Recently by Mat Kendrick

"I WANT him to go to a strong club with a strong manager who loves him and where he will be able to win things, not some half-a***d place that used to be famous and the manager is on a dodgy wicket."

I've been desperately trying to think of some clever, witty, subtle way of responding to outspoken Ian Holloway's latest outburst in Aston Villa's pursuit of Blackpool captain Charlie Adam.

But I think it's time to fight fire with fire and advise Holloway to shut his stupid gob and start behaving with some dignity.

Why the new Phil Brown (circa 2010-11) thinks he is an authority on every subject just because half a year in the Premier League has given him the platform to spit his ridiculous sound-bites I don't know.

IT'S only a slight change, and it's not going to guarantee that Aston Villa's players will start spilling more blood, sweat and tears for the claret and blue cause.......(Well it might, fast forward to last sentence)

But here's an update from Villa's Bodymoor Heath headquarters which you won't find leaked by an agent of a disillusioned player.

No, it's not as juicy as a star having a training ground bust-up with a manager/coach/cone etc but it does give a little insight into efforts going on to improve the mood behind the scenes.

PICTURE the scene. Aston Villa are leading 1-0 in the last minute of the final match of the season at home to Liverpool - a game they must win to stay up.

The ball is flung into the Villa box.

It pinballs around between a sea of legs before Kyle Walker make a decisive, last-ditch goalline clearance to protect the victory and more importantly keep Villa in the Premier League.

Does the fact that Walker is then given special dispensation to return to Tottenham in the Champions League final (I know he's not in their squad for Europe, but stay with me) and subsequently scores their winner at Wembley, make his contribution to Villa any less important?

GERARD Houllier is unlikely to pursue his loan interest in Emmanuel Adebayor after Villa made a tentative enquiry about the Manchester City striker.

Villa have sounded out their Eastlands counterparts about the possibility of a temporary five-month deal for their out-of-favour former Arsenal star.

But the preliminary talks between the two clubs are not believed to have reached the stage where Adebayor's £160,000 per week wages were discussed.

City's willingness to release the Togo international until the end of the season could be helped by the imminent signing of Wolfsburg's Bosnian striker Edin Dzeko.

However, Villa, who expect John Carew to leave this month, have now turned their attentions elsewhere in their quest to strengthen their strikeforce.

Adebayor, a compatriot of forgotten Villa midfielder Moustapha Salifou, earns more than twice as much as the claret and blues' current top earners.

Villa would be unwilling to shatter their wage structure, while City would be reluctant to massively subsidise his salary at a Premier League rival.

Roberto Mancini's title-chasers have played down Adebayor's training ground bust-up with Eastlands team-mate Kolo Toure.

THIS will sound like a nostalgic ramble down memory lane - because it is!

So here goes. (Cue me sticking a flat cap on the byline picture you see on this page, and waving a rattle around my head).

"They don't make players like they used to."

Anybody who was lucky enough to be present at the Aston Villa Former Players Association's Christmas do at the weekend will back me up.

I didn't see David Beckham's acceptance speech at the BBC Sports Personality awards in Brum on Sunday evening, but I doubt it was a patch on Tony Morley's at Villa Park earlier that afternoon. (Again, you'd better ask someone who was there - let's just say it was more 'blue' than claret and blue).

Tony epitomises the spirit of the AVFPA and the Old Stars team and it was a pleasure to see him receive their player of the year award for a record fifth time.

THOSE clips on my previous blog weren't great quality, so thanks to Danny Drewry for pointing me in the direction of this footage.

It's hardly HD, but it's shows both the 1993-94 home and away legs in all their glory.

Hope it whets the appetite for tomorrow night.

In return, as a thanks to Danny, here's a link to his excellent memorabilia site.

www.midlandsmemorabilia.com

IT'S a little bit grainy, but here's the last time Villa mullered Blues in their own backyard in the League Cup.....

Well, they didn't actually Muller them, because the Muller sponsors' logo is missing from their shirts - and because far from being one-sided it was a keenly contested, tight match with sub stopper Mark Bosnich saving a pen from John Frain and Kevin Richardson scoring a late winner....

Hopefully, that's whet the appetite for the impending Carling Cup quarter final knockout clash.

SWAP Arsenal's yellow away shirt for Villa's claret and blue.

Substitute George Boateng and Peter Schmeichel for Alexandre Song and Lukasz Fabianski.

And exchange the North Stand for the Holte End and a sublime winner like this would do nicely for Robert Pires' Villa Park debut at lunchtime today.

THAT goal from March 2002 still makes painful viewing Villa fans, but if the 37-year-old can roll back the years to reproduce those sublime skills, then the 250-mile chauffeur-driven voyages from London to Bodymoor will be more than worth it.

Over to you, Robert.....

IT'S been a year and a week since Nigel Reo-Coker was involved in a 'contretemps' (bit of a scrap, to you or I) with his former manager.

Yet still the battling midfielder hasn't broken his silence.

Not necessarily on that training ground bust-up with Martin O'Neill. That's yesterday's news and the club's spin doctor would probably faint if we tried to touch on that subject.

But what about Reo-Coker's thoughts on his new lease of life, his early impressions of Gerard Houllier, his love of fishing, Sierra Leone.....anything.

As the club's stand-in skipper whenever club captain Stiliyan Petrov is unavailable, surely there is a responsibility on him to address the fans occasionally.

And, what's more, he's a bloomin' good talker. Thoughtful, intelligent, articulate.

It's probably our (the press) fault because we haven't requested an interview with NRC for quite some time - mainly due to the likelihood of getting knocked back by the player or the press office.

But I would quite like to hear from Nigel so I'll ask if we can have a chat with him over the next week or so and let you know.

Come on Nigel, talk to us.

JUST been asked by a couple of readers to expand on the intro to my match report from last night's game which basically went along these lines......

"The last time Gerard Houllier kicked Emile Heskey off a bench with such an impact the big striker was lying between his manager and life-saving heart treatment in the Anfield physio room.

Last night Aston Villa's new boss repeated the feat by sending on the much-maligned forward and super sub Heskey responded by getting Houllier and the Holte End's blood-pumping again.

Needless to say Houllier will not be quite as grateful for Heskey's assistance last night as he was on that eventful October afternoon back in 2001, but he might just have started this Villa revival."

Apparently, many of you haven't heard the tale about Heskey being an eye witness when Houllier suffered his serious heart problem during back in October 2001.

In fact neither had I until I saw a piece from Patrick Barclay in The Times a couple of weeks ago.