Stephen Ireland

[Mortimer's Bear]

To play for Lambert you have to work your bollocks off, he will excuse an off day but not someone who doesn't put in 100 percent. Ireland is a flair player, good in a side with top players around him but not in a battling side as we are at present. Nzogbia should be a lesson to some though, many on here were writing him off as a wanker, well he could be the wanker that keeps us up.

Good point - nzogbia has turned it around and is doing the job for us.

I wonder how many of people slagging off ireland as a wanker voted for him as player of the season last year- a decision i find still hard to believe as i thought he was average at best last season.

Agree with that eastie, and I'd extend it to the previous season with that bellend Downing.

as much as it sticks in my throat....Downing played very well that season and was worth his POTY award.  still a twat though..

UTV
The Doc

Nobody voted for him as player of the year.  This is the Terrace Trophy ran by the Lions Club and takes into account an online MOTM vote every week.  When we win, we get about 600 votes, if we lose then we might only see 30 votes.  It's largely kids voting and it is always going to favour players who have the odd standout game ahead of week in week out consistency.  In other words, it's a crap system for deciding on POTY.

Ireland would never have won it (despite the embarrassing lack of contenders) if it was the traditional end of year fans' vote.

Bloody know all.

[Chris Smith]

Despite occasionally flattering to deceive Ireland has entirely lived down to my expectations. He's clearly got ability, but he was the wrong signing at the time and he's struggled to exert any influence on the side ever since.

[eamonn]

Petrov was our best player until his illness last season. He was beginning to add goals to his game for the first time since his Celtic days and how we fell apart during his absence in the last two months of the season showed how much we missed him. Replacing him with mangled combos of Holman, KEA, Bannan and Delph has been largely horrific to witness.

If Ireland could play as well as he did at Chelsea last season even half the time he would be worth persevering with. I'm really disappointed he hasn't done more for us as I thought we had got a great deal with him and the 15m or whatever it was for Milner. But then again I'm a sucker for midfielders with flair who flatter to deceive (i.e. lil'Lee). They're so often the type of players we've lacked down through the years. Yet when we do have them they tend to be nuts and bald (Curcic), inconsistent (Hendrie) or nuts, inconsistent and bald (Ireland).

[john in oz]

cant perform if not playing regularly

[He wears a magic hat]

If you don't perform you don't play regularly

[aj2k77]

1 goal 4 assists in 45 games. He's shite whatever way you want to spin it. He had 1 good season 5 years ago. So did Michael Ricketts.

[Concrete John]

cant perform if not playing regularly

And he won't perform if he is playing regularly, so what's the point?

[saunders_heroes]

It's funny how all the players that have been given the cold shoulder over the last couple of years are the ones on the most money. Anyone who thinks its nothing more than an amazing coincidence is off their rocker.

Riiggghhhtt.....so the club's plan was to lower the wage bill by not using these players and therefore making them virtually unsellable to anyone? They would have been much easier to get off the wage bill if they were playing regularly and attracting interest, rather than moping around with the youth players.

Of course you're riigghhhttt! No club in their right mind would touch the likes of Bent with the barge pole because he's been frozen out at the Villa for most of the season. He'll be in the Villa reserves for the rest of his career.

[saunders_heroes]

To play for Lambert you have to work your bollocks off, he will excuse an off day but not someone who doesn't put in 100 percent. Ireland is a flair player, good in a side with top players around him but not in a battling side as we are at present. Nzogbia should be a lesson to some though, many on here were writing him off as a wanker, well he could be the wanker that keeps us up.

That's spot on Robbo, and that attitude will serve us well in the coming years.

No more freeloading at the Villa. About fucking time.

That's fair enough Lee, but it does seem to propagate the myth that there's no middle ground between overpaid mercenaries and League 2 kids.

I don't think so, it's just those on our books have proven themselves over the last few seasons to be nothing but overpaid mercenaries.

Once they're fucked off, maybe we can bring some more players in deserving of those wages.

Don't kid yourself that Lerner will spend those wages on decent PL players. It'll be more lower league players on a relative pittance. Christ where have you been for the last couple of years?

[Chris Harte]

Ireland is a fucking leech

He casn fuck off with the other ne'er do wells who have dissed / toook the piss out of the club over the last 25 years

One of a long list - Callaghan, Hodge, Collymore, Alpay to scratch the surface.

FUCK OFF!!!!!!

Remove Collymore from the list and I'd agree 100% with this statement.

Stephen Ireland is a parasite, as far as I'm concerned.

[Ron Manager]

and remove Alpay who was excellent for us in his first season!

[LeeB]

To play for Lambert you have to work your bollocks off, he will excuse an off day but not someone who doesn't put in 100 percent. Ireland is a flair player, good in a side with top players around him but not in a battling side as we are at present. Nzogbia should be a lesson to some though, many on here were writing him off as a wanker, well he could be the wanker that keeps us up.

That's spot on Robbo, and that attitude will serve us well in the coming years.

No more freeloading at the Villa. About fucking time.

That's fair enough Lee, but it does seem to propagate the myth that there's no middle ground between overpaid mercenaries and League 2 kids.

I don't think so, it's just those on our books have proven themselves over the last few seasons to be nothing but overpaid mercenaries.

Once they're fucked off, maybe we can bring some more players in deserving of those wages.

Don't kid yourself that Lerner will spend those wages on decent PL players. It'll be more lower league players on a relative pittance. Christ where have you been for the last couple of years?

Don't you mean the last 2000 years?

[LeeB]

Joking aside, I never knew Morrissey was a Villa fan.

[rob_bridge]

Ireland is a fucking leech

He casn fuck off with the other ne'er do wells who have dissed / toook the piss out of the club over the last 25 years

One of a long list - Callaghan, Hodge, Collymore, Alpay to scratch the surface.

FUCK OFF!!!!!!

Remove Collymore from the list and I'd agree 100% with this statement.

Stephen Ireland is a parasite, as far as I'm concerned.

I'll leave Collymore in - he was the highest paid player and delivered jack shit in 3 years.

Ireland is worse than though, most definitely as SVC can in part, and only in part, was suffering from depression some of the time he was there.

As for Alpay - well Hodge did ok for a while too but they are both staying in from my perspective. Lack of professionalism atthe back end irks me somewhat

Pick your own by all means - I'll likely as not agree with most of them

Curcic there's another

Ireland is as bad as any of them.

[Damo70]

It is the dilemma of how good or otherwise he would be if he was given a run of games in his best role. It would need a manager coming in who had faith in him to do that from the start of the season, not when it is do or die time. But our three managers since he has been here haven't done that. Of course the other side of it is he may not have had a long run but he has had a reasonable number of games and has on the whole done very little. I would imagine he could be bought for a relatively small amount (admittedly on big wages) but I'm not aware we have been batting offers away for the last three years.  That probably tells you what managers in general think of him.