Heroes & Villains, the Aston Villa fanzine
Heroes & Villains => Heroes Discussion => Topic started by: Concrete John on May 03, 2011, 04:17:54 PM
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....where MON had stayed and Randy had given him more money, where do you think we'd be?
Let's do this based on a couple of assumptions:-
1. The Milner/Ireland thing would still have happened.
2. We signed keane and McGeady as rumoured at the time.
3. Injuries were the same.
4. We didn't sign Bent.
Personally I can see him maybe getting Ireland motivated and the defence would be stronger with no issues over Dunne or Collins. However I don't think either of his 'proposed' signings would have improved us all that much. Some I'm gonna go with 6th again and his motivational powers overcoming the injury issues.
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I think he had fallen out with Ireland, played Downing in central midfield (Young and McGeady on the wings). Without Milner and Dunne as fat as he was in the first half of the season, we wouldn't have managed top six (Liverpool too strong), I doubt seventh, but as MON's brand of football is efficient in the PL, I think we would have managed top half.
Assuming MON had lacked interest in the way he seemingly was in pre-season, I'd say about the same as Houllier.
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definitley higher than where we are at the moment,
i've gone for top half/comfortable,
it was his team and they played his way, when someone else comes in with different ideas, it can cause a few problems as we have seen.
still dont regret for one second that MON left though, but will readily accept we would have had a better season in terms of league position
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Top half and comfortable.
Not as good as 6th though. I think O'Neill knew this and was part of the reason he jumped ship.
Having said that, there would be no Darren Bent, it would be Robbie Keane instead.
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Personally I can see him maybe getting Ireland motivated and the defence would be stronger with no issues over Dunne or Collins. However I don't think either of his 'proposed' signings would have improved us all that much. Some I'm gonna go with 6th again and his motivational powers overcoming the injury issues.
Sixth? Bloody hell John, put that crack pipe down.
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He knew he couldn't off load the rejects quick enough to give him clout to sign new players.
He knew that if he finished mid-table, it would dent his aura of being a top manager.
I certainly don't think his desire to sign Keane and McGeady would have propelled us into the top 6.
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Sixth? Bloody hell John, put that crack pipe down.
I don't think it's that ridiculous to say we'd be in with a shout of 6th again because as has been noted, the premier league is not of the highest quality this year.
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About 9th or 10th. There is little chance we would have challenged the top four again and we would still be well behind the top six for me. We'd be around Bolton and Everton.
Though I don't see how motivational powers can overcome injuries.
Keane has been poor all season so probably would have been a disastrous signing and Gabby has had niggling injuries and poor form all season so we may have suffered badly for a lack of goals. Looking at him playing for us and Stoke this season and it is looking like his time has gone.
Lets be kind and say McGeady turned out to be a good signing but Albrighton would not have broken through. I can see him contributing around the same number of goals and assists. We would also have suffered for the fact that Ireland lacks Milners work rate and Petrov is another year older. Also how would we accomodate Ireland, McGeady, Young and Downing when we play the same team every week which we would have done under MoN?
In defence I'd expect us to be much better. O'Neill would probably have lost patience with an out of form Dunne and dropped him for Cuellar. We'd have a definite big improvement in that area.
I'd say that being left behind by so many rivals we'd probably see plenty of calls for O'Neill to go. That said we may have done better in the cups as he was the derby king so we might have beat Blues and he wouldn't have played a weakened team against Man City had he got to that game. If we had two better cup runs it might have bought him a lot of support.
The thing is there are so many unknowns and contingencies that make this prediction lark difficult. How motivated was O'Neill for the new season? He did leave therefore it might suggest a lack of motivation on his part. Would he have signed Keane and McGeady? We don't know for sure beyond the fact both were widely linked. What if he signed someone like Scott Parker for midfield? All of these things could affect the performance positively or negatively.
What is clear to me is that this season Houllier certainly hasn't helped matters and that the other big culpret for our poor performances in the players may have coped different under O'Neill which is what I would point to as a reason for an improved placing over this season.
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Personally I can see him maybe getting Ireland motivated and the defence would be stronger with no issues over Dunne or Collins. However I don't think either of his 'proposed' signings would have improved us all that much. Some I'm gonna go with 6th again and his motivational powers overcoming the injury issues.
