Martin O'Neill

[TheDrums]

Anyone else read the Pat Murphy article on BBC?

This bit is notable :-

"if O'Neill had been allowed to buy Scott Parker from West Ham for £6m in the summer of 2010 to replace Milner, he might still be Villa's manager."

for fucksake!

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/15999771.stm

Disgrace. I agree. £22m could have got £26m without Ireland.

Pinch pocket Lerner. He needs to go. He isn't even bothered to be here. Still moving his son at school for 6 months, even though more poorer families can move their children at new schools within a month. My uncle moved his son to Dublin from Northern Ireland and had him settled at UCD within 2 weeks. Absolute propaganda nonsense.

[CI]

Fact is MON attracted and signed the likes of Young, Milner and Downing, all great signings that paid off in millions

[markavfc40]

I don't think MON would be doing all that great a job either without Young, Milner and Downing.

It needs to be remembered the first season we finished 6th, 2007/08, the only one of those 3 in the squad was Ash. Jimmy came the following season and Downing in 2009.

His net spend from when he arrived to when we finished 6th in 2008 was around 20 million. He spent around 33 mill on Petrov, Ash, Reo Coker, Harewood, Knight, Routledge, and Maloney and brought in around 14 mill for Steven Davis, Cahill, Ridgewell, McCann, Hughes, Phillips and Whittigham. He also mugged Houllier by swapping Baros for Carew.

20 mill to take a club that battled relegation to one that finished 6th with in two years was good going.

It was trying to take us from 6th to top 4 that O'Neill found difficult and wasted a fair few quid trying. Although he did come very close.

[VillaAlex]

I don't think MON would be doing all that great a job either without Young, Milner and Downing. Let's not forget that McLeish has had to sell far more than he's been able to buy in his time at Villa - and that's MON's fault.

It's the board's fault. I still don't understand how they let the wages get into such a state and the club is suffering because of that. Did MON sign too many squad player on big wages? Yes of course, but the club is a shambles if no-one was able to recognise this as it was happening. As for those 3 players those are all players he signed and we sold for a big profit, hardly something to criticise him for.

So basically it's the boards fault for letting him spend money on dross but there is no credit for the funds on the likes of Young, Downing and Milner.

Meanwhile O'Neill gets all the credit for the good signings but its not his fault he signed dross on big wages. Very balanced viewpoint.

[Morley_crosses_to_Withe]

I hate him. I hate him for the way he left us. I hate him for turning his back on the club and the fans.

But by god, do I miss him:(

[Moneill]

I think he will do a great job at Sunderland. I can never understand the haters on here. I wish we had a manager half as good as him now.

[kurtsimonw]

I don't think MON would be doing all that great a job either without Young, Milner and Downing. Let's not forget that McLeish has had to sell far more than he's been able to buy in his time at Villa - and that's MON's fault.

It's the board's fault. I still don't understand how they let the wages get into such a state and the club is suffering because of that. Did MON sign too many squad player on big wages? Yes of course, but the club is a shambles if no-one was able to recognise this as it was happening. As for those 3 players those are all players he signed and we sold for a big profit, hardly something to criticise him for.

So basically it's the boards fault for letting him spend money on dross but there is no credit for the funds on the likes of Young, Downing and Milner.

Meanwhile O'Neill gets all the credit for the good signings but its not his fault he signed dross on big wages. Very balanced viewpoint.

Pretty much this.

I'm no McLeish fan, far from it, but fact is he's suffering for MON (and the boards) inability in the transfer market.

[NowDoINotLikeThat]

I don't think MON would be doing all that great a job either without Young, Milner and Downing. Let's not forget that McLeish has had to sell far more than he's been able to buy in his time at Villa - and that's MON's fault.

It's the board's fault. I still don't understand how they let the wages get into such a state and the club is suffering because of that. Did MON sign too many squad player on big wages? Yes of course, but the club is a shambles if no-one was able to recognise this as it was happening. As for those 3 players those are all players he signed and we sold for a big profit, hardly something to criticise him for.

So basically it's the boards fault for letting him spend money on dross but there is no credit for the funds on the likes of Young, Downing and Milner.

Meanwhile O'Neill gets all the credit for the good signings but its not his fault he signed dross on big wages. Very balanced viewpoint.

Pretty much this.

I'm no McLeish fan, far from it, but fact is he's suffering for MON (and the boards) inability in the transfer market.

Hmmm...

Well I wager Heskey & Collins are some of the first names McLeish writes on his team sheet.

Is Hutton really better than Luke Young was?

N'Zogbia has been poor.

