Jores Okore

[Monty]

At least he's honest about not wanting to play for the club - most of the other players have only revealed their decision once they were on the pitch.

[saunders_heroes]

Okore is just using all this as an excuse to get out of the club. It's snide and underhand, he must think we were all born yesterday.

[kippaxvilla2]

Except the only think I will say in his defence is all season long we have been asking for players to look as if they give a shit.  By being pissed off at not being in this team is at least showing passion.

[john2710]

He's entering the last year of his contract and the club have made no effort to keep him. Let's face it he is as crap as the rest of the defence. Let's see who, if anyone, comes in for him over the next few weeks. I suspect he's now concerned that no one will touch him.

We boo players; admittedly they are shite; who put themselves forward to play every week even when they know they'll get slaughtered. I could understand some of them saying fuck it.  But a cnut like Okore can refuse to play & to some he's some sort of martyr.

[Villa in Denmark]

Okore is just using all this as an excuse to get out of the club. It's snide and underhand, he must think we were all born yesterday.

Did you actually read the interview? The interviewer offered him an open goal to go down the "well, I've got to think of my international career" line.

Instead "No, you know that there already players from the Championship in the Denmark squads, so from that point of view, playing in the Championship won’t necessarily hurt my chances. It’s more about getting as much playing time as possible, so if I’m no getting much playing time now and we keep the same squad, it’ll probably be difficult to get playing time in the Championship as well. We’ll have to see how a new manager sees things, when he is eventually appointed"

And to save you the trouble of the "well he would say that" response, as I've said before translating Danish interviews, what you see is what you get. Danish players doing media is fantastic. There's no hidden agendas, hidden messages, "on message / off message" subterfuge bullshit. It's a really quaint concept where a journalist asks straight questions and the footballer gives straight answers. 
Post match is fantastic over here. A couple of weeks ago we had this tackle by David Boysen (Brøndby) on Oliver Lund (Odense) in the live Sunday afternoon game. The tackle is disgraceful, but Boysen had to go and face the cameras as soon as the game was over, listen to Lund give his opinion, then try and defend himself.  There's no "oh he'll be disappointed with himself there"

That's the sort of footballing and media culture Okore has come from.

For what it's worth I think the conversation went almost like Okore has said, but it ended slightly differently to what they've both said. Something along the lines of Okore calling Black a twat who doesn't know what he's doing.

He's obviously got to be disciplined for that, but I doubt Black wants his position further undermined by coming out with something like that and having half the fanbase saying, you know what he's right.

As an aside I've never met Okore, but the partner of a former colleague met him on a couple of occasions when he was playing for FCN when he was doing the sponsor glad handing type thing.  What I was told was that once you get over the size of the bloke, he seems like a really amiable, open friendly kind of guy, but that there was a definite sense of don't take the piss.

[peter w]

The plot thickens:

Aston Villa defender Jores Okore, who caretaker boss Eric Black said was 'refusing to play' for the club, has hit back on Twitter. Okore wrote: "I refuse to play? I was on the bench against Chelsea and the games before, why didn't I refuse to play those games? There must be more to it than Mr Eric Black is telling you."

[Villa in Denmark]

See above hypothesis.

It's a pisser the journalist didn't ask him directly, but crowbaring it in as a standalone point wouldn't have been Danish etiquette.

[paul_e]

How was that tackle only a yellow?

On topic, I agree with you that the truth is probably somewhere in the middle, the bit that I don't believe is that Okore outright refused to play, that just doesn't ring true with everything else we've seen from him in 3 years, regardless of whether you think he's a great player or not he's never come over as a bad person and I'd firmly believe that the majority of fans will have been happy with him as a person prior to this.  I just think all the 'get rid of him' and 'he's another c**t like the rest' is a bit of an unfair reaction when there's nothing else prior to this counting against him.

Once Black fucks off We'll see where things are but personally I'd be happy to keep him and I'd be tempted to try to get him to sign a 2-3 year extension early in the season as well, he's far from perfect but then if he was perfect at 23 he wouldn't be with us but importantly he has great pace, which covers a lot of sins and without him our central defensive options are very slow (I'm ignoring Richards who should be out of the club asap).

[Villa in Denmark]

How was that tackle only a yellow?

On topic, I agree with you that the truth is probably somewhere in the middle, the bit that I don't believe is that Okore outright refused to play, that just doesn't ring true with everything else we've seen from him in 3 years, regardless of whether you think he's a great player or not he's never come over as a bad person and I'd firmly believe that the majority of fans will have been happy with him as a person prior to this.  I just think all the 'get rid of him' and 'he's another c**t like the rest' is a bit of an unfair reaction when there's nothing else prior to this counting against him.

Once Black fucks off We'll see where things are but personally I'd be happy to keep him and I'd be tempted to try to get him to sign a 2-3 year extension early in the season as well, he's far from perfect but then if he was perfect at 23 he wouldn't be with us but importantly he has great pace, which covers a lot of sins and without him our central defensive options are very slow (I'm ignoring Richards who should be out of the club asap).

Because the referee f##ked up.

I can't remember which of the broadcasters, probably Viasat, has the referee come up to the studio/booth after he's got changed and talk the panel through the big talking points of the game. More than the likes of Boysen having to defend themselves it's led to some interesting conversations over the last couple of years.

[pbavfckuwait]

Okore raises the point that he has not refused to play and I would tend to believe him, all we have seen from Black is more immersion of the shit management and player selection that has cost us for the last 5 seasons. Black should be nowhere near being asked to select a side to represent Aston Villa, another charlatan that we put stupid amounts of cash into a bank account monthly.
A true reflection of where Aston Villa are at the moment, Erick fucking Black

[ozzjim]

Okore played through the psin to help us last season and was half fit by the time we played Southampton by all reports. There is more too this and I believe the guy who has done that before over the guy thats picking bacuna and Richardson

[cdbearsfan]

I believe Black. Why would he make it up?

[paul_e]

I believe Black. Why would he make it up?

Why would he pick Richardson?

[Risso]

I believe Black. Why would he make it up?

Because he's a massive twat?

[exiled on the wirral!]

I believe Black. Why would he make it up?

Because he's a massive twat?

I believe Black, he's been in the game 35 years I'll have you know..