Sixth? Bloody hell John, put that crack pipe down.
I prefer to inject these days.
I don't think it's out of the question - how often were we getting posts on here telling us that we're only x points from 6th place? A better start and more motivation I don't think it's all that great a stretch.
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Somewhere between 5th and 8th with another trip to Wembley, no way would a MON team have let that bunch of wankers beat us in the Q.F.
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Sixth? Bloody hell John, put that crack pipe down.
I don't think it's that ridiculous to say we'd be in with a shout of 6th again because as has been noted, the premier league is not of the highest quality this year.
So you think we'd be on 55 points, the same as Spurs and Liverpool? No chance.
For a start, imagine our team with the injury crisis and combine that with MON's reluctance to use the kids and those players he'd excluded. He'd probably have only been fielding 8 players, such was his stubbornness. Even the greatest of motivators have their limitations.
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An interesting one. I'm going with top half and comfortable, though perhaps with a League Cup Final defeat after nudging past Birmingham 1-0 in the QF, West Ham in the semis and then losing 3-1 to Arsenal in the final, having taken an early lead but then sat back to defend for 80 minutes and being overwhelmed.
Defence would have been much improved, with Dunne and Collins more disciplined and Warnock playing at left-back. Cuellar at RB, of course. Instead of signing Kyle Walker for RB to cover Luke Young's injury absence, or turning to Clark and Baker when needed, we'd have seen NRC at RB and Heskey CB - or possibly a January transfer window move for David Wheater.
Makoun wouldn't have signed, nor would Bent. With Milner gone and Ireland injured, Sidwell would have partnered Petrov for the majority of the season, until January, when Jermain Jenas arrived from Spurs in a £12m (the remains of the Milner money). Downing wide right, Young wide left. £8m signing Aiden McGeady wouldn't have started a league game but would have set a new PL record for consecutive sub appearances - 37 22-minute cameos.
Mark Albrighton and Barry Bannan would both have been loaned out for the entire season.
Habib Beye, Isaiah Osbourne and Moustapha Salifou would make zero league starts between them, but all offered new one-year deals at the end of the season.
97% of our goals would have come from set pieces.
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About 8th or 9th or so.
This squad wasn't going to manage top six this season (mind you, look at how mediocre Liverpool are and where they are right now and it makes you wonder), but there's no way we should have spent most of the season in the bottom six, which is Houllier's fault.
On the flip side, MON's striker solution being Robbie Keane rather than Darren Bent, god knows where the goals would have come from.
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Somewhere between 5th and 8th with another trip to Wembley, no way would a MON team have let that bunch of wankers beat us in the Q.F.
You're assuming we'd have beaten Blackburn and Burnley in the earlier rounds. Our home form was so poor under MON. Agree we would have beaten the Rags though.
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Somewhere between 5th and 8th with another trip to Wembley, no way would a MON team have let that bunch of wankers beat us in the Q.F.
You're assuming we'd have beaten Blackburn and Burnley in the earlier rounds. Our home form was so poor under MON. Agree we would have beaten the Rags though.
We were unlucky not to beat them in that match, too.
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Somewhere between 5th and 8th with another trip to Wembley, no way would a MON team have let that bunch of wankers beat us in the Q.F.
A fair shout Chris. Id say 6-10th in league though.
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Somewhere between 5th and 8th with another trip to Wembley, no way would a MON team have let that bunch of wankers beat us in the Q.F.
You're assuming we'd have beaten Blackburn and Burnley in the earlier rounds. Our home form was so poor under MON. Agree we would have beaten the Rags though.
We were unlucky not to beat them in that match, too.
True, we did everything but score that night. The difference is MON always had luck on his side, probably as they worked so hard, right until the final whistle.
I think the big question is, or should be, who would be our manager now, as even if MON hadn't left last summer, I'm sure he would have walked out by now. The fans were beginning to question him last season and he didn't like it. My guess is he would have gone by Christmas.
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I doubt we'd have had the same level of injuries under a different training regime and I doubt we'd have given away so many points from winning positions, so another 14 to put us on 55 is not at all far fetched.
A lot of people predicted us to finish lower than 6th last season so it's not really a surprise that they're saying the same now.