McLeish replaced Freidel (very good) with Given (very good)

McLeish's track record for transfers is hardly awe-inspiring - his record at Birmingham was pretty poor often signing veterans

Agree the board have not backed him at all and are much more to blame and flogged all of MON's best players . But McLeish is not utilising this squad well at all with his rubbish tactics and team selections.

MON had his faults but is an infinitely better manager on any and every level than the likes of McLeish who is more on par with Gary Megson .

[andym]

he will get sunderlands players playing above themselves, will get them to around 7th or 8th, but his limitations will always mean that that is the best they can do. sunderland fans will eventually tire of his inability to formulate a more modern game of possession and passing. the more it became his team at villa the worse the football got. teams quickly worked out to stop us counter attacking and then we had nothing but lumping it up to the big target man.

to be fair overall he did a decent enough job here, but i would argue someone like redknapp (however much i hate him) or moyes would have used the same resources and definitely got us that champions league place. you dont get many chances to break into the top 4, but in the 08/09 and 09/10 seasons we had spurs and liverpool in a mess with managers and owners, man city's megastar players had yet to click and play as a team. you have to take those opportunities. we were 3rd at xmas 08/09 and yet managed to completely collapse and finish 6th. that was the january we signed heskey while arsenal signed arshavin.

and before anyone goes its lerner who wasnt backing his manager and going for the cheap option, the following summer lerner sanctioned another huge spending spree. MON had said we had burnt out because of the small squad, and that was the reason for the collapse. So randy gives him another wedge of cash to make sure the same doesnt happen again. darren bents going for 10mil that summer as well, so theres an opportunity to get the top striker we need. but MON buys another whole new defence (to replace the one he had expensively assembled), another winger and a kid from league 1 for 6 mil. and then he proceeds to do exactly the same thing as the season before - run the 1st 11 into the ground, fails to make use of the squad players (which he had signed) and yet again we run out of steam at the end of the year.

yeah it was nice to get to wembley, not so nice to meekly surrender by having a total of 2 shots on goal in both appearances (one of which was a penalty). just like in the fight for top 4, when push came to shove we bottled it. and that sums up MONs reign at villa for me, always full of promise but never able to deliver when it really mattered.

[kurtsimonw]

The point is that he hasn't been given much though has he. £40m or so in sales and how much has he got to spend? Less than half?

[djdabush]

I don't think MON would be doing all that great a job either without Young, Milner and Downing. Let's not forget that McLeish has had to sell far more than he's been able to buy in his time at Villa - and that's MON's fault.

It's the board's fault. I still don't understand how they let the wages get into such a state and the club is suffering because of that. Did MON sign too many squad player on big wages? Yes of course, but the club is a shambles if no-one was able to recognise this as it was happening. As for those 3 players those are all players he signed and we sold for a big profit, hardly something to criticise him for.

So basically it's the boards fault for letting him spend money on dross but there is no credit for the funds on the likes of Young, Downing and Milner.

Meanwhile O'Neill gets all the credit for the good signings but its not his fault he signed dross on big wages. Very balanced viewpoint.

Am I criticising the board for making funds available for players to MON. Of course not. Nor am I excusing some of MONs purchases. That's not the point though. He should never have had full control over transfers and in particular the contracts we offered players. I just cannot accept the board turning round and telling us how the wage bill is out of control when they watched on as it got bigger and bigger.

[knoppy1987]

CI to me you talk as if Martin O'Neill is bigger than Aston Villa, and that certainly isn't the case. I bet he likes to think that though, and the media seem to put it across like that too.

What a rubbish statement. At the end of the day we had security under MON, whether you liked the football or not, dis;iked MON or not, we all knew we would end were we probably should have been come the end of the season. I don't think we have that right now. We are not a settled club and this is echoed by the numerous fans on here who are suffering from complete dejection, myself included.

[Xann]

Losing Dwight hurt, you sort of knew our tenure amongst the trophies had gone.

MON leaving has been much worse.

Watching Villa play is painful.

Watching Man City, Man Utd, Liverpool or England play is painful.

Watching MON's next team will be painful.

A couple of years ago we could beat anyone (apart from Wigan).

We ended all sorts of bad runs against the top teams, we hammered the blues - they all feared us.

We were at our most dangerous when we were under the cosh.

Now - pfah

*Mon wasn't perfect, but he was still BRILLIANT.

Randy pulled the plug when we were on the cusp.

Though being honest, Villa were being bankrolled by the cream on top of a US credit firm. The economic crash would f*ck Randy over and blast the now owners of Man City and PSG into another universe. Randy was being offered 25 cents in the dollar, Mon wasn't getting what he was promised - sorry state of affairs all round.

*Heskey is, and was always going to be utter, utter shit - not only does he not score himself, he sucks the goals out the rest of the team by being utter, utter shit.

