Are we expecting too much ?

[commander]

All I expect is logical tactics, personnel employed in their correct positions, and or substitutions, to be reactive of situations in games.

All of these MON fails abysmally. Nothing has been learned since the abortion of last season, same mistakes been made now.

Thanks and goodbye O'Neill

[kurtsimonw]

How he can't see we need a **** goal scorer who does it on a constant basis is beyond me.

I'm sure he does realise we need a regular goalscorer. But regular scorers are hard to come buy. Not 1 player got 20 league goals last season in the Premier League, so even the best of teams can't find them.

darren bent is a regular goalscorer, and would work pretty damn well with our current set up imo

I agree that Bent is a good player and would likely score goals here. But say we spend £15m on him next summer and he scored about 10 goals next season.. people will be bringing up the same arguements.

sure then we'd best just not buy anyone else ever again

you know, in case they dont work

That's not the point. We've got Carew who scored plenty of goals last season, Gabby also got into double figures. Why would MON throw big money on a player when in previous seasons goals haven't been that much of a problem. If that player did then fail with us, it would be disasterous.

[sled]

MON is doing his best. I have never been able to fathom out why some people have thought we should worship the ground he treads on and sought to silence any criticism. If some people have managed to contrive a ridiculously high opinion of his abilities and tried to convince others of how brilliant and loveable he is, that is hardly O'Neill's fault.

93% want him to continue being our manager.

[villa_shere]

We are not a top 4 team, i think the majority of us know that. But what is frustraiting is that we do not look like a top 6 team at the moment. I dont expect us to break the top four this season but i do expect us to put in a good fight> taking only 2 points from our last 3 games when it should have been atleast 5 points pisses me off.

MON has changed the team for the good but he struggles to change his style of play during the game. Going into most matches (even yesterday) his starting line up i usually agree with. But once we conceed we dont adapt a different style. We are too predictable and one dimensional. I for one can not wait to see Downing bought into the team.

MON needs to come out and do what he does best and answer his critics.

Should results not go our way on saturday the boo boys will be out again.

[villa_shere]

How he can't see we need a **** goal scorer who does it on a constant basis is beyond me.

I'm sure he does realise we need a regular goalscorer. But regular scorers are hard to come buy. Not 1 player got 20 league goals last season in the Premier League, so even the best of teams can't find them.

darren bent is a regular goalscorer, and would work pretty damn well with our current set up imo

I agree that Bent is a good player and would likely score goals here. But say we spend £15m on him next summer and he scored about 10 goals next season.. people will be bringing up the same arguements.

sure then we'd best just not buy anyone else ever again

you know, in case they dont work

That's not the point. We've got Carew who scored plenty of goals last season, Gabby also got into double figures. Why would MON throw big money on a player when in previous seasons goals haven't been that much of a problem. If that player did then fail with us, it would be disasterous.

Exactly, going into the season we got 3 international strikers, with Carew and Gabby getting a reasonable amount of goals last season. what we lack is in the middle of the park.

[BG_Villa_Fan]

Where exactly does this 'spent too much to not be in top 4' approach comes from? We haven't spent nearly as much as the top 4 clubs, and we've started from a much lower base to begin with. Let's list the team with the most expensive MON signings ( rough numbers ) :

Friedel - 3M

Young - 6M

Cuellar - 8M

Davies - 10M

Warnck - 7M

Young - 10M

Milner - 12M

Petrov - 7M

NRC - 8M

Carew - 6M ( swap deal, assumed price )

Heskey - 3M ( instead of Gabby )

A grand total of about 80 mil. Meanhile, let's take Man C, for example :

Robinho - 35M

Tevez - 25M

Lescott - 24M

...enough, that's already more than our most expensive 11 in 3 players. Just about a year ago Man U spent a fortune on two totally unproven serbian youngsters ( about 17 million if i remember correctly ). And I'm not even going to start talking about wages because we might be in the bottom half of the Premiership table in that department. So how come people would accuse the manager of not being good enough to take us into top 4, when he has to work on a much much smaller budget, and has started from a ridiculously low point to boot, compared to these teams.

I think people are just too impatient and unrealistic in their expectations.

