Nicky Shorey & Luke Young

Welcome to Villa Park to Nicky Shorey, a really decent left back and someone we badly needed after Freddie Bouma's awful injury. Reading's loss is our gain.

Also welcome to VP Luke Young from Middlesbrough (pictured stretching his new shirt!)- I always felt we should have been in for him last year - £2million was nothing then. Both these guys should help solidify things at the back with Brad Friedel in goal too now. A defence of Friedel, Young, Shorey, Davies & Laursen is potentially good but may need some time to settle.

Boro fans seem to reckon he was their most consistent player last season - again, their loss is our gain - although the "Villa are a notch above Boro" comment needs revising. We're on a different planet to Middlesbrough in every sense.

It appears that Fat Arse will soon be off to Liverpool after throwing his toys out of the pram. With the addition of Young it would now appear that Steve Finnan won't be part of any deal so let's make sure the scousers cough up the £18mil. If they can't, let him play for the reserves for two years.

F*cking lard-arse Twat. I hope they go out in the Qualifying rounds to Standard Liege so much!

Discuss

The low-down on our next UEFA Cup qualifying opponents - First Leg August 14 at home & Away Leg August 28th.

The team are perhaps best known outside Iceland for beating Scottish side Dunfermline in the qualifying rounds of the 2004/05 UEFA Cup 4-3 on aggregate. With the second leg in injury time and the aggregate score at 3-3, Dunfermline were set to go through on away goals. However, Tommy Neilsen scored in injury time to send the Icelandic part-timers into the first round.

The team is the current Icelandic champion for the third consecutive year in a row after winning the division with 36 points out of 54 possible. Tryggvi Guðmundsson became the team top-scorer with 8 goals this season.

Goalkeeper Daði Lárusson is a regular member of the national team and during the summer of 2006 three players of the club played for the national team, Daði Lárusson, Sigurvin Ólafsson and Ármann Smári Björnsson. Ármann Smári also joined Norwegian team Brann after a superb spell for the first 15 rounds.

Baldur Bett also left the squad in the post season and joined the rivals Valur Reykjavik on a free transfer. The club stadium Kaplakriki now undergoes a major re-development as the southern stand will expand, bringing the seating capacity to 3.500 and further plans aims to take the seating capacity to close to 6.000 which would make the stadium by far the largest one in Iceland, excluding the Laugardalsvöllurstadium. Also there will be made some new club houses, indoor track and field house and roof over the stands.

The team has been full at work on preparing for the 2007 season and on 20 October 2006 the club signed the famous Icelandic twins Arnar Gunnlaugsson and Bjarki Gunnlaugsson and their signing has been marked as a step forward for the club as the twins have played for clubs like Bolton Wanderers F.C., Stoke City, Feyenoord, FC Nürnberg and most prominently of all Leicester City F.C.. On 1. November 2006 they signed the 26 year old Matthías Guðmundsson from Valur Reykjavík.

The 2007 season saw FH finishing second in the premier division behind main rivals Valur, after losing to them in one of the final games of the season. FH managed to win the Visa-bikar with a 2-1 victory over Fjölnir in the final which secured them a spot in the UEFA Cup qualification round.

In October 2007, Ólafur Jóhannesson left as FH manager to take over the Icelandic national side. In his 5 years in control of FH he won the Premier division 3 times and placed second twice, and winning the league cup 3 times and the cup once.

Heimir Guðjónsson, Ólafur Jóhannesson former assistant-manager and former FH captain, was hired as his replacement.

Honours Icelandic Champion: 3

2004, 2005, 2006

Icelandic League Cups: 4

2002, 2004, 2006, 2007

Icelandic Super Cups: 2

2004, 2006, 2007

VISA-bikar (Icelandic F.A cup): 1

2007

Hafnarfjörður or Hafnarfjordur ['hapnarˌfjœrðør̥] is a port town located on the south-west coast of Iceland, about 10 km south of Reykjavík. It is the third most populous town in Iceland, after Reykjavík and Kópavogur, with a population of 25,000. The population of Hafnarfjörður reached to 25,000 in February 29, 2008.