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I doubt we'd have had the same level of injuries under a different training regime and I doubt we'd have given away so many points from winning positions, so another 14 to put us on 55 is not at all far fetched.
That doesn't relate to the original question though, Chris. Do keep up. (winky)
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only differance in my eyes would have been defence much better but countered by a lack of goals so i would say around about where we are now. ho hum
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Somewhere comfortable for me, oh well back to reality with a much needed win against wigan
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I voted very sensibly for "Top half and comfortable?", but there's a part of me that has the feeling that if O'Neill had got his shit together we could have done better in such an open league. What stopped me voting that way was how much better would he have coped with the injuries, considering how pissed off the fringe players were?
No way would be have been down among the dead men if he'd have stayed (and yet I'm glad he's gone).
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only differance in my eyes would have been defence much better but countered by a lack of goals so i would say around about where we are now. ho hum
Barring that exceptional 07/08 season, we scored 54 and then 52 under him in the last 2 seasons, which is an average of 1.4 per game. We're currently on 44 from 35 games, which is 1.25 per game.
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only differance in my eyes would have been defence much better but countered by a lack of goals so i would say around about where we are now. ho hum
Barring that exceptional 07/08 season, we scored 54 and then 52 under him in the last 2 seasons, which is an average of 1.4 per game. We're currently on 44 from 35 games, which is 1.25 per game.
Under O'Neill we were low scorers, but tight at the back, so it didn't matter. Last season, for example, we only scored 29 goals at home, and 10 of those came in two games, leaving 19 goals across the other 17 games. However, we only conceded 16 goals at home all season.
In 2008-09, we only scored 27 goals at home, and again 10 of those came in two matches, but once again, we were tight at the back.
This year we've actually conceded relatively few goals at home so far, but not scored many. However, look at the away figures. Only Blackburn have conceded more goals away from home than we have.
I don't know what conclusions I'm trying to draw from this, beyond the obvious, that we're not very good this season.
Oh well, at least we know what is wrong with the defence and we're going to try to fix it in the summer ....
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Hard to say. We'd almost certainly be a lot better off than we are now, but if we'd bought McGeadie instead of Bent , I think we'd be around the top 7/8. It's a shame we didn't buy Darren Bent last January.
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Hard to say. We'd almost certainly be a lot better off than we are now, but if we'd bought McGeadie instead of Bent , I think we'd be around the top 7/8. It's a shame we didn't buy Darren Bent last January.
When Bent was going to Sunderland for 10 million, Martin was busy spending 25 odd million on defenders, largely to replace the ones he'd spent 20m on the season before.
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I voted very sensibly for "Top half and comfortable?", but there's a part of me that has the feeling that if O'Neill had got his shit together we could have done better in such an open league.
I know what you mean. Pre-season MON brought Kevin McDonald into the first team set-up, something we were crying out for (well I was, at least). We needed a coach, whether it be KMac or somebody else and I believe from his comments towards the end of last season MON realised there was great need for improvement with our 'style'.
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Top half and comfortable. The leagues a lot tighter this year, with no-one running away with it at the top, or being cast adrift at the bottom, but I think we'd have struggled to get into Europe.
I don't think we'd necessarily have played any better, I just don't think an MON team would have let go of so many winning positions.
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I reckon he's regretting leaving after watching other teams this season. I reckon we could've really pushed Spurs and Man City again, finishing in a smiliar vein to last season, only maybe we would've come up trumps this time.
Certainly no team who finished below us last season would've finished above us this season.
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Hard to say. We'd almost certainly be a lot better off than we are now, but if we'd bought McGeadie instead of Bent , I think we'd be around the top 7/8. It's a shame we didn't buy Darren Bent last January.
When Bent was going to Sunderland for 10 million, Martin was busy spending 25 odd million on defenders, largely to replace the ones he'd spent 20m on the season before.
And we had one of the best defences in the league...not that you'd know it this season with the same players.
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I think we'd be roughly where Everton are. The nature of the division wouldn't have changed, a couple of wins and you'd be thinking of balmy August evenings in Vienna, a few defeats and you're at death's door.
He'd probably have walked this summer anyway, but with a bit more notice this time around.
