Brad and things

The arrival of Brad Friedel from Blackburn is imminent.

The American was spotted at the Belfry earlier today and will be holding talks over personal terms as soon as he has finished his sandwich!

Anyway, it is a cracking signing. He may be 37 but how old is David James?- the best keeper in the Prem last year.

It appears the Younes Kaboul signing also has legs. A firm bid to Tottenham was set to be faxed off today, I understand. Not last night as had been reported.

And I would not discount Villa, even at this late stage, hijacking a move for Steed Malbranque either. It all depends, as ever, on finances.

But I think Shaun Wright Phillips may well end up at Portsmouth after all. We shall see.

It's been an interesting 24 hours on the Villa patch.

I spoke to Nigel Reo-Coker yesterday afternoon, just for a brief time as we look ahead to tomorrow's game with Odense. You may since have seen his quotes either in our paper, on our web-site or on the club's official site where they also appear.

Today I've done an interview for tomorrow's paper with a former Villa favourite. I'll keep his name under my hat but he had some interesting things to say about Friedel and Gareth Barry.

Changing the subject, I've seen some interesting responses to my blog yesterday.

I'm only too happy to have more dialogue with the internet fans.

My tone was indeed tongue in cheek when referrring to "geeks". But do you blame me, such is the personal abuse on the message boards at times. So I tend to steer clear.

I don't want to sound like David O'Leary but I have an interaction with quite a few Villa fans, some built up over the last eight to ten years covering the club, and some from the foreign trips into Europe- the so-called hard-core.

There is always much to tell. Including the 'real' story behind Gary Rowe's assertion that he set me up with the Sunderland- O'Leary story.

He did call. That I cannot deny. But the ball was already in motion because of a private tip-off days earlier from a Board member at Villa Park who believed that O'Leary was trying to engineer a move away.

Within a month or two we had that ridiculously fanciful piece of reporting that the Villa players had put together a "statement" at a lack of investment by the former Chairman Doug Ellis.

One player gave an interview on a Friday afternoon. He has recently left the club after enjoying a £40,000 a week deal agreed by the former boss. That player was forced to apologise to the rest of the dressing room face-to-face on the Monday.

By that Tuesday some senior players were giving evidence against O'Leary at Villa Park.

O'Leary was, after all, trying to engineer a move away from Villa Park. And he did so with a seven figure sum in his back pocket.

The truth, as they say, is a far, far greater thing.