[hippo]

Intersting Poll - I have heard from a couple of sources that MON is asking himself this very question. Even more that he does beleive he has taken villa as far as possible, and will announce his intention to leave villa early in the new year.

Remember where you heard it first.

[MrDuck]

I think people are just too impatient and unrealistic in their expectations.

I wonder where these expectations come from? Since we last won the league, we've had a couple of decent 2nd place finishes, other than that we've generally been around the top 8, but also had a relegation and a few low-mid table finishes. O'Neill, by Villa's recent standards, is doing an above average job. Then consider that he's also come to us in the era where any team not playing regular champions league football is massively handicapped from the off, so I'd say he's doing a great job.

I can't remember too much of the football we played before Taylor's first reign, and I was too young to make a judgment on it anyway. But apart from Big Ron's team, most of the recent sides have played some pretty dire stuff a lot of the time - DOL was the worst I've seen, Gregory and Little's sides were great on their day but too often sent me to sleep and both really struggled to score goals. My enduring memory is endless low scoring draws. By Villa standards, I'd say O'Neill's team fit right into expectations.

Basically, based on the size of our club and resources and the current benefits enjoyed by the CL clubs, I would expect Villa to be competing regularly in the top 8, anything better would be something special. I don't agree with everything he does, but I think O'Neill is doing as well as can be expected.

[BG_Villa_Fan]

I think people are just too impatient and unrealistic in their expectations.

I wonder where these expectations come from? Since we last won the league, we've had a couple of decent 2nd place finishes, other than that we've generally been around the top 8, but also had a relegation and a few low-mid table finishes. O'Neill, by Villa's recent standards, is doing an above average job. Then consider that he's also come to us in the era where any team not playing regular champions league football is massively handicapped from the off, so I'd say he's doing a great job.

I can't remember too much of the football we played before Taylor's first reign, and I was too young to make a judgment on it anyway. But apart from Big Ron's team, most of the recent sides have played some pretty dire stuff a lot of the time - DOL was the worst I've seen, Gregory and Little's sides were great on their day but too often sent me to sleep and both really struggled to score goals. My enduring memory is endless low scoring draws. By Villa standards, I'd say O'Neill's team fit right into expectations.

Basically, based on the size of our club and resources and the current benefits enjoyed by the CL clubs, I would expect Villa to be competing regularly in the top 8, anything better would be something special. I don't agree with everything he does, but I think O'Neill is doing as well as can be expected.

My thoughts exactly.

[Jez]

No-one **** says Martin O'Neill is the messiah you cretin.

How charming!

Nobody saying he is the messiah? Yet no manager in the whole world could do better apparently, not one. Any suggestions are scoffed at as un-realistic they are not good enough etc etc.

You dont know that another manager couldn't do a better job anymore than i do, yet your preaching that you do!

People are so determined to defend MON to the hilt, that they post in match reaction threads that its not good enough, then spend the rest of the thread kicking off at people for saying the same!

MON's stubbornness is filtering onto the pitch i think, Heskey having to play? Youngsters given praises by him are never considered!

Tbh i think there is a tad over reaction, we're still up there at the early part of the season.

But when it doesn't look like we can create anything, it puts worries to when the next win will come from, never mind a series of wins. Can you imagine that, us actually wining a few games in a row? Seems a long way off right now.

Defensively we seem good, but we cannot bloody draw every game, regardless how many times people say we're un-beaten its fine!

[P3te]

Why would MON throw big money on a player when in previous seasons goals haven't been that much of a problem. If that player did then fail with us, it would be disasterous.

coz it was a player who would add more options to what was always a hot and cold attack (granted in previous times its been that carew was injured more than out of form - but i doubt theres ANYONE on here who wouldnt have thought we were far better equipped with a carew/bent/agbonlahor front three, than just the 2 we have right now)

[BG_Villa_Fan]

coz it was a player who would add more options to what was always a hot and cold attack (granted in previous times its been that carew was injured more than out of form - but i doubt theres ANYONE on here who wouldnt have thought we were far better equipped with a carew/bent/agbonlahor front three, than just the 2 we have right now)

You're right, of course, but I'm sure Randy is also far better equipped being 15M richer. You see, the difference of having someone like Bent in the squad is not the difference between finishing 6th or 4th, more likely , at best, it'd be the difference between finishing 7th or 6th, which is not worth the investment.

