Aston Villa Roundup: Transfer talk, Zombie Given, a poll and more

Good morning on the last day of the transfer window! (/beleaguered "hooray") I won't do this too often, but a big part of today's links are stories from here written yesterday. Aaron absolutely killed it covering everything that came up yesterday, so if you want to know what's happening in the Aston Villa universe, take a look at what he read.

But aside from that, we've got a few other Aston Villa links and then some great stuff from around the soccer blogosphere. And be sure to vote in the poll I've included!

• The aforementioned Aaron writing:
  The match against Manchester City on Sunday October 16 has now been moved to Saturday the 15th.
  Villa declined the chance to bring in a Chelsea midfielder.
  Liam Ridgewell wants to be set free of his Birmingham hell.
  Apparently the club have a backup plan should they not get Alan Hutton.
  Aaron wept as one of Villa's youngsters will be out for four months.
  Aston Villa have signed a player only to let his original club keep him.
• Shay Given is apparently healthy enough to play for Ireland this Friday as they take on Slovakia in Euro 2012 qualifying. It's always good news to hear that our players are healthy, but what I found really interesting is that Given is supposedly nicknamed Lazarus for his ability to bounce back from injury. I'm no biblical scholar, but I'm pretty sure that being called Lazarus means that Shay Given is a zombie.
  
• Dan at Aston Villa Central had a well-written reaction to the moves of Jonathan Hogg, Luke Young, and Jean Makoun.
• Aston Villa Blog makes the point that despite our frustration with the lack of creativity and offense, the improvement in the team's defense shouldn't be overlooked. If the defense wasn't performing at it's 2009-10 level, I think we'd all be 100 times more panicked than we currently are. As it stands, I feel safe in saying that even if no further moves are made, Villa can likely ride their defense to a safe finish. (Feel free to throw this in my face if anything should change.)
• The Run of Play published a wonderful send-up of TS Eliot's poetry as re-imagined through the mind of Joey Barton. Put this in your instapaper, as you'll want to contemplate it for a while.
• We Ain't Got No History's Graham MacAree gives us our long-read of the day, with a fascinating analytical look at Chelsea's 3-1 win over Norwich City this past weekend. Even if you could not care less about either club, this is still worth a read.
• In a related vein, The Busby Babe takes a look at how a non-scoring sequence provided an in-a-nutshell look at exactly how Manchester United dominated Arsenal this weekend. Entirely different from Graham's article, but equally enlightening, I thought.
• Finally, this was from a couple of days ago, but I missed it. The Real FA Cup spent a week watching four extra-preliminary round FA Cup matches. Jamie Cutteridge describes it in a piece that has me yearning to travel to England just to watch some really small-time football.
  

Be sure to check back frequently throughout the day for any transfer news as quickly as we can get it on site. If you're looking to be in-the-know without constantly clicking, give our twitter feed a follow.