YOUNG LIONS: "The Aston Villa International Preparatory School for Boys - no shouting, swearing or running in the corridors"

STARRING:
Paul Lambert as the Headmaster
Randy Lerner as the Head of the Board of Governors
Ron Vlaar as the Head Boy
Gabriel Agbonlahor as School Prefect
The rest of the Aston Villa squad as Class B6

FEATURING
Darren Bent as the anonymous caretaker

AND

Christian Benteke as himself

Previously on Young Lions….

Mr Lambert announced a raft of foreign exchange students arriving for the new academic year.

The most notable of these, by virtue of sheer size, was a gawky Dane by the name of Nicklas Helenius, a hulking lad who impressed his classmates by getting full marks on his first test at the new school.

http://e2.365dm.com/13/06/660x350/Nicklas-Helenius_2960892.jpg?20130618153927

There was also a suave Spanish boy called Antonio Luna, who wowed the other kids in class by turning up on his first day sporting a full beard, a herculean achievement that the likes of Joe Bennett and Wee Barry Bannan could only dream of. Luna further endeared himself to young Bennett by being placed in the English boy's recently vacated seat, a prime spot next to head boy Ron Vlaar (Bennett himself has now been moved to the "Extra Help" class owing to his appalling performances in last year's exams).

http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2013/06/20/article-2345291-1A6CDAD0000005DC-384_634x420.jpg

Meanwhile, Jores Okore got off to a bad start with his peers by going around the playground at morning break telling everyone who would listen about how good he gets in Football Manager 2013, so long as you give him "a few years to develop and plenty of game time".

http://i.telegraph.co.uk/multimedia/archive/02592/Jores_Okore_2592936b.jpg

More popular were Alexander Tonev, a Russian kid who quickly bonded with resident hipsters Baker and Herd over a discussion about Game of Thrones' most recent series and the new Disclosure album, and Leandro Bacuna, a Dutch boy who claimed to be of Antillian ancestry. His bright smile and sunny disposition instantly endeared him to his new friends, although there was some friction when school prefect Gabby Agbonlahor suggested that Leandro was a liar, that Antilles was a character from Star Wars and there is no such place. It took a good hour of explanation from ageing geography teacher Stan Petrov to convince him otherwise, but he did eventually relent and rescind his accusations.

http://cache4.asset-cache.net/gc/170113994-new-signing-alexander-tonev-of-aston-villa-gettyimages.jpg?v=1&c=IWSAsset&k=2&d=GkZZ8bf5zL1ZiijUmxa7Qeg3PG9BZD3yov9Oqk1OUiiqymQBb0cmIMgTf%2bqVMkbPx5VHG6sb4irinrBxO2ukyQ%3d%3d

http://img.thesun.co.uk/multimedia/archive/01745/Bacuna_1745485a.jpg

Oh, and there was this other lad called Jed, but he smelt a bit weird and no one really made any effort to talk to him, so he ended up spending playtime standing in the corner by the bins looking like he wanted to cry.

http://img.skysports.com/11/07/218x298/Steer_2627851.jpg

The really big news, however, was star pupil Christian Benteke's announcement that he has been offered scholarships at a number of the country's most prestigious private schools and he is inclined to take one of them up on the offer (but he isn't yet sure which). Presumably the lad has an eye on further developing his credentials and gaining some European experience before moving on to higher education at one of the continent's great universities in Munich, Milan or Madrid.

Mr Lambert knows only too well what Benteke's departure will do to the school's standing in the annual league tables, with the risk of dropping down a bracket fast becoming a genuine risk. With young Christian's mind made up (sort of), Lambert now desperately needs to come up with a ruse to drag the old institution back out of trouble and up the league table once again. The variables are endless: how will the new boys settle? Will Ron Vlaar have half the year off sick again? Will Gabby Agbonlahor be able to stop picking his nose and eating it long enough to actually do some homework?

Find out, in the next exciting instalment of YOUNG LIONS - An Aston Villa Story

http://www.avfc.co.uk/page/NewsDetail/0,,10265~3234414,00.html

many observers have questioned whether lambert's latest summer signing, cherubic 45 year old rotting cadaver gary coleman, has what it takes to resurrect his career at the heart of villa's back line. however the legendary former dortmund mittelfeldklogghund was in buoyant mood at a scheduled press conference today and moved quickly to allay fans' fears, confidently telling the assembled crowd "aye fockin rhrhrmrmrhrrmrmrhrrmrhrnrmrhrmrmrnrhrmrmrmbrr".

Don't normally play a blind bit of attention to this stuff, but A+ trolling from The Great Lamberto with this season's squad numbers.