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Hard to say. We'd almost certainly be a lot better off than we are now, but if we'd bought McGeadie instead of Bent , I think we'd be around the top 7/8. It's a shame we didn't buy Darren Bent last January.
When Bent was going to Sunderland for 10 million, Martin was busy spending 25 odd million on defenders, largely to replace the ones he'd spent 20m on the season before.
And we had one of the best defences in the league...not that you'd know it this season with the same players.
Indeed, although Bent at 10m was the equivalent of Curtis Davies plus less than a Nicky Shorey on top.
Makes you wonder.
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We'd have Scott Parker, Aiden McGeady and Robbie Keane instead of Bent, Ireland and Makoun.
Albrighton wouldn't have played. We'd be top 7, but again the season we've just had would be coming as it wouldn't be sustainable.
O'Neill just wasn't prepared to have that season with us, he wasn't a Club man and he wouldn't risk his reputation.
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In an alternative universe we'd be top
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Around about where we are now but with with an extra couple of points making us mathematically safe from relegation. Looking at the current points differential, I'll go for 8th.
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Hard to say.
I don't think the likes of Keane an McGeady would have improved us dramatically. Keane was a good player in his day but is no on a downward curve re form and fitness. Look at the other clubs who were going in for him this winter; B-lose, Wolves and West Ham. Says it all really.
Never been hugely impressed with McGeady. Plenty of step-overs and nice close control, but a far worse end product than any of the wingers currently on our books. I could have seen a repeat of the Shaun Maloney scenario in all honesty.
Any manager would have had the Dunne situation to contend with too. His conditioning for the first part of the campaign was an absolute joke and directly led to a fair few goals against as he was so far off the pace.
Against that, I'd have backed him to get a far better response from most of the current crop of players -maybe even Stephen Ireland.
I'd say about 7th-8th.
Thing is though, we were quite capable of putting decent runs together without particularly playing well, so in this up and down season you never can tell. 6th -maybe even 5th- could well have been attainable.
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2007/8 60 pts
2008/9 62 pts
2009/10 64 pts
...2010/11 66 pts
If O'Neill had been given Ireland and the money Gerard spent in January we'd be challenging for top 4.
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Bollocks. And that's a distortion of the question, Gerry.
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Indeed, challenging for top 4 from 8th place.
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2007/8 60 pts
2008/9 62 pts
2009/10 64 pts
...2010/11 66 pts
If O'Neill had been given Ireland and the money Gerard spent in January we'd be challenging for top 4.
O'Neill wouldn't have spent it on a decent striker for starters. Well, at least not on anyone else's definition of a decent striker, anyway, just his.
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In an alternative universe we'd be top
Even if there's an infinite amount of alternative universes, I still don't think that would happen!
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We would've beaten Blues in the cup, of that I am sure.
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Ace Rimmer has just scored his sixtieth goal of the season to wrap up the league title for Villa with a month to spare so he can concentrate on developing that cure for cancer and defeating the vicious Hun (Angela Merkel).
President Osama bin Laden has just been elected for four more years.
Villadawg has no interest in statistics.
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The motivated MON or the bloke that sulked pre season?
He would have got more out of the squad than this regime without doubt,he would not have bought the shame on the Club Anfield and Citeh so top half and comfortable.
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Ace Rimmer has just scored his sixtieth goal of the season to wrap up the league title for Villa with a month to spare so he can concentrate on developing that cure for cancer and defeating the vicious Hun (Angela Merkel).
What a guy!!
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About 8th or 9th or so.
This squad wasn't going to manage top six this season (mind you, look at how mediocre Liverpool are and where they are right now and it makes you wonder), but there's no way we should have spent most of the season in the bottom six, which is Houllier's fault.
On the flip side, MON's striker solution being Robbie Keane rather than Darren Bent, god knows where the goals would have come from.
Yep agree with that.
We wouldn't have been as close to the top 4 as we'd have been in the previous two seasons, the home form would've probably remained the same as it has under Houllier ut I'm sure we would've won a few more away games under him given how good away we generally were under MON.
At the moment Everton are 7th but only 7 points clear of us which given how shite we've been shows how mediocre the league is below 6th. I'd imagine we'd be 7-8 points better off at least if MON had stayed so that looks a decent estimate.