That is, if Harry was into doing business with us at all.

[brummybloke]

i was expecting MON to take advantage of our unique cash rich position in the premiership at the time when we were pretty much one of the top 3 clubs cash wise, to make significant investments in quality players, rather than buy dodgy players and then slightly less dodgy players then average players then decent players, a total waste now that all clubs have the same spending power if not more than us.

i was expecting MON to stick with a formation which plays to our strengths and when that formation is winning us games, to stick with the formation.

i was expecting MON to play players who are on form, not stick with players who are either injured and off colour, off colour or emile heskey.

i was expecting us to be competing on a regular basis for the cup competitions and to at the very least, be in the eufa cup or its derivative each season and making it to the 1/4 finals or knock out stages each season.

i guess i was expecting too much?

[Jez]

i was expecting us to be competing on a regular basis for the cup competitions and to at the very least, be in the eufa cup or its derivative each season and making it to the 1/4 finals or knock out stages each season.

To be fair we're still in 2 cups, one has not started yet but we're still in it!

[wiganvillain]

Here we go again

1 poor result and off we go.

Better question than the thread title

Who is available that is better equipped than MON to take us further ?

[Jez]

Here we go again

1 poor result and off we go.

Better question than the thread title

Who is available that is better equipped than MON to take us further ?

1? I dont think so.

Do you know for a fact that nobody else could do any better?

I dont.

[holtender1987]

Anyone expecting top 4 this year is off their rocker and is clearly expecting way too much. The big 4 are there for a reason, they've made themself a top club over the years and spent massively to stay there. Anyone thinking we can go from 16th to 4th in 4 years is living in a dream World.

well said! Lets get back to two years ago when we wer all rocking bout being the one time consistnetly outside top 4! Bring back that enthusiasm about being pretty good but not world class! Were not gonna be unless something outstanding happens! And thats too much an ask IMO!

[brummybloke]

coz it was a player who would add more options to what was always a hot and cold attack (granted in previous times its been that carew was injured more than out of form - but i doubt theres ANYONE on here who wouldnt have thought we were far better equipped with a carew/bent/agbonlahor front three, than just the 2 we have right now)

You're right, of course, but I'm sure Randy is also far better equipped being 15M richer. You see, the difference of having someone like Bent in the squad is not the difference between finishing 6th or 4th, more likely , at best, it'd be the difference between finishing 7th or 6th, which is not worth the investment.

That is, if Harry was into doing business with us at all.

yes, having a player who regularly scores 15 to 20 goals per season would not improve us and we are far better off having the 10 million Bent cost, in the bank.

in the league he has played 214 and scored 104, just under a goal per game.

[brummybloke]

i was expecting us to be competing on a regular basis for the cup competitions and to at the very least, be in the eufa cup or its derivative each season and making it to the 1/4 finals or knock out stages each season.

To be fair we're still in 2 cups, one has not started yet but we're still in it!

jez you are quite right, we are still in 2 cups although the one we play all season to try and get into, which brings with it benefits like a higher europe and world profile, gets the attention of better players and this season through the league system would generate more money than before, appears to be the one MON hates the most, how very odd?

[BG_Villa_Fan]

coz it was a player who would add more options to what was always a hot and cold attack (granted in previous times its been that carew was injured more than out of form - but i doubt theres ANYONE on here who wouldnt have thought we were far better equipped with a carew/bent/agbonlahor front three, than just the 2 we have right now)

You're right, of course, but I'm sure Randy is also far better equipped being 15M richer. You see, the difference of having someone like Bent in the squad is not the difference between finishing 6th or 4th, more likely , at best, it'd be the difference between finishing 7th or 6th, which is not worth the investment.

That is, if Harry was into doing business with us at all.

yes, having a player who regularly scores 15 to 20 goals per season would not improve us and we are far better off having the 10 million Bent cost, in the bank.

in the league he has played 214 and scored 104, just under a goal per game.

I haven't said anything remotely close to what you're implying...