As the third largest city, Hafnarfjörður has established local industry and a variety of urban activities, with annual festival events.

Activities

The town is the site of an annual Viking festival, where Viking culture enthusiasts from around the world display reconstructions of Viking garb, handcraft, sword-fighting, etc.

Tourists with a New Age mindset enjoy a guided tour of the habitats of elves and other hidden people in the town area.

Hafnarfjörður is now arguably considered to be the rock n' roll capital of Iceland (a title that once belonged to Keflavík). Popular Icelandic bands such as Botnleðja, Jet Black Joe, HAM, Sign, Úlpa, Lada Sport and Jakobínarína all trace their origins to the town of Hafnarfjörður.

Hafnarfjörður is the home town of the famous Icelandic pop singer Björgvin Halldórsson and the actor Stefán Karl Stefánsson. Also the hometown of Patrick Karl & Guðmundur Karl the Icelandic abstract artists.

The draw has been kind to Villa - No Helsingborg type f*ck-ups this time please!

After a decent first leg result this was exactly what we needed and I had my very first taste of watching Villa live on the Internet for this one!

Really terrible news about Freddie Bouma and I can only join in with everyone else in wishing him a speedy recovery. The injury looked horrible, such a shame as he was so consistant last season - get well soon Freddie boy.

I could hardly watch when their striker hit the post in the first half - it would have been a disaster to go out at this stage. I think the crowd were pretty clued up regarding Gareth Barry - we were in a tough sitaution following the injury and booing him at that stage would have been detrimental to our aims.

The main thing is we're through thanks to Ashley Young's fantastic goal and can now look forward to a game in mid-August - hopefully with some time to sort out going to the away leg for that one!

Welcome to Brad Friedel. One of the best keepers in the Prem over the last few seasons and should serve us well for the next couple of years - if he's a good as David James is at 37 then we have no worries regarding age. I think M.O.N wanted a top-class proven keeper for next season rather than worrying about a Scott Carson or Stuart Taylor - now we have one and boy are we going to need him.

Had a great time in Weston on Saturday afternoon/night where our club (Gloucester Martial Arts) had five fighters in the ring, winning three and losing two on very close decisions.

Kate was up against Louise Tanner in a five round kick-boxing title match and started like a house on fire - I thought there was no way it could last the distance with Kate in that sort of form, however Louise was a great fighter too and just edged the decision 3 rounds to 2.

If the title had been awarded on support then our Kate would have won hands down - we really made some noise!

Here is some of Kate's Fight (Kate in Camo trousers)

Steve Smith won a great fight on a decision too - here's some of his fight.

Also well done to Lenny and Shane on their victories too with Sean being very unlucky to lose on his decision.

After the break we had no more fighters involved but the three MMA fights were excellent with some superb ground skills shown including a fantastic escape from an arm bar. After the fifteenth bout which lasted the distance we decided to call it a night and there was still another fight to come - even though it was midnight!

I really enjoyed it and felt very proud to be a member of GMA.

Thomas Land At Drayton Manor

Thomas Land was pretty much what I expected it to be, fairly small in the grand scheme of things but a wonderland for a 3yr old!

Daniel went on almost everything and certainly enjoyed flying in Harold The Helicopter and Jeremy The Jet. He was brave on the Troublesome Trucks which went a bit fast for him and enjoyed Bertie the Bus and the Caroline car ride!

He also managed a classic tantrum when we left the Thomas Shop. Enough said.

Daniel had his picture taken with Toby & Henry amongst others:

He saw some Tigers, leopards, parrots, monkeys and penguins at the Zoo which was nice for him - after we rode once on Thomas the heavens opened at 2.30 and didn't stop so we had to call it a day.

I decided to pop in to Villa Park on the way back - but Daniel was asleep so he still hasn't seen the place and obviously no pictures!

Sepp Blatter & Ronaldo

If ever there were two more mentally-challenged people who make me not want to spend another pound on Premier League football, it's these two.

Slaves?

Fuck me, get a fucking grip the pair of you.