Villa blog: Busy time at VP

It’s a busy time for the Villa hierarchy, with talk of transfers, contracts, fixture changes, ticket prices and Hollywood A-listers all keeping our senior management busy so far in 2008, writes Villa blogger Gregg Williams.

For what its worth, I don’t think that the higher than anticipated ticket prices for the Man Utd game were down to us.

I expect that United were pretty inflexible and wouldn’t allow any ‘cheap seats’ that could have guaranteed a full house cheering the Villa team on.

Randy Lerner cannot be criticised for the club’s policy on ticket prices under his reign, which has been generally cheap by Premier League standards, and as a result we’ve seen our attendances improve.

As for moving the Blackburn game to a Saturday, this was common sense.

Martin will be happy as it means our games will be spaced out more evenly, and the majority of fans find it easier to get to a weekend game than a midweek night match.

If the club can add 3000 to the gate, guaranteeing a higher matchday turnover, and help the team at the same time, why wouldn’t they do it?

I sympathise with any fans who can’t now attend the game but really the club had to make the move they did under the circumstances.

There aren’t many transfer rumours coming out of Villa Park, not even the usual ‘my mate knows a guy who walks his dog near bodymoor heath who says he just saw Ronaldinho arrive with Lionel Messi.

The names that keep cropping up are Defoe and Chimbonda, both of whom i’d welcome to Villa Park.

Defoe is an out and out goal scorer, something we haven’t seen down Villa Park for a while.

Chimbonda was excellent for Wigan and did well in his first year at Spurs when they finished fifth.

He’s suffered of late as he has been moved into different positions but he’s definitely a good right back, which is priority number one for us.

With any luck we will be able to bring in at least two players of this quality but I guess we’ll have to be patient as things are moving more slowly than ever in this transfer window it seems.

I have to mention our celebrity fan Tom Hanks.

He’s a very famous man indeed and this week he seems to have been spending more time and energy promoting the Villa than his new movie.

It was a great sight to see him holding a Villa scarf aloft in front of the world’s press.

Every little bit helps when it comes to boosting our profile and he will certainly have done that.

He’s been name dropping us for a few years but this time he has really gone for it, inviting players and club officials to the premiere and mentioning us in almost every interview.

Apparently we’ve invited him to a game and he is keen to come along at the earliest opportunity.

Well done all round Mr Hanks, and good luck at the Oscars.

Villa fans what do you think? Have your say below