I've been thinking about Mondays defensive display against Spurs on Monday, despite the lack of a clean sheet it was a very good display. My main praise goes to Curtis Davis and Luke Young because both were immense but it was a coherent display all around.

 What does a good defence mean, well other than the obvious. Well a top notch goal keeper will earn you a fair few points or should I save you a fair few points, how many points did we drop last season through dodgy goal keeping. Brad Friedel is one of the best goal keepers in the Premiership so I think we're in good hands. 

 Then you have the two men in the centre, Curtis is fast becoming a top class centre back and was a bargain a £10m and then you have the great Dane Laursen we all know how good he is and with what looks like a class edition in Cuellar we don't have to worry about knight getting back in the side to often.

 Finally we have the brand spanking new full backs. I'll start with Shorey bought in to cover the position left by the injured Bouma, not an easy job and I personally think we have a lot more to see from the lad after a slow start but Monday was a good start. Lastly we have Luke Young, I really rate this young man and I personnally thought this was a shrewd bit of business by Mr O'Neill and we finally have a proper right back.

  So going back to my originally thought what does this upgraded defence mean, well if all works out it should mean we draw some games we would have lost last season and win some games we drew last season. I don't expect many more clean sheets beacause of how we play but we should see a few less silly goals.Another thingwe should see is a few more goals especially from the right, with a good solid defence our uys should be alot more confident about getting forward.

I went to Birmingham City Centre a couple of weeks ago and was surprised at how many kid there were wearing Villa Shirts.

 In the past its would be far more common to see the red of Manchester United or Liverpool and to a lesser extent Chelsea and Arsenal but in recent months I see more and more Villa shirts.

 I'm a great believer that you should support a local team, I have great respect for supporters of West Brom, Blues and Walsall, it would be far too easy for them to support one of the so called big 4 especially kids they're not really interested in history and loyalty they want to be on the winning team.

 Its a great testament to how far Villa have come in the past few years, its not just about winning on the field its about winning hearts and minds, which is exactly what Randy and Martin are doing.

 Aston Villa Football Club are cementing their future and I have no doubt that in the coming years we will be a force to be reckoned with, I don't expect over night success as long as long as enjoyable football and progression continue, you can keep your sheiks and Russian billionaires because when the bubble bursts there are going to be few clubs in real trouble.