You heard it first from Bill Howell: Harewood signs

harewood has signed a three year contract at aston villa and he is a great addition to our squad he wont just be carews backup.

ohh did we ok

I was a bit iffy on the thought of this signing at first. But to be honest, if he gives 100% for the claret and blue, then that will be good enough for me. MON knows what he is doing. Welcome MH!

The jury's out as far as I'm concerned. If he does the business then I'm happy to be wrong.

Im pretty happy about this new signing, marlon is stong, and powefull and good back to john carew and hes another body for the squad. could turn out to be a shrewd signing by martin!

It is a sad day for me, we sign a reject striker from a club who nearly got relegated.

The same club have signed a striker from a top four team who played in the champions league last season.

We're buying players from lesser teams while they are all buying from us or higher teams, doesn't bode well at the moment.

we are building, i know we havent got as many players as we did this time last season and its still early days but we do have a better bench with the likes of maloney and harewood

Guys, I know I was quick to slag this signing off but take a look at his goals on YOUTUBE, a lot of which are first touches and snapshots! I'm not saying he's Gary Lineker but it's a different option at the end of the day... and we have been short on those for years!

Come on boys... 4m its a snip. MON will get the best out of him. A great bit of business. More monies to spend on more players. Well done Martin and C'mon Marlon. Take no notice of the moaners...

Harewood is a reject who nearly found his level at Wigan until O'neill tripped in the bath room banged his head & the rest is history. Baros gone, Angel gone, Harewood in yep the squad is getting better not.

So what happened to the kit launch today then? I thought it was going to be a major media event?? I have been glued to sky sports and tere is nothing being said about it at all apart from the Harewood news, am i missing something?

Seems like we to busy building the youth team and the bench i wonder when its time to build the first team

baros was crap id sooner have carew any day

What a waste of money.....might as well bring back Hendrie and Djemba Djemba (the player that's so awful they named him twice). Even if he's "on the bench" material, is this the "top class" type of signing we were led to expect??? You can't polish a turd Martin.

jinksy harewood will be 100% better then baros we wasted money on him and look how crap he was. lucky enough we got carew out of the deal. harewood to become top goalscorer for villa.

i see quite alot of negativity but there is more than a month left in the transfer window, the signings will soon start to come right

great signing in my books and for nothing!!! good strong lad who will score goals needs to re find form alright but with the right people around him i think he will do so! already mates with reo- coker so will fit in well, still need more players though!!! Harewood's not by any means world class but nice to have in the squad!

Do you remember we were all raving about our kit launch thinking that secretly several stars were gonna be unveiled in our new nike kits. Mmmm SWP, Sneijder, Hughes, Defoe and a GK maybe. Whoops in comes Marlon Harewood. I actually think if we had signed a relatively unknown Portuguese striker called (Rafael Gomez- i made this up) for 4m that had one good season playing for Athletic Bilbao but has struggled since we wouldn't be complaining. Its just he is called Marlon Harewood and played for West Ham United - not so glamorous eh? lol I believe in ya MON!

We need cover for injuries and suspensions to Carew. When Chris Sutton was injured last year our season really dipped - no cover for the big man. A big lad is needed to hold up that ball.

ye chris kane holte ender, top scorer for vilal with probably bout 4 goals again. that means MON paid 1m per goal for marlon- what a bargain NOTTTTTT!!!

UP THE VILLA!!!

i thought they were unveiling the away kit aswel today, has anyone seen it?

any one see the away kit yet

Chris Kane - HAREWOOD COULD NOT CLEAN MILAN BAROS'S BOOTS. Try watching from the side (Trinity) & you might see a different game. Oh & take your rose coloured specks off.
World class signings my arse. We've been fed bull.
Why is our American Billionaire more interested in Pubs & training grounds?

i dont understand how u can call yourself villa fans. You are doubiting the club you support, the manager and the players that are coming in and jesse every one was all excited when we signed milan baros and what a waist of money was that. If harewood becomes a flop then at leat we didnt pay near double figures. MON claret&blue army AVFC!

This is such a let down, I can't beleive I realy thought Villa were contenders, did u see the pictures of Man Utd training in hong kong today, that compared to us signing Harewood it's a joke for gooodness sake one thing I can rely on with Villa is that they can always build me up to let me down and be a laughing stock with my mates, they are going to love this one. Absolute crap, new kit so fing what give me new players instead, yes we will get more but it's so important to get them training together ffs crap crap crap

I don't see the fuss myself, he's more than likely only going to be back up for Carew and and if O'Neill can get the form out of him he showed the season before last it'll be a decent bit of business

I dont like the fact that most of the online headlines on our new signing are pictures of Marlon looking frustrated....like he has just missed an absolute sitter. Look at the one on the yahoo.co.uk villa page. Is this a sign of things to come.

