Paul Faulkner, North Stand and speculation

I don't know what to tell you about my lack of activity the last couple of days. The truth is, this site isn't about copying the news for you to keep you up to date; you have News Now or Google Alerts for that, it's just that nothing has inspired me to post.

I'm not really that inspired today but with the football yesterday, it was like the season is still on and I woke with a smile and I woke wanting to post and I want to follow some links today and I just want to think Aston Villa for a while.

There are things happening at Aston Villa though. The interview Randy Lerner did with the media department at the club is getting published every now and then and we are getting told more and more every few days. I'm sure they can milk this for weeks and I'm sure more is coming.

New CEO

Lerner did confirm Paul Faulkner as the new CEO. I've never met Mr Faulkner but have had an email conversation with him and he came across nice enough.

The good thing about having a CEO again is that the person that sits in this position doesn't need to ask for permission and has a responsibility to drive the business forward and develop it. Soon enough, we will find out if this is true.

North Stand development

{rokbox title=|Villa Park :: New North Stand| text=|We have a photo.| size=|682 511|}images/aston-villa/aston-villa-north-stand.jpg{/rokbox} I'm not sure how true this is and I'd put money on this just something someone found but it's nice to see and it will be nice when complete. It offers more seats and more money but there will also be something else include, Maybe even a restaurant, a bar or hotel - certainly something and well, it is interesting.

Rumours

There is a rumour doing the rounds that we are interested in paying £8mn for 29 year old Bobby Zamora. Now, while I'd like to think that whoever came up with this rumour does have some credibility, I feel certain that they don't. O'Neill knows that one good season, eight goals in the league I believe, doesn't make a Premier League star - just look at Santa Cruz.

The Zamora thing won't happen and we won't be going for players like that - we have players like that we can bring through. We won't be spending money on players we can bring through ourselves.

The Jermaine Beckford rumour has started again. I'm convinced, in my world, that this is just his agent linking his player to as many clubs as possible to try and get him a move and to earn himself a few quid. Don't get me wrong, he scores goals, but if you put Marlon Harewood in the Leeds team last season he would have scored more.

Lastly today; James Milner. Today he is getting linked to Chelsea and the price is £24mn and I'm going to start counting the number of teams that get linked with him. We are at three; Chelsea, Manchester City and Manchester United. I think we will hit six by the start of next season but he will still be at Aston Villa.

I'm off for dry toast and something cold to drink.