Time to map out a plan for Villa's future
- Says blogger Matthew Turvey
New signing in red-tape race
Tuesday 26th August 2008, 11:29AM BST.
Albion were today racing to secure international clearance for record signing Borja Valero to make his debut tonight.
Boss Tony Mowbray wants to hand Valero his Baggies bow in the Carling Cup tie at Hartlepool after the £4.7m Spaniard headed to the north east this morning with his team mates.
But Mowbray must await the all-clear from officials back in the Black Country who were racing to push through the necessary paperwork this afternoon.
Valero officially became an Albion player on Friday after a protracted exchange of documents between the Baggies and Real Mallorca.
But Albion were today locked in a new paper-chase as tried to speed up English and Spanish FA officials to force through international clearance documents.
The Baggies have up until kick-off time at Victoria Park to receive the paperwork but they could make no progress until this morning as the FA was closed for the Bank Holiday yesterday.
“If he is eligible to play he will play,” said Mowbray, who is keen to get his 23-year-old midfield recruit into action.
“The boy just wants to play football. He doesn’t mind where it is.
“He has come to a team that has got plenty of midfield players and hopefully he will add to the competition in that area of the pitch.
“He is here because he knows what we can do. He has seen us enough.
“He knows how our teams play and the attraction for him was to come and play in a team that gets the ball down and plays and passes. He wants to get started.”
Valero could line up this evening alongside Robert Koren, who made his comeback from injury against Everton on Saturday and is likely to get another run-out this evening having missed almost all of pre-season.
And Koren is excited by the prospect of seeing Valero in action.
“It’s always welcome when the club brings players in because you need a big squad,” he said.
“It’s always good when the club bring good players in and it will create good competition and force everybody to work harder.”
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hopefully he can get off the mark, if this happens i can see a nice surge of confidence ahead of the weekend which is exactly what we need, that along with any signings we may make will do us a world of good. i know its a banana skin but i do hope we thump Pool tonight.
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Don’t want to start a riot, cos I think you may have a gem here. But why has it taken so long to get clearance ? Surely the club would have sorted everything out for him to play prior to signing him ? Just seems odd to me
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nice win tonite to get the monkey off our back aye boing boing
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i hope we and the dingles win so we can get um in the next round and bring um down to earth abit after there record 2 wins on the trot aye boing boing
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hope we get a good result tonight and when i say good result that means 4-0 -5-0 to show our Premiership Quality for confidence and morale. If last saturday we had still got Phillips he would have scored at least 2 goals easily, the missed header by Miller in the 43rd minute and Roman Bednar’s miss in the second half, those i am sure he wouldnt have let us down. Now its up to who sold him to make amends or else its the same old story dominate games and stil lose them.
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Can’t wait to see Valero start today (if possible). Hopefully Mowbray will start MacDonald becuase I want to see what he can do! I’ve got a feeling about him this season.
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4. Terry my friend, like your style, but let’s save it for the final eh ? Hartlepool aren’t gonna be push overs…especially with the might of Jeff Stelling, his wind up James Brown and the power of SKY !! Good luck tonight.
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Yo tel.
After your impressive displays against Arse anal
And Everton Hartlepool should hold no fears for you, should they?
Up The Wolves
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Terry, we expect you to keep on posting and good on ya for doing so but already it seems different. I am not going to gloat because I want us to go up and you to stay up so we can play you again next season but the gloating that we had to endure last season will fade away over the next few weeks. I genuinly feel you will struggle to score enough goals and you must put an end to the type of defending that led to the second Everton goal. It is hard to judge via the tv abut I felt even the Brummie Road celebration of the pen seemed to show that you knew it was just a token goal and not a possible draw.
Having said that I repeat that I hope you stay up, we will need those 6 point next season.
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6
MacDonald is rubbish lets face it, he couldnt score in the coca cola league, never mind the premier, albion need 2 get in 2 more strikers.
Hopefully valero plays 2nite, i wanna c what he can do.
Wolves 2 win aswell, so we can get em in the next round and slaughter em.
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Does anyone really think we shall win 4-0 tonight?
Personally I think a win of any sort is what is needed. Losing can become a habit and the brilliant football vanish with it. By next May no one will remember we tore Everton to shreds. They will only see 1-2. So tonight, a scruffy 1-0 from a deflected shot in off the post will do me with Miller or Moore claiming it. (or both).
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5: Alfred
Phillips has gone we need to get over it!!!
Also Phillips would’nt of scored that header in 43rd minute it would of been to high for him, maybe Bednar would of done better in that situation but we will never know.
We all need to get real on the fact that Phillips WILL score plenty of goals for the Blues in the Championship and for him to get 4 in 4 is of no suprise to me, Can he still do it in the Premier??? maybe or maybe not, but he ain’t a baggie anymore lets concentrate on what we’ve got and also what we may have coming in during the week.
I actually believe over the next 3 games we will have a better idea on how we will fair in the Premier League with Bolton up next surely going to be one of the teams we need to be fighting for position with, then West Ham at home not as good as Everton defensively and one of my tips for relegation this year, then the Vile at Home, if we can pick up 7 points from them 3 games then I think we would all be happy with the fact we have managed 7 points from our 1st 5 games of the season when realistically 3 of the teams we would of played are in Europe in reward for their final league position last season.
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9,malvern, are you ok mate,i can assure you its not me thats changed its the mods,i was telling worcester on saturday if i put 100 post on here im lucky if 2 get on,unless there serious post,which really aint me,i love the banter with you and filton and others no malice no threats just banter,im really glad youv got off to a good start because as ive said when it starts to go wrong i shall be waiting,mods providing of course,enjoy your evenings footie aye boing boing
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8,cornish pasty,yo thats exactly what they was mate impressive displays we all remember your impressive start in the prem dont we and end come to think of it,yo o r o r o r aye boing boing
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8,pasty, i carnt weed i carnt wite but i can dwive a twactor,aye boing boing
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5-0 to the Albion lets see if Moore is really worth the £££
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rest the first team and field the bench warmers.happy faces all round and could still see at least a 3-0 win
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9 – Malvern Wolf, thanks for your consideration of not wanting to gloat, but what exactly do Wolves fans have to gloat about? We all know this season is going to be tough for Albion, but I for one am looking forward to us again pitting our wits against prem opposition, and this time with a class manager, and better players. Wolves may have a better season, and the signs are good ( how many times has that been said?), but Wolves have got a lot to prove. We’ve done it and got the teashirt 3 times with automatic promotion. You lot have a lot of catching up to do. There’s only a few games gone. The time for you to even think about gloating is still but a pipedream.
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**** Mallorca sign a striker ****
just looked on their site, it looks like they have made a signing today (adruiz ?) anyway, could this pave the way for Trejo ? Lets hope so
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What are we up to? Confident says mr mowbray! confident who its half time in extra time and we’re 3-1 down shame on them, we’re spending millions for nothing. Do our players care for their supporters, shame on them we’re close to a full team tonight and yet we’re losing to an amateur side! high expectations my arse we’re already in deep you know what we’cant score a damn goal. that moore is a waste of money, did he ever score a goal for us since his move i think not, fed up already.
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3 games in o,h dear what the hell is happening?.It really is getting a worrying situation,i know its,s onley 3 games but umteen million spent and still the same old defensive problems.And know we can,t score for love nor money.K.P?????
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7,filton,never mind theres always the fa cup final aye boing boing
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how many mids does he need
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21,santa, pee off back to lapland aye boing boing
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Terry, What cup final is that? Not the Carling cup methinks aye aye. Or is it ONE IN THE EYE?
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