UP THE VILLA!

i'm not a fan of harewood. would rather have alan smith. never know may get him aswell. i'm still upset MON let angel go he never complained whan he was left out and when he played he always tried and for most of the season he was our top scorer

I agree we need cover for our first team players, but bringing in players worse than what we have let go is stupid. Our first team last year was good enough to finish 11th. We have to be bringing in players to push these players onto the bench. The signing of Harewood will not encourage any quality players to come to Villa. It will do the opposite!! I hope we get players in of the quality required soon because at the moment we are certainly still behinsd the 10 teams we finished behind last year as they have all signed better players than us and moved further ahead. On top of that i would say West Ham, Man city (if not now soon will be) and Fulham have all but caught us in terms of quality of squads. I hope this things change in the next week or so!!!

Sorry to join the supposed whingers but no i'm not jumping for joy about marlon, never gonna be villas top goal scorer and if he is then we really wont have scored many goals and something will have gone drastically wrong, in my opinion. Now having said that it is only my opinion and we are entitled to have our opinions as we live in a democracy (well sort of). So now we've signed marlon like it not we now all need to get behind the big man and give him our support, i know for a fact that i will as long as he has the claret and blue of villa on his back.

Getting harder and harder to say this but now lets just wait and see who arrives next and all pray that its a really really pleasant surprise, come on MON and Randy give us the signings we are crying out for!!

For GODS sake some of the people posting on this site are bloody idiots!! People post on here with there ridiculous opinions saying that Everything MON is doing is crap but they don't have a clue about how it works themselves, reading through these comments is pissing me off so much. We have an absolutely brilliant manager in MON so all you self proclaimed critics out there, stop complaining and let the guy do what he feels is right. He clearly has a plan and he will get the players that will fit into the plan. I'm quite excited to see how Harewood will play under MON.

I do not think this signing is a bad one, if you read the quotes from MON he is almost saying that he will be a squad player.

"he's prepared to come here and challenge to try and work his way into the first team."

"Marlon's prepared to come in here and battle for his place
"
"lad who's willing to fight for his place."
Martin O'Neill, July 17th 2007

We have released 7 players they cannot all be replaced by £10 million pound players, i have faith the big signings will come so lets all be patient. Up the Villa

marlon will score goals he is powerful and pacey and with reo coker it will bring a bit of energy and excitement into the dressing room plus they are english.still got the faith

could marlon harewood be on his way to show off the new away kit? Something must be going on for it to take so long for someone to put shirt,shorts and socks on. Another signing maybe?
MON CLARET&BLUE ARMY!
AVFC

I agree MON and the club have a plan. Part of the plan was to have the squad complete and targets in before the pre season tour. Well if he has succeeded in working to that plan i am even more concerned! When do we leave again?

My best mate is a West Ham Fan and he's pissing himself laughing, he's offering us Christian Dailly and "coke-head" Newton for a combined 6.7m!?!

What a joke we are, please, please, please do something to restore the pride!!!!!!!!!!

whos that in between barry and mellberg is it o halrahan or moloney

Anybody else wonder what happened to the 'MAJOR MEDIA EVENT'??

I think the club is in safe hands but I wish they wouldnt build us up for nothing.

its barry, maloney, melberg and gabby ;D

at steve m

i'm in two minds about writing something about this major media event in case i'm seen as knocking the club, which i'm not really

the new core values of the club are:

openness, commitment, heritage, integrity and togetherness

i wasn't allowed to send someone to this 'major media event' and the club are not very 'open' to telling us anything - they're not trying to build relationships with this site which doesn't feel very 'together'

but i think i'll just leave my views here until they are picked up by someone else ... ;)

but if that was a 'major media event' i dont want to think about any major signings ...

Thanks Damian. Has it been and gone because I was unable to see it? Did it make the television?
Our only official link to AVFC seems to be the website. Maybe the website is not reflecting the views of Lerner and co but simply printing tabloid type statements to get us all to visit it.

well there u go, the official site shows he is wearing the new home top... guess it'll be another month or so till we get to see the away top!

finnaly some people are starting to agree with me about us being slow i say we are a snail but i doubt some of u wouldnt like to here or say that

Marlon looks pretty good in the new kit. I think it's simple but effective.

Marlon is ugly he dosnt look good in any top

THE AWAY TOP IS NOW ON THE VILLA OFFICIAL SITE - AND IT IS MINT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

anyone seen the new away kit, its on the villa website looks well smart and im startin to like the home kit to even tho they are pretty much the same as last seasons kits. why dont they have the home kit with blue shorts and the away kit as all white

You can see the new away and goalkeeper kits on the Villa site now, too. The away kit looks fantastic.

Harewood... good squad player, good cover for Carew, good Legaue Cup player. Not like it's amount of money we've spent on him, anyway, and there'll be more on the way. Do you really think MON would've let players go without knowing he'd sign, for example, a new right-back before the season starts?

LINK [url made tiny]

check out the new away top, fecking class!!

tommy dont look too happy in his yellow though!

