Mark: You have brought in a few players with a decent Premiership pedigree over the summer, which of these do you feel will make the best impact with the Villa this season?

Mike: It has to be Phillips, last season we struggled to hit the net and although he isn't the "exciting" signing that many fans wanted, judging from his start in pre-season he can still score for fun. Maybe he'll help Angel remember where the net is, but if he can knock up 10-15 goals for us in the Prem I think hero status is guarenteed.

Mark: Bolton have struggled in the Premiership against Villa over the last few seasons, what would you say is the Villa's biggest strength against teams like ourselves?

Mike: It's interesting to hear Bolton struggle against us, it seems like we struggle to walk on the pitch half the time. I honestly don't know, we have been pathetic away from home for a while now and despite woefully substandard performances our home record makes surprising reading.

As surprising as it sounds, I can only put it down to home advantage. Teams like Bolton see us away from home for the most part, playing like a pub team, we pick up at Villa Park somewhat and you are surprised that today you are playing a team who's remembered what they get paid thousands for and throws you off your stride. Not a particularly good answer, but if I could work out what goes on inside our players heads half the time I'd be a millionnaire.

Mark: The pre-season has been a relatively good one for yourselves with just one defeat, but you have leaked a lot of goals in the process, does this concern you at all?

Mike: Mellberg is the glue that keeps our defence together really, last season he was off form by his own high standards and it showed up the errors of our other regular defenders far more than usual. That coupled with injuries left, right and centre hasn't left many fans with much confidence in our defence.

Sorensen had plenty of high profile howlers last season and although a few faces are different this season very little seems to have changed in the goals against column.

You always like to think of preseason and not really mattering, and whilst true, leaking goals against what should be lower opposition always lingers in the mind and doesn't give you the warm cuddly feeling fans should get knowing the first whistle of the season is only round the corner.

Mark: Will the close season departures of Darius Vassell and Thomas "The Hammer" Hitzlsperger have any long term effect on the team?

Mike: I would like to say no, not really. Vassell rarely earn't his wages for us. The potential was always there but successive managers failed to get the best out of him. I believe he's 2 for 2 at Man City now which is a record he never had at Villa. Time will tell if we will miss him truly, but in all honesty as he failed to have much form for us nothing would've changed had he stayed so in reality even if he goes off and scores 50 goals this season as he wouldn't have done that for us he won't be missed.

Hits was a different matter, I think he will be missed as I still can't see anybody in the squad who is capable of turning a game like he could. Yes at points his accuracy was diabolical, he went missing when used from the start but he was a flexible player and the weaknesses he had would've been ironed out over time. Sometimes it's nice to have a player that will just shoot instead of trying to walk the ball into the net.

Mark: What are the aims for the Villa supporters this season and where do you think you will finish?

Mike: Well I'm waiting for the usual Europe is the only aim from the club, they've probably already said it to be honest I just tend to ignore most of what comes from the club these days.

I would say top 10 is pretty much what we can hope for, we are still short in depth, and short on quality to make a serious run for anything this season. Should Angel rediscover his scoring touch and Phillips continue in preseason vain then we have an outside chance of sneaking Europe. But whilst other teams continue to strengthen and our Chairman continues to wibble it will only be an outside chance.

I'd take a half decent cup run, 7-8th place finish with Mr Ellis hanging up his wibbles for a new, ambitious board who next season will actually lay the framework of a plan to act like a football club in the future.

Walking Down The Manny Road would like to offer its thanks to Mike for giving us his views ahead of the game with Aston Villa. His work can regularly be found on the Aston Villa site Holteenders.com which is part of the rivals network group of fan sites

www.holteenders.com

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