Spent 121.5m Recouped 39m

[Arsey]

A net spend of £80m over 4 years is not enough to turn a 16th placed team into one who should be assured of a CL place. A good return on that investment would be one that was able to challenge for 4th place and be in with a shout in the cups. Which would also give it a good foundation for pushing on with the right amount of further investment.

That's misleading though.

We still had players of the class of Barry, Mellberg, Gabby, Laursen, Bouma etc.  That team should never have been 16th in the first place.

As much as I share your admiration for some of  the players O'Neill inherited, the only reason we have a relatively high net spend is that the entire squad has brought in only £40m cash on the transfer market.

Of course, that low market value was fully reflected in the extremely low purchase price for the club of £64m. We still have Gabby, Carew and Petrov.

Carew and Petrov were bought after the sale to Lerner???

[Villa'Zawg]

A net spend of £80m over 4 years is not enough to turn a 16th placed team into one who should be assured of a CL place. A good return on that investment would be one that was able to challenge for 4th place and be in with a shout in the cups. Which would also give it a good foundation for pushing on with the right amount of further investment.

That's misleading though.

We still had players of the class of Barry, Mellberg, Gabby, Laursen, Bouma etc.  That team should never have been 16th in the first place.

As much as I share your admiration for some of  the players O'Neill inherited, the only reason we have a relatively high net spend is that the entire squad has brought in only £40m cash on the transfer market.

Of course, that low market value was fully reflected in the extremely low purchase price for the club of £64m. We still have Gabby, Carew and Petrov.

Carew and Petrov were bought after the sale to Lerner???

Petrov was bought before the sale and Carew was a swap with Baros. In effect he got them and Gabby within the £64m sale price.

[Villa'Zawg]

A net spend of £80m over 4 years is not enough to turn a 16th placed team into one who should be assured of a CL place. A good return on that investment would be one that was able to challenge for 4th place and be in with a shout in the cups. Which would also give it a good foundation for pushing on with the right amount of further investment.

That's misleading though.

We still had players of the class of Barry, Mellberg, Gabby, Laursen, Bouma etc.  That team should never have been 16th in the first place.

As much as I share your admiration for some of  the players O'Neill inherited, the only reason we have a relatively high net spend is that the entire squad has brought in only £40m cash on the transfer market.

Of course, that low market value was fully reflected in the extremely low purchase price for the club of £64m. We still have Gabby, Carew and Petrov.

Two of the players he mentioned had to retire through injury, one left with a year to go on his contract (and we still got 12m for him), one ran his contract down, and the other is still playing for us.

How much more would he have had to spend, had he not had those players to start with?

Are we talking at cross purposes?

O'Neill has replaced all of the ones that left within that £80m net spend.

[pauliewalnuts]

You're entirely missing the point by looking at the purchase price of the club as some realistic measure of the quality of the players we had.

Barry was turned into an England regular by O'Neill. The point is, he was a decent player in the first place, and we were fortunate to have him at the club. The material was there for MON to work with.

Carew was a swap for Baros. We were fortunate to have a striker valued sufficiently highly by someone to swap for Carew at the club.

Two players who were in our squad in 2006 are in the England squad tonight, and another one would be there were it not for injury.

There's not getting away from the fact that that was not a top six squad by any stretch of the imagination, but it was not a relegation squad either.

[pauliewalnuts]

A net spend of £80m over 4 years is not enough to turn a 16th placed team into one who should be assured of a CL place. A good return on that investment would be one that was able to challenge for 4th place and be in with a shout in the cups. Which would also give it a good foundation for pushing on with the right amount of further investment.

That's misleading though.

We still had players of the class of Barry, Mellberg, Gabby, Laursen, Bouma etc.  That team should never have been 16th in the first place.

As much as I share your admiration for some of  the players O'Neill inherited, the only reason we have a relatively high net spend is that the entire squad has brought in only £40m cash on the transfer market.

Of course, that low market value was fully reflected in the extremely low purchase price for the club of £64m. We still have Gabby, Carew and Petrov.

Two of the players he mentioned had to retire through injury, one left with a year to go on his contract (and we still got 12m for him), one ran his contract down, and the other is still playing for us.

How much more would he have had to spend, had he not had those players to start with?

Are we talking at cross purposes?

Do you know what?

I can't actually work it out. Its been a long day.

[KevinGage]

3 of them left for nothing and only me and O'Neill thought Gabby was any good at the time.

With all due respect Percy, that really is bollocks. I personally wasn't sure about him but I was in a very small minority amongst the masses that thought Gabby was going to be the next Gary Lineker.

To be fair Dave, that wasn't the case when I said he'd better than Lennon when DOL was manager. Some said I was jumping the gun, and nearly everybody else took the piss. It was only after MON started picking him all the time that 'some'  other posters saw sense. Except you of course. *wink*

To be fair, if you thought he was a winger comparable to Lennon then I'm not sure I'd back your logic either.

Two entirely different players. I'm aware that DOL funnelled him out to the wing in 05/06, but he was a forward in the youths when he was generating all sorts of hype. And his finish v Everton on his league debut was every inch a strikers goal.

[Concrete John]

Two of the players he mentioned had to retire through injury, one left with a year to go on his contract (and we still got 12m for him), one ran his contract down, and the other is still playing for us.

How much more would he have had to spend, had he not had those players to start with?

Forgive me if I'm missing something obvious, but does the fact that he lost them through injury, plus Mellberg on a free, not mean he DID have to replace them?  And for no incoming fees, does that not make the net spend look more impressive? 

[ktvillan]

What also has to be considered is that MON took over from a very unpopular manager in an era of great optimism at the end of the Ellis soap opera years.   Any competent manager would have found it almost impossible not to get into the top half dozen

Martin O'Neill's persona as the reincarnation of Brian Clough is a media myth spun for the consumption of armchair football watchers.   If he is the incarnation of anybody he is the incarnation of Kevin Keegan - always provided that incarnation means the embodiment of somebody not yet dead.

Several nails hit on the head there Brian. O'Neill's "greatness" is a media creation swallowed whole by far too many people.

[sfx412]

   Regardless of what your views on MON, i would say the 4 years he had here was one of the best periods of supporting Villa in the last 30 years.

  For me only the Saunders/Barton period, and BFRs first 2 years were better.

  What i would say about MON is that he has left us in a good state.A yardstick of a manager for me is how much would he get for the players he has bought, and i think MONs buys would if necessary leave us in positive territory.

  Its over now, hes gone, who was right or wrong i don't really care, its time to move on, and know that we have a good basis for a very good young team, and the next appointment will hopefully carry us on.

I disagree. Considering all but O'Neill worked under Ellis, I think most managers had as many moments some even won trophies. JG's win ratio was better, GT managed 2nd BL's and BFR's teams had some great exciting times.
None of them had the working conditions Mon did and had any of them left behind older highly paid players like Heskey, Petrov, Friedel, Beye and so on, or so many disafected high cost players like Coker, Young, Davies, some supporters would be using it as a whipping stick.
Sorry lame justifications mean little on a site like this were the majority know too much about football and Villa to be fooled by such views.
But keep trying