35 - Shay Given (last season - 1)
36 - Charles N'Zogbia (last season - 10)
39 - Darren Bent (last season - 9)
40 - Stephen Ireland (last season - 7)
41 - Alan Hutton (last season - 2)
42 - Barry Bannan (last season - 25, eh)

Dya reckon they're getting the message yet?

That's excellent, though he might just be freeing up the low numbers for commemorative royal baby shirts.

Just about to head off to watch us beat Malaga. Will check back with gushing reports of what a monster Benteke is

Villa win 3-2, defence looking flakey as fuck but benteke scored twice, and the first was a doozy.

Megged one, bounced another (guy had to go off injured), rounded the third man and the goalie to slot into the net.

Wasn't overly impressed with tonev who was playing off benteke, but he had his moments.

http://oi40.tinypic.com/nvryf.jpg

Holy shit that shoulder barge

yeah it's called a foul

In La Liga maybe.

Pssh, all you can do is play to the whistle

look i'm no prig but dude swerves away from the ball to land the hit

surprised he didnt pick it up and spike it in tbh

Nah, that's fine - he's half a step ahead and shielding the ball by the time Officer Dibble arrives.

Tbf I did express surprise at the time that the ref hadn't blown up for it, got the usual "nothing wrong classic centre forward play in my day people said shot not hit and when it rained the ball weighed 10 pounds and didn't bounce when it hit the ground" rhapsodising from my pop, which is actually quite telling I suppose. But y'know. Love is blind.

Both lean into it, just happens that one was Dame Judy and the other wasn't.

in my day people said shot not hit

wait what's this

Oh, just my dad is absolutely convinced that there's this unseemly modern trend in football broadcasting towards using the word "hit" ("What a hit!" "It's a good hit..." etc.) rather than "shot". I think it's the use of "hit" as a noun that he's objecting to, basically. But hearing it always causes him to wax lyrical about how back in the day people would have said "What a shot!" instead, and I can never persuade him that this is definitely still the case. Silly old duffer.

thank goodness, I thought the game was up for me for a second there

Thats a fair move imo, in fact a defender wouldnt be questioned on a successful effort of similar style coming on to the ball

Its not unrelated that i see it and think he could do some damage at croker tho

Back onto the more Saints-centric view and “agony and ecstasy” is a rather apt turn of phrase. Few teams could thrill, delight and entertain the way Saints did for part of last season. But likewise, few teams could horrify, dismay and fall apart in the way Saints did. At times our season resembled the early stages of a disaster movie, scenes of apparent bliss and serenity dispelled by the sudden arrival of an unfortunately timed tornado/volcano/earthquake/tidal wave/ice age/alien invasion (delete as appropriate) before the chisel jawed everyman action hero who was down and out but ready to serve once again (Ricky Lambert), frustratingly handsome foreign exchange student (Morgan Schneiderlin), brilliant but erratic mad scientist (Gaston Ramirez), annoying kid who somehow saves the day (Luke Shaw), long lost brother who happened to return right at the key time (Jack Cork), stoner dude who does nothing for ages, suddenly is amazing for a brief period and then goes back to doing nothing (Jay Rodriguez), grizzled ex-army vet who briefly helps and provides some comedy with badly time bathroom shenanigans (Jason Puncheon), arrogant and generally good but makes one huge mistake businessman (Boruc) and beautiful but flakey love interest (em... Adam Lallana?) save the day but still leave the world a ruined, destroyed place. Guly de Prado plays the character who dies early on while Fonte and Hooiveld are those in charge behind the scenes who try really hard but only make everything worse (although Fonte has a redemption story in the middle somewhere).

The home stretch of the season is perhaps a perfect example of this. At the end of March and start of April we put together a run of three wins against Liverpool, Chelsea and Reading... and good wins at that, with Southampton clearly being the better team in each match. We were up to 11th in the table and considering our upcoming games and the form we were in it didn't look outlandish to suggest we could pass our highest ever Premiership finish and crack the top eight.

What actually happened was four draws and two losses (including being tonked by a West Brom side who were in horrible form) where we scored three goals in six games. We weren't quite dragged back into the relegation battle... but we did have to have a few nervous glances over our shoulder at times. Our chairman has ambitions of us reaching the top six. Our matches with the two Manchester clubs, Chelsea and Liverpool showed that we have the talent to perform at that level. Our matches with everyone else showed we lacked the consistency to do so.

don't be raiding swygart's facebook now

things appear to be afoot

Several Villa staff, including physios and kitchen auxiliaries, have officially complained to the club’s Human Resources department this week about Culverhouse and Karsa, who have worked with Lambert at previous clubs Wycombe, Colchester and Norwich.