Finishing 7th though 5 years into his reign would've lead to a mutual seperation at the end of the season anyway I'd have reckoned.
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P.S Bent would've been brilliant in an MON team which would've got the ball forward more quickly and where the set piece delivery was better. He'd also have played next to Carew or Gabby so a lot of the build up play would've been their responsibility.
Always baffles me why he never seemed to go after DB as I reckon we would've finished 4th with him in the team last season instead of Heskey plodding around to little effect.
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2007/8 60 pts
2008/9 62 pts
2009/10 64 pts
...2010/11 66 pts
If O'Neill had been given Ireland and the money Gerard spent in January we'd be challenging for top 4.
Are you suggesting that if we'd kept O'Neill we'd inevitably keep getting two more points every season for ever? I would have enjoyed those successive league titles from 2020 onwards.
If he'd had that much money to spend he would've purchased Keane and MacGeady and kept the change for a last-ditch unfathomable splurge on a fourth-choice right-back on £3,000,000-a-week.
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Got to be impressed with Villadawg's unwavering support for the man that could do no wrong.
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As to the question...there's no way MON would have stood for all those leads being thrown away. We would have been tough buggers to beat as usual, a few of the defeats would have been draws and a couple of the draws would have been wins. Meaning we would have been battling Everton for 7th. And we would have been cursing him for not giving Liverpool or Spurs runs for their money considering neither have been great shakes this season in the league (well Liverpool until Dalglish took over).
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As to the question...there's no way MON would have stood for all those leads being thrown away. We would have been tough buggers to beat as usual, a few of the defeats would have been draws and a couple of the draws would have been wins. Meaning we would have been battling Everton for 7th. And we would have been cursing him for not giving Liverpool or Spurs runs for their money considering neither have been great shakes this season in the league (well Liverpool until Dalglish took over).
Fair enough, but you'd have to then say some of the wins might've been draws... West Ham and Wolves away for instance. I also don't think we'd have beaten Man City without the boost (and the goal) that signing Darren Bent brought. I can't see Robbie Keane having the same effect somehow.
It's all guesswork anyway. The only thing we can be sure of is we would DEFINITELY have won the league if that useless bastard Platt had scored that penalty against Wimbledon...
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And Garry Parker hadn't missed that sitter v Norwich away in 1992/93.
We'd have had two league titles in 3 years, Fergiescum would have been history and everything in the world would be just dandy.
Still probably wouldn't have won the FA Cup mind.
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We would've won the FA Cup if we'd been drawn to play Oldham on a football pitch rather than a massive tennis court.
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I dont know where we'd be but judging by how lacklustre, disinterested and shabby we looked in pre season, players and manager, we'd probably have struggled so I cant imagine we'd be much better off, if at all.
There isnt a chance in hell we would have made the top 6. He wouldn't have bought Bent with the money Houllier had, more like Keane and McGeady.
Oh and he'd probably have given Carew a new £80k a week contract until he was 36.
If we're talking alternate Universe, Hiddink would have got the job when Randy took over and we'd have been in the Champions League a couple of times at least by now. Oh well.
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As to the question...there's no way MON would have stood for all those leads being thrown away. We would have been tough buggers to beat as usual, a few of the defeats would have been draws and a couple of the draws would have been wins. Meaning we would have been battling Everton for 7th. And we would have been cursing him for not giving Liverpool or Spurs runs for their money considering neither have been great shakes this season in the league (well Liverpool until Dalglish took over).
Fair enough, but you'd have to then say some of the wins might've been draws... West Ham and Wolves away for instance. I also don't think we'd have beaten Man City without the boost (and the goal) that signing Darren Bent brought. I can't see Robbie Keane having the same effect somehow.
It's all guesswork anyway. The only thing we can be sure of is we would DEFINITELY have won the league if that useless bastard Platt had scored that penalty against Wimbledon...
It depends how this alternate universe works. If it's MON from scratch at the start of the season none of the scenarios in games played-out this season which you have alluded to would have happened. (ie, the West Ham or Wolves matches are completely different where we wouldn't have needed last-gasp wins cos they were the type of away games we usually won with MON, though we even had a few last-minute away wins under him aswell - that, er, Everton game, away to Hull a couple of weeks later etc.).