Well thats cheered me up a bit thnx that away kit is gorgeous im defenitly going to order that one its probley the best kit iv seen us have for ages its even better than the home one cause that aint changed much just added a nike tick on it

the new away shirt if well nice, dont know why they never have the home shirt with blue shorts and the away as all white, it would look loads better

I have begged on previous posts that we don't sign MH, but we have so we need to deal with it. I hope he proves most of us wrong and turns out to be a good addition to the squad.
The reason most people didn't want him to sign was because we were promised bigger and better things from the club. I am getting more and more concerned by the American Hype that now seems to be coming out of the club. Why was the kit launch dubbed a Major Media Event, when basically a few fans and a few cameras were allowed to see the kit. It will make Central News but nothing more.
Please the powers @ AVFC, don't big things up to be something there not going to be, ie world class players and sign MH. Hopefully MH will be good for Villa and as long as he gives 100% I will back him, just wanted a proven international striker to be signed. Our young lads can give us squad cover.
Sorry to always be down but that is how the club is making me feel at the minute

don't worry to much about tommo in the yellow, he won't wear it often if we get scott carson!

AT LEAST MARLON LOOKS THE REAL DEAL IN THE NEW KIT!

Im not to happy at signing him but he looked chuffed to bits to be wearing the shirt

anymore players west ham dont want and they can flog us????

I Can't say i'm over the moon at MH Signing for Villa. but we've just lost Sutton who in my opinion was a decent signing, came in did a job and played for the team and fans. So i'm seeing MH as his replacement. As for the kit's absolutely love both of them. Also Randy & MON Will do the bigger better signings for the squad MON is a man of his word he's promised the fans european football and he'll deliver might be at a push this season. Just remember rome wasn't built in a day and the same applies for villa in my opinion this season. Ciao

why cant we give him a chance i think MON wud get the best out if him and wen hes good we know hes good remember wen DOL was in charge he gt a hat-trick!

Might aswell sign ant and dec next and change our name to the laughing squad

Why does the kit have the [b]old[/b] 32red.com logo?

If you actually go to there website, they no longer use the logo we've got on our tops?

Do you think they'll change the top before it goes on sale?

At Villa_Rules, I nearly pissed myself when I read that comment!

But we should seriously start being a bit more positive about our team :D

I have to be honest, I wasn't over the moon by us signing MH. However, one thought I have had since is, suppose we wanted to sign him a year or so ago (after he scored the hatrick against us) I think we may have payed about 6-8 million and said we had got a good deal. Obviously his value had deminished as a result of one bad season, but last season's poor team performance wasn't all down to him! It does kind of make sense when you consider he will give us a different option to the likes of Moore and Gabby. I believe he will prove to be a good addition to the squad by keeping Carew looking over his shoulder. Let's face it, who else was available to give us the strength needed to be a real handful for defenders?

How much have we paid for him? Isnt it undisclosed? I heard £3.7M and someone else told me about £2M. I think for either of those prices he is a good buy. Anything more than £4M and i think we have been ripped off. Good squad player and if he can replicate the form he had the season before last then he will be a regular.

Dont judge the man before he has even played for us.

Bring on Harewood. He won't be a final piece that puts us over the top. But he will most likely contribute enough next season to justify the 3.7 million.

And where do we go from here? Suppose that we sign Wright-Phillips and Young. Will the additions of Reo-Coker, Harewood, Wright-Phillips, and Young make us better than we were last year? I belive so, albeit not by much.

Was fuming at first, then i had a little think about it and thort why not, but now i reckon Harewood is a decent signing. As long as there are 3 or 4 more to follow anyway! He'll bring something different to our attacking line up, (Pace and Power) whether it be starting or coming on with 20 to go.

Respect to Harewood - he accepts he's going to be a squad player, but he's come all the same. Wears our fantastic new home shirt with pride - welcome Marlon, this is one Villa fan who WILL be having your name on his shirt!

I'm definitely getting the away kit. Replica of the 82' kit, symbolic of a new era and it looks the business. On the matter of Harewood vs Doubters, I think he'll prove himself in very much the same way any player who has lost his way does when Martin O'Neill gives them the support they need.

just back from hols and while i was there we signed a new player i thaught excellent and then i see who it is i nearly cried. what the hell is giong on? where are the top class players? i hope harewood proves me wrong and at the end of the season im eating my words. all the rumours sneijder, drenthe, alves, lahme and so on. if we sign players like this there is know way we will challange the top six or even get into the top ten. where is the money?

I'm annoyed that blues have signed up De Ridder, O Conner, Kapo, Schmitz, Mido, Parnaby, Muamba, and more than likely, Ghaly! We have signed NRC and Harewood, and have let go Davis, Angel, Hughes, McCann and Hendrie! For all this bluster about world class signings we have two players to show for it with time running out before the season starts!! The squad is too small, we need some genuine creativity from the centre, and a proven goalscorer!! And we are deluding ourselves over SWP and Defoe because you bet your bottom dollar, they are not going to come to Vila Park!! >:(