Liverpool or not this summer, although there's another tug-of-war taking place over goalkeeper Scott Carson going the other way. The 22-year-old spent last season on loan at Villa Park and is visibly frustrated at the £10million price tag that Rafael Benitez has slapped on [. Click to continue reading...

Don't get Martin O'Neill mad. The Northern Irishman has got one hell of a temper on him and, like a dog with a bone, the Aston Villa manager is mad keen to retain the services of Gareth Barry at the Midlands club. This will serve the dual purpose of keeping arguably Villa's best player, while [...] Click to continue reading...

The Sun are telling anyone that can read that Aston Villa boss Martin O'Neill is in a mouth frothing frenzy over Liverpool's Gareth Barry bid. Apparently the Anfield club sent over a fax to their Aston Villa counterparts offering some dosh and several anonymous players in exchange for Gareth Barry - a veritable [. Click to continue reading...

Numerous reports today have confirmed what has basically been common knowledge over the past couple of weeks: Liverpool is interested in signing Aston Villa's captain, Gareth Barry. Villa manager Martin O'Neill came out today criticizing Liverpool for publicizing this interest; a part exchange offer has been made for sure, with Peter Crouch, John Arne Riise, [. Click to continue reading...

Do I hear £11million for this England international? It's not yet clear whether Chelsea or even Arsenal will enter the race for the Aston Villa midfielder although it appears that Liverpool have wasted no time since their Champions League exit on Wednesday night trying to recruit Gareth Barry. The Daily Mail report that there is [. Click to continue reading...