I concede that I don't think we would have beat Man City at home though. At best, I could imagine a performance similar to at home to Spurs last season. Get a scruffy early goal from a set-piece and spend the rest of the game defending. Actually not too different to this season but O'Neill wouldn't have had poacher-supreme Darren Bent in his ranks....
Christ, of all the futile exercises to do....I haven't thought about him for a while and still resent him for walking out on us but compared to this season, the gang mentality we had under MON, and his calm sense of righteousness which seemed to foster respect among the press and fans of other teams is something I quite miss when I think of what's happened since.
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I dont know where we'd be but judging by how lacklustre, disinterested and shabby we looked in pre season, players and manager, we'd probably have struggled so I cant imagine we'd be much better off, if at all.
There isnt a chance in hell we would have made the top 6. He wouldn't have bought Bent with the money Houllier had, more like Keane and McGeady.
Oh and he'd probably have given Carew a new £80k a week contract until he was 36.
I don't buy that from you Maz. Come on, you're never anything but positive about the team and club. I'm not arsed trawling back through old posts but I'm sure a week before the season started you were confident that we'd at least do as well as last season and even after Milner going you would have been waxing lyrical at who we could buy with the money and how good Ireland could be.
You constantly talk us up and I'm glad you (and Chrismith to an extent) do because most of us are far too much the other way.
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top half and comfortable. anywhere from 6th downwards to 10th. no doubt we'd have another 3 or 4 duffers cluttering up the reserves and Dunne would be POTY.
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In that parallel universe…
Villa are on 61 points and with 3 games to go till the end of the season, are about to beat the Blues once again in our challenge to qualify for the Champions League. We’re on a run of 23 games in all competitions since the start of the year in which we’ve lost once in the league at Chelsea and two other games at Wembley to Man Utd and Chelsea in the League cup final and FA cup semi-final. Gabby has bagged himself 7 goals and John Carew has yet to score his 12th goal during that run from January to the end of the season.
Things are bad, really bad and nobody can quite believe how shit the manager is nor understand why we haven't got any strikers.
It’s a weird alternative universe.
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He doesn't deserve all your loving VD.
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He doesn't deserve all your loving VD.
I just like to throw a few pebbles onto the H&V scales of justice ;-)
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I dont know where we'd be but judging by how lacklustre, disinterested and shabby we looked in pre season, players and manager, we'd probably have struggled so I cant imagine we'd be much better off, if at all.
There isnt a chance in hell we would have made the top 6. He wouldn't have bought Bent with the money Houllier had, more like Keane and McGeady.
Oh and he'd probably have given Carew a new £80k a week contract until he was 36.
I don't buy that from you Maz. Come on, you're never anything but positive about the team and club. I'm not arsed trawling back through old posts but I'm sure a week before the season started you were confident that we'd at least do as well as last season and even after Milner going you would have been waxing lyrical at who we could buy with the money and how good Ireland could be.
You constantly talk us up and I'm glad you (and Chrismith to an extent) do because most of us are far too much the other way.
I must say I don't recall too many posts predicting doom, catastrophe and struggle prior to MON walking out either.
I'm sure there were the usual sorts anxious about our lack of transfer dealings up to that point. And many more telling them not to worry about it, had history taught us nothing/ so long as we have the right players on board by Sept 1st and so on.
This was the season that Bannan and Albrighton were tipped to breakthrough, the latter's form in particular being very encouraging pre season. We had a few iffy results, losing in Ireland and getting mauled by Benfica in particular. But against decent results against Feyenoord and Valencia. Not that you can ever judge the thing firmly on results in that period as it's all about match fitness. The only player who gave any kind of concern in that regard was Dunne.
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I know we would not be in the top 4 but then I also know wherever we were the fabbase would not be happy about it.
The only thing I like is Villa winning and the only place that happens a lot is in dreamworld at the moment.
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I would have to say we would be top half and we wouldn't have seen the likes of Albrighton,Clarke, or Bannan and i reckon we wouldn't have Bent here.
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I dont know where we'd be but judging by how lacklustre, disinterested and shabby we looked in pre season, players and manager, we'd probably have struggled so I cant imagine we'd be much better off, if at all.
There isnt a chance in hell we would have made the top 6. He wouldn't have bought Bent with the money Houllier had, more like Keane and McGeady.
