When Fabio Goes, Who Should Replace Him?

In about 10 months time Fabio Capello will be standing down as England football manager.

When he goes, who should replace him?

I personally favour giving 'Psycho' (our current U-21 manager) a go, but what do you think?

Stick in a comment below with your pick for the new England manager, even if you favour Roy Hodgson!

Villa Buy Someone!

Right at the last knockings of the summer transfer window, Villa buy one, get one on one years loan from Spurs. Up to then we had more players out than in (as can be seen here), but now we have picked up Alan Hutton (permanent signing), who has played under McLeish, and Jermaine Jenas is with us on a years loan.

Even with the upcoming (January window) signing of Stevens from Shamrock Rovers, I still think that the numbers and quality of players out are greater than the numbers and quality of the players in. I hope I am wrong in this, and Villa get better for these transfers.

Well at least we aren't doing too badly to date.

See Also: http://deadmanchatting.blogspot.com/2011/08/villa-sell-another-good-player.html

What Caused The Lewis Hamilton Crash At Spa?

In today's Belgian GP at Spa-Francorchamps, Lewis Hamilton had a 'coming together' with Kobayashi. Some pundits suggest that Kobayashi should have backed off a bit, while others feel that Hamilton should not have drifted to the left to gain the ultimate racing line for the following right-hander.

Whether Kobayashi should have backed off bit is open for debate, but he had nowhere to go when Hamilton drifted to the left. Hamilton's actions need a little analysis. The pictures indisputably show him moving to the left, but the pictures from the on-board camera show that he did not move the steering wheel to turn that way. Could ayrodynamic interaction between the two vehicles effectively 'sucked' the two cars together, causing the crash? I think that this possibility should be investigated to prevent any future occurance of this (if indeed it did happen in the first place).

Will The 2012 Olympics Be A Sporting Disaster For The UK?

So far the 2011 World Athletics Championship, the European 3 Day Event Championship and a number of the  pre-Olympic 'practice events' seems to show that the 2012 Olympic Games, that are costing the UK an arm and a leg to put on and are likely to turn London into one huge car park, could well be a sporting disaster.

Strikes me that pressure to produce results in the Olympic year is already taking its toll on the UK competitors, both physically and mentaly.

Why did we bid for this? Is it too late to give it to France?

See Also: http://deadmanchatting.blogspot.com/2011/07/please-dont-come-to-olympics.html

Villa Sell Another Good Player

Well we're still selling off our good players! Now Luke Young has gone to QPR on a 3 year deal.

While Luke may find this a bad deal if the SuperHoops go straight back down next year, it still worries me that Villa are still selling with little likelihood of buying any replacements.

Is Randy Lerner trying to extract money out of Villa, or is there something deep going on here that I am unable to fathom

At least we managed a draw with Wolves today to stay near the top of the Premiership. How long we can stay there remains to be seen.

See Also: http://deadmanchatting.blogspot.com/2011/07/villa-winger-replacement.html

Worcester Lose to Holland!

As a lifetime Worcestershire supporter (and a huge Dolly fan, old guys like me will remember him), I am flabbergasted that we lost to the Netherlands!
This is not right!

The Riots in Croydaon - The Response From Crystal Palace FC

Crystal Palace (the professional football team based the closest to Croydon), are giving away 1000 thickets to their home game against Blackpool on the 27th of August.

The tickets are going to the people who have been the most affected by the riots in Croydon on the 9th August (homes destroyed, businesses trashed, etc.) and members of the emergency services who helped them on that night.

I commend their altruism and community spirit, especially as they are not the most wealthy of football clubs.

Oh, I'm an Aston Villa supporter in case you were wondering.

Please do the poll above before it expires.

Sporting Congratulations

Firstly may I congratulate the England Test Team on a splendid victory over India (England v India score card). This win places England at the top of the ICC test standings (however accurate you think these may be). It is unfortunate that India have played so poorly  in this series so far (poor warm up, too much T20 cricket in the IPL, series too close to the one in the West Indies - take your pick on what you think the reason is). Well, congrats again to England for topping the ICC test standings.

Also congratulations to Aston Villa for playing out a boring 0 - 0 draw against Fulham. At least they didn't loose!

See Also: http://deadmanchatting.blogspot.com/2011/07/villa-winger-replacement.html

Cricket - Well Done England

May I congratulate England on a great day's play in the 3rd test vs India. While we would have done better if we had been able to get M S Dhoni out a little earlier. However, not to loose any wickets in the first 25 overs was very good.

3rd Test Scorecard 

Villa Beat Blackburn To Get To Final

Villa have beaten Blackburn 1-0 to go forward to the final of the Barclays Asia Trophy! Darren Bent scored the only goal. 


Match report.

Please Don't Come To The Olympics

Studies suggest that London will be so congested during the Olympics (both public transport and private cars) that nobody will get to work or to an Olympic venue! Just one crash, one fire or one power failure in the wrong place could cause chaos, and, just possibly, total gridlock!


See: http://uk.autoblog.com/2011/06/14/london-olympics-set-to-blight-one-of-europes-most-congested-cit/

FIFA - Cleaning The Augean Stables?

Mohamed Bin Hammam has been banned for life by FIFA for attempted bribery. FIFA are obviously coming down hard on corruption in football! Good show!

Or is it that the Qatari former head of the Asian Football Confederation is being punished for having the timerity to challenge Sepp Blatter for the presidency of FIFA?

I leave it to the reader to apply Occam's razor to determine the most likely reason for the banning.

Villa - Winger Replacement

Well, we finally got Wigan to sell us Charles N'Zogbia! So we have replaced one of two wingers we sold, wonder if we will get a replacement for the other?

See Also: http://deadmanchatting.blogspot.com/2011/07/villa-replace-goalkeeper.html

5th day - 1st Test

If you have been unable to get into Lords today, you may like to follow this link to the BBC / TMS commentary.

I probably won't post again until the end of the match.

Congratulations ...

.. to Matt Prior and Stuart Broad for their play in the 4th Day of the Test. And also to Mark Cavendish for winning the Green (points) Jersey in the Tour de France! Oh, and to Lewis Hamilton for his win in the German GP.

British GP - Silverstone - Pit Stop Madness!

Vettel has a cross threaded nut on his right rear tyre which probably costs him the race!

Button doesn't even get his wheel nut put on!

And poor di Resta has his team try to give him Sutil's tyres!

Not to mention a couple of other incidents (or near incidents) from early releases!

This is a lot more problems in the pits than you usually get. A couple of pit lane problems you can expect each race, but this seems a bit much. It may well be just a statistical anomaly (as would seem most likely), but could this have been arranged by the FIA or Bernie to improve the TV viewing and keep Vettel from winning (possible, but unlikely)?

Related: http://deadmanchatting.blogspot.com/2011/06/new-f1-regulations.html

New F1 Regulations

People say the new F1 regs have bought about more overtaking & better racing.
I don't see it that way.
Everything this year seems so artificial, and Sunday's race seems to say that the teams have got up to speed with the new regs and the passing will become harder for the rest of the season.

I think that there is only one way to improve the sport:

• Mechanical grip to aerodynamic grip should be enforced at a minimum of 40:60, preferably 50:50. This will reduce the problem of areo making it near impossible for people to pass as the dirty air means you can't go fast enough.
• Tyres should last the entire race so pit stop strategy becomes a thing of the past (you can only change tyres in a race if you get a puncture, or it starts to rain/dries up).
• Loose DRS & KERS, they only make the racing artificial.