I remember when we signed him a couple of football journalists chose it as the most significant signing in that window. Maybe it was, but not in the manner they thought it would be. Looking at Heskey still playing in Claret & Blue just makes me angry. I've hated him as a player since his rollerskating antics at Leicester.

[Mantis]

MON would never have achieved 4th with us. He had a glass ceiling and while he he did well (but not as well as some people think when you take the spending into account), he had certain flaws that always stopped us from getting there. I think Randy "pulling the plug" was the right move as we would've gone bankrupt chasing that damn 4th place.

[markavfc40]

*Mon wasn't perfect, but he was still BRILLIANT.

Fantastic goal. We were scoring goals for fun around that time and playing some great football.

[Bazmonkey]

Problem with O'neill was in his first proper season and second is that the success came from having already established premier league players playing in the team with the addition of his good signings.....when it all started to go wrong was when these players wanted to leave or retired...then what are you left with.......your left with basically what we have got now...players brought from poor teams at the time...when you buy players from poor teams eventually you end up with a poor team

Warnock - blackburn.....botton 6 regular

Young L - Boro..bottom 6 or relegated

NCR/Collins...West Spam....relegated

These are just a few add to the loss of Barry, Melberg, Milner, Young A, Larson, Bouma etc

Then we left where we are...is it MON's yes...too much money on very average players..yes young..millner..were good but on the whole too left with a wage bill way to high to sell some of these players...but its also the baords fault for letting him and giving the money to do this...lessons have to be learnt and unfortunetely its going to take time to rectify the damage done

[ClaretMahoney]

I hate him. I hate him for the way he left us. I hate him for turning his back on the club and the fans.

But by god, do I miss him:(

THIS.

[VillaAlex]

I don't think MON would be doing all that great a job either without Young, Milner and Downing. Let's not forget that McLeish has had to sell far more than he's been able to buy in his time at Villa - and that's MON's fault.

It's the board's fault. I still don't understand how they let the wages get into such a state and the club is suffering because of that. Did MON sign too many squad player on big wages? Yes of course, but the club is a shambles if no-one was able to recognise this as it was happening. As for those 3 players those are all players he signed and we sold for a big profit, hardly something to criticise him for.

So basically it's the boards fault for letting him spend money on dross but there is no credit for the funds on the likes of Young, Downing and Milner.

Meanwhile O'Neill gets all the credit for the good signings but its not his fault he signed dross on big wages. Very balanced viewpoint.

Am I criticising the board for making funds available for players to MON. Of course not. Nor am I excusing some of MONs purchases. That's not the point though. He should never have had full control over transfers and in particular the contracts we offered players. I just cannot accept the board turning round and telling us how the wage bill is out of control when they watched on as it got bigger and bigger.

Ok fair enough, I agree with you.

CI to me you talk as if Martin O'Neill is bigger than Aston Villa, and that certainly isn't the case. I bet he likes to think that though, and the media seem to put it across like that too.

What a rubbish statement. At the end of the day we had security under MON, whether you liked the football or not, dis;iked MON or not, we all knew we would end were we probably should have been come the end of the season. I don't think we have that right now. We are not a settled club and this is echoed by the numerous fans on here who are suffering from complete dejection, myself included.

What does that have to do with what I said? I find it pretty sad how people are bigging up MON to the point that we seem hopeless without him. We are hopeless right now, but that is due to the current manager and not because we miss MON.

[KAZZAM]

Wow alot of Mon fanboi's here theres no doubt Mon was pretty shrewd in the transfer market at times and that was one of his strengths but i think you all forget Mons favourites/no subsitutions/no rotatating/no youth/1 dimension football/wanking away europe/not buying abroad.

His con's massively outway his pro's thats for sure and he got found out at a bigger club where he had money to spend.

[NowDoINotLikeThat]

Wow alot of Mon fanboi's here theres no doubt Mon was pretty shrewd in the transfer market at times and that was one of his strengths but i think you all forget Mons favourites/no subsitutions/no rotatating/no youth/1 dimension football/pulling the Pope's cap off away europe/not buying abroad.

No record with youth?

Erm...Gabby?

How old was Ashley Young when we signed him (21)

Lets see how McCrap does with our spposed great youth players. He's already completely ignored Albrighton , Clark

1 dimension football?

I tell you what it was direct but it was at times great to watch at times and on our day could beat anyone. Not the antifootball that McCrap has us playing .

MON had faults for sure but he was an infinitely better manager on every level than the curmudgeon crap championship manager we currently have.We have now a manager worse than Gary Megson.

Its no wonder ppl rightly have some fond memories of O'Neill given how incompetent our board have been on so many multiple levels since that we now have a manager worse than Gary Megson in charge.