Oh and he'd probably have given Carew a new £80k a week contract until he was 36.
I don't buy that from you Maz. Come on, you're never anything but positive about the team and club. I'm not arsed trawling back through old posts but I'm sure a week before the season started you were confident that we'd at least do as well as last season and even after Milner going you would have been waxing lyrical at who we could buy with the money and how good Ireland could be.
You constantly talk us up and I'm glad you (and Chrismith to an extent) do because most of us are far too much the other way.
It's true that I like to remain chipper whenever possible, but the preseason worried me probably more than I let on. I cant remember what I said at the time but that's certainly how I felt, I assure you. My brother first raised the concerns about body language and certain other things and I dismissed it as rustiness at first but then when it didn't improve I started to be concerned.
I'm no happy clapping fool by proxy. When there is genuine cause for concern, I feel them.
You're right about me being optimistic once he'd gone. It was like a cloud had been lifted. I was a long time admirer of MacDonald and Ireland and after putting West Ham to the sword in such swashbuckling fashion I had cause for optimism as most of us did I think. But it was a bit unrealistic in hindsight. None of us knew the extent of the unrest and turmoil that was to come with the injuries, behind the scenes troubles and lack of proper preparation in the summer in every respect; fitness, tactics, sales and purchases... etc
This season has been one big turd but for all the reasons I stated above, it was going to be with MON in charge too.
I just dont see what he would have done to avoid it and in fact it was largely his doing. I was a supporter of his but hold him almost entirely responsible for our current plight.
I think it's odd that fans are wandering how much better it would have been with MON in charge when its mostly his fault that we're struggling. His players, his waste of resources, his lack of preparation and ultimately his lack of respect and consideration for Aston Villa, its fans and its owner. Maybe I'm being harsh but that's how I feel.
I dont want to get embroilled in another long-winded debate on it though as it's been done to death and back again.
I'm no Houllier apologist either. He's certainly made his mistakes but I appreciate the difficulty he's had to face too. Not that I wanted him for the position in the first place.
You always hope a new manager will come in and have a dramatic positive impact but I wonder what anybody could have done with the mess we were in, which was, I'd wager, far worse than anybody suspected.
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I was predicting 7th or 8th before O'Neill left. I thought we would go slightly backwards, based on the fact that possibly only Keane and McGeady were predicted to come in, and maybe not even them if the money was dependent on O'Neill shifting a few out. And the other PL teams not being that good.
But O'Neill never had to deal with an injury crisis on the scale we had this season and I'm not sure motivation alone would have seen us through that stage. I still think we'd have been safe by now and probably aiming for 9th or 10th place. But fuck him, I'm glad he's gone.
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Two things to those of you saying we would have similarly struggled and/or only been midtable with MON:-
1. When we've previously been debating his ability to get us to 4th, someone came up with the very valid point that aslong as he continually fails to do so, it must raise increasing doubts that he ever will. As I said - a valid point. But surely the same goes in reverse that after 3 successive 6th place finishes we can't immediately write off his chances of doing it again?
2. Each year we seemed to not rate his signings and predict a slump from where we were the previous year, as a lot of you are saying would have happened in this hypothetical scenario, yet each year we improved our points total and made progress.
It is of course impossible to know and very difficult to guess at given the strange nature of this season, both for us and the league as a whole, but the sheer fact we would have had a more competitive game mentality and greater organization is worth the sort of points difference that would leave us somewhere around 6th with Spurs and Liverpool, IMO.
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I dont think that is a sheer fact. Its supposition at best and based on what I saw in preseason, culminating in him walking out, not much behind it either.
But you're right it's all hypothetical now. You cant "prove" anything in this type of scenario.
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Each year we seemed to not rate his signings and predict a slump from where we were the previous year
That generalisation does not work. OK it was true of some people but there were just as many who were talking his signings up. And for every Marlon Harewood or Zat Knight or Richard Dunne, about which there were doubts, there was a James Milner or a Carlos Cuellar or, yes, a Steve Sidwell, about which great things were anticipated.
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There were plenty of detractors of the Milner signing - especially at £12m!
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Maybe there were detractors but I think if you go back to the threads around the time he signed you'll find the great majority reacted very positively.