Stephen Ireland - Clean Slate?

[Daholteend]

Fuck him off, no question.

The c***.

Easier said than done. First, because of his poor playing record (or lack of it) we are not likely to be seeing the kind of money that we valued him at as a makeweight for the Milner deal.

Second, if he is on the reputed 60K a week wages that translates to us paying him about 9.36M for the three remaining years of his contract.

Our best chance to offload him came and went with Newcastle trying to do something which went pear shaped as we all know.

So for these reasons alone, and there are many more that we can conjure up, Big Eck doesn't really have any option other than to offer the clean slate amnesty available to the non-performing "stars" that MON signed up.

IF McLeish manages to get SI back on the park playing reasonable football I think it will be nothing short of a minor miracle and my outlook on AM will change enormously.

[Lucky Eddie]

He get's one clean slate off Lucky Eddie. Just the one mind and he'd best keep it absolutely spotless or I'll be looking to smash it over his head 

[KevinGage]

7 milion and ireland for Nzogbia ...

Actually, if he doesn't make a go of things here, that could well be the next type of move that he makes. At least he'll be closer to home.

He didn't exactly set the world on fire up at Newcastle when he eventually got on the pitch and I can't see any bigger club going for him the way he's carried himself over the last 12 months.

[garyshawsknee]

Unless McCleish has the midas touch,i honestly can't see looney tunes getting his career back on line. I dont think he has the hunger for it and though he has the talent and time on his side i think his better days are behind him.

[Nirog72]

No for me. He's an arse.

[SaluteIanTaylor]

New manager, lets see what happens.  Hasnt done anything yet.  Lets just see.....

[Phil from the upper holte]

One chance, then that's it. On form he's a £10 million player, if it doesn't work out we'd be lucky to get anything for him. We have to take the gamble.

Agreed - one chance only.

Agreed

[hawkeye]

Until Eck sits down with him and asks him if he is prepared to work for his place, there is no point in speculating.

[Nelly]

Might be off the mark but I always got the impression from him that he never really wanted to play for Villa at any stage - he just kinda ended up here. While I can obviously accept not every player will be head-over-heels in love with Villa, I would like it if they had an idea about the club and wanted to be a part of it.

So, no thanks. Good luck at where ever he ends up next.

[Muscle-Dolphin]

AM needs to insist on Ireland getting psychiatric counselling in return for a shot at the first team.

[Namlod]

I find it rather amusing that a number of people on this site seem to know more about Ireland's mental state of mind than Aston Villa FC.

How can anyone think AM has the right to demand Ireland see a psychiatrist before being allowed to play again?

IMO Ireland was a great player at Man C and lost his place (unfairly) to some highly paid big named pri Madonna which better signified the wealth the new Man C had.
He was then sold to Villa, a move he did not want but had no choice. He screwed every last penny (wages wise) he could from Man C which to be fair, I would have done as well, and started his Villa career injured. When he did get a game, he was crap but how does this make him a mental case?
Yes we had the issue with his Nan but short of that he strikes me as a normal spoiled premiership footballer.
Should we give him another chance? IMO yes. If he make a go of it and succeeds great. If he still plays a pile of shit, get rid but to state he needs to see a psychiatrist is a bit OTT...... but maybe all spoilt premiership brats should see a psychiatrist

[DB]

I asked some Geordie chaps at work what they think of him up there, pretty much what we think. They can't wait to get rid.

Unless he gets his head right we are wasting time / effort. I don't think he will, so sell him to the Boggies.

[Daholteend]

but to state he needs to see a psychiatrist is a bit OTT...... but maybe all spoilt premiership brats should see a psychiatrist

IMHO the person that needs to see a trick cyclist is the twerp that decided that we should allow a makeweight value of 8M and pay him 60K a week for four years.

What I really don't understand is how Randy would trust managers or caretakers to spend that kind of money on his behalf without making them accountable for it in some way.

Did anyone do a due diligence report on SI before they accepted him in the Milner deal?  Surely if they had and they had also taken into account his  and/or his agents attitudes before leaving citeh, or considered why Mancini sent him to the reserves to train, they might have thought at least twice about it.

It would be very interesting to know if MON was involved in SI's acquisition before he left, or was MON's approach more like "OK, IF you HAVE to sell Milner then lets ask for 30M cash. Then I would like to use 10M of that to bring in McGeady."

If that was the scenario then the whole episode of what happened last August makes sense, because right now it simply doesn't.

How many of us would wager any significant money that SI will have a breakout season under McLeish?

Certainly I would give him a chance but do we really have any other options apart from crossing our fingers and toes and praying to the Football Gods to forgive us all our fickle sins ?

[jonzy85]

I dont think there is any need to go into the pros and cons of Ireland's career to date as there would be a general consensus on everything.

Pro - Looked a potentially world class player for a season or 2 at City.

Cons - Too many to go into and we all know and agree what they are.

Now from a purely selfish Villa point of view, we have to decide how we get the most out of Ireland.

Impulse reaction is to sell, get rid. But how many clubs are actually going to come in for him with a decent offer? As pointed out he has done little to nothing in the last 2 years to cover himself in glory. So, unless some Turkish or Russian club come in with silly money we would be writing off a good chunk of what we sold Milner for.

The other option is to wipe the slate clean, as Big Eck is saying he will. Ireland is not an idiot, well he is, but even he must realise that his stock will have fallen massively. His agent will probably be able to tell him as much, such will be the lack of interest in him this summer. So even if he hates it at Villa (which I'm not sure he does, I think it was more the Houllier issue that was the problem) it will be in his interest to play his way into the shop window. If he does this, we get great service out of him until Xmas or the summer plus sell him for a lot more than we would this summer.

Or else, and this might be expecting too much, he rediscovers his form of two seasons ago, starts to really enjoy his football and ends up wanting to stay. As was mentioned by another poster, if he scores 10 or more goals with a few more assists, no one will give a flying f*** how much of a twat he was last year.

If I was Big Eck, I would do the opposite of Houllier and talk him up in the press about how much talent he has blah, blah, blah...it's what a simpleton like Ireland needs to hear.

I do have a bad feeling that he is going to come out with some tripe in the press about how he has nothing to prove or something.

[LeeB]

If this ****** ever got a shirt over Delph or Bannan I'd be disgusted.