Stephen Ireland - Clean Slate?

[villadom]

Given our rather generous interpretation of "Proven Premiership Experience" I don't see how anyone who is prepared to give the manager a chance can be opposed to giving Ireland the same.

[LeeB]

Given our rather generous interpretation of "Proven Premiership Experience" I don't see how anyone who is prepared to give the manager a chance can be opposed to giving Ireland the same.

Well as far as I can remember McLeish hasn't slagged off us and our city, and spent a year sat on his arse whinging whilst drawing £60k a week.

[Matt Collins]

I can't see anyone else prepared to pay his wages. Unless they do, I don't think we can afford to sideline him purely on principle. There's probably a 10% chance he'll ever be at the top of his game again, but if he did he'd be the perfect foil for bent.

[Malandro]

Randy bought him, why doesn't he just have him serving coffee on his jet?

[PaulTheVillan]

I've always rated him & I think his passing, vision & through balls would be a dream for Darren Bent.

I just hope McLeish can get the best out of him, he's done it with dickhead footballers before like Lee Bowyer & Barry Ferguson.

[NeilH]

If we give him a second chance (or is it third chance) it will simply end up in tears. The only possible reason for this pathetic excuse of a footballer bleating about fresh starts is because he’s on his very last drink at last chance saloon. If it does not work out then he’ll be the Gerald Ratner of football. I see absolutely no reason whatsoever why the club should waste an ounce of coaching time on this idiot. Let him rot at home sitting on his Stephen Ireland monocle rug staring out at his pink Stephen Ireland monocle Range Rover crying into his Stephen Ireland monocle handkerchief.

[spangley1812]

If we give him a second chance (or is it third chance) it will simply end up in tears. The only possible reason for this pathetic excuse of a footballer bleating about fresh starts is because he’s on his very last drink at last chance saloon. If it does not work out then he’ll be the Gerald Ratner of football. I see absolutely no reason whatsoever why the club should waste an ounce of coaching time on this idiot. Let him rot at home sitting on his Stephen Ireland monocle rug staring out at his pink Stephen Ireland monocle Range Rover crying into his Stephen Ireland monocle handkerchief.

Great idea as we pay him £70,000 pw

[NeilH]

If we give him a second chance (or is it third chance) it will simply end up in tears. The only possible reason for this pathetic excuse of a footballer bleating about fresh starts is because he’s on his very last drink at last chance saloon. If it does not work out then he’ll be the Gerald Ratner of football. I see absolutely no reason whatsoever why the club should waste an ounce of coaching time on this idiot. Let him rot at home sitting on his Stephen Ireland monocle rug staring out at his pink Stephen Ireland monocle Range Rover crying into his Stephen Ireland monocle handkerchief.

Great idea as we pay him £70,000 pw

So what do you propose. Bring him back into the fold, wait for one of his hissy fits and then watch the dressing room mood implode?
I couldn't care less how much he is paid. He's got a track record of trouble and he would be better suited somewhere else. If the club is foolish enough to think that we must play him due to his the weekly wage packet they negotiated then we will suffer the consequences.

[UsualSuspect]

Were must have been mad signing him in the first place. He has always had a shit attitude, City fans couldn't wait to see the back of him and he didn't want to come to us anyway hence the drawn out transfer.

Another 8 million down the toilet. Add to that the money spent on NRC and Cuellar and thats 25 million.

Unbelievable.

[Mazrim]

Were must have been mad signing him in the first place. He has always had a shit attitude, City fans couldn't wait to see the back of him and he didn't want to come to us anyway hence the drawn out transfer.

Another 8 million down the toilet. Add to that the money spent on NRC and Cuellar and thats 25 million.

Unbelievable.

O.K, he hasn't always had a shit attitude. When he was motivated and playing well he was one of the most consistently brilliant players in the league. A lot of City fans (certainly thiose I know) were actually disappointed to see him go and he was very popular there. He had come through the ranks to be one of their best players after all. Which is also why he was reluctant to move. Aside from his youth in Ireland, its the only club he'd known. I cant blame him for that but I do expect him to get his shit together at Villa.

What he needed coming to Villa after leaving the club he's been with since he was a child, was solidity. We were all over the place and he didn't get that. He also shares the blame of course for how it has worked out but there is still capacity to get going again. He's too big a potential asset to just write off and as we wouldnt get anything like what we should for him we may as well see if there's still a player there.

[pooligan]

I voted yes only because i think we are more or less stuck with him like we are with Beye. I cant stand the guy and his attitude stinks but everyone deserves a second chance and maybe our new manager might just be able to get him to play like he did at Man City before he fell out of favor there.

[Dr Butler]

The game against Chelsea at home when he was put clean through and dragged the shot wide - if that had of gone in then i think his career with us would have been so different

One last chance as i know there is a good player in there

this is exactly my thoughts on the matter Hookey

UTV
The Doc

[Phil from the upper holte]

Give him ONE chance only.

If we can't shift the fucker dont want him earning £60k a week in the reserves

[Dave P]

We have to give him a chance.  It's pointless not doing so.  Give him a few starts pre-season and hopefully he'll shine.

[Merv]

Posted last week and said if he comes back for pre-season training, why not? And the Guardian article suggests he's up for doing just that, moving to Birmingham, and giving it a go. At the end of the day, we don't know an awful lot about what happened with Ireland last season. He didn't, to be fair, get much game time, he was frequently injured, he seemed to be outside the manager's plans as soon as Houllier arrived. How much of that was down to him, how much was down to the manager (considering the case of Warnock, who was transformed from never-hear-a-peep-from model pro to banished-to-the-reserves-never-to-play-again in a couple of months)?

I don't know. What I do know is Ireland needs to hit the ground running in the next couple of months and if he does that, I've no problem with seeing what he can do.