Morning all and apologies for the early post but the wife woke me with an emergency at some stupid time. It involved the TV not working. Needless to say, it wasn't broken but I'm up so I've had coffee and some toast and with a little hope I've put on Sky Sports News and I'm sitting back with the online papers.
But before we get to those, the Twitter competition. I was going to do this for the England match last night but forgot so we are doing it for the under 21 match between Serbia and Sweden tonight instead.
All you have to do is twit me the name of the team that will score the last goal and the minute the goal is scored. The first one to twit me with right or closest result, time of goal to be taken from the UEFA website, will win the England replica shirt. You have until kick off to get your guesses in. Get twittering.
Right, that is done, now onto an interesting poll we ran yesterday asking where you thought we would finish the season. The results are quite surprising. They are surprising because almost as many think we will go backwards next season as think we will finish 5th or 6th. It sort of looks like expectations are no longer what they used to be.
41.3% of the people that voted thought we'd finish 5th or 6th while 39% went for 7th or 8th. I'm a big fan of top six still because Manchester City are not buying top four players and Barry leaving, I think, will be a blessing in disguise. We just need to buy the right players and money has to be given or we have to hope that the billionaire that has purchased 60% of a Premier League club is buying into Aston Villa and we can finally get someone with real ambition.
Now, to the rumours. First up is Eidur Gudjohnsen. Apparently it is between us Everton and Fulham. He'll be 31 this year and while he is a very good player we have three strikers (four if you want to include Heskey) already at the club and I can't see us buying anyone until we have lost one of them and Martin O'Neill isn't going to get rid of any of them.
The Mirror are linking us with Miguel Monteiro, a right back currently playing at Valencia and the rumoured price is £5mn. for a player who turned 29 this year. I can't see it myself, not when we have a right back already and a fairly decent one at that.
But, there is more and we are going to revisit the Kyle Naughton rumour because apparently, now that Everton have had an offer rejected, we are going to enter the race and it is thought, according to one of the papers, that Naughton prefers a move to us over the bitter blue team from Liverpool. If it is going to happen, expect something soon, as his current team need the money. But it is Martin O'Neill, so if it is going to happen expect it to happen sometime in about a month when he has missed pre-season with us.
Right, almost it for today, in fact I think it is but I'm convinced I've forgotten something. If it comes back to me I'll be back, but for now, I'm actually thinking about getting an hour in the garden in first before work.