August 4th 2006

[supertom]

I genuinely thought we'd get a trophy and break the top four with O Neill. I remember when it seemed O Leary was a dead man walking, and those first weeks after he got the boot, we were heavily linked with Curbishley. I'd have been satisfied with him back then because I honestly never thought we'd get O Neill. We did and I was delighted.

There were good and bad aspects to O Neill which we've debated to death, but in all honesty, he turn us around and gave us a good run at it. A first season of stabilising with a good start and good run in that showed a bit of style, then three 6th placed finishes where were got within sniffing distance of top 4. In fairness to him too, three 60+ point hauls was impressive. O Neill's last season he actually attained our second highest points finish in the Premiership. A point more than Little's 4th place finish.

At our best under O Neill I also maintain we played some bloody good stuff. We were great to watch when we had the likes of Barry, Young, Big John and Gabby on form. We could also genuinely give anyone a good game on our day back then.

Close but no ceegar. Always 1-2 of the right player away from being genuine contenders.

I really don't envision a day filled with quite so much promise as that day for a while to come. We've had the good side of a brand spanking new Yank owner, followed by the crushing crash to reality. That will always play on our minds when a new incumbent comes in. I couldn't have envisioned four straight years of relegation battle to come as our players strolled onto the Wembley pitch for the LC Final in 2010.

Right...I'm off for a cry, and possibly to howl at the moon a bit. 

[SoccerHQ]

It could have all been so different, probably the biggest wasted opportunity since after our European Cup win.

By the way, this event is so recent, it surely should have a thread here.  Does anyone have a link to it, or do the old threads just get deleted after a certain time?

Think the old board packed up around the time he walked out ironically.

[frankmosswasmyuncle]

I genuinely thought we'd get a trophy and break the top four with O Neill. I remember when it seemed O Leary was a dead man walking, and those first weeks after he got the boot, we were heavily linked with Curbishley. I'd have been satisfied with him back then because I honestly never thought we'd get O Neill. We did and I was delighted.

There were good and bad aspects to O Neill which we've debated to death, but in all honesty, he turn us around and gave us a good run at it. A first season of stabilising with a good start and good run in that showed a bit of style, then three 6th placed finishes where were got within sniffing distance of top 4. In fairness to him too, three 60+ point hauls was impressive. O Neill's last season he actually attained our second highest points finish in the Premiership. A point more than Little's 4th place finish.

At our best under O Neill I also maintain we played some bloody good stuff. We were great to watch when we had the likes of Barry, Young, Big John and Gabby on form. We could also genuinely give anyone a good game on our day back then.

Close but no ceegar. Always 1-2 of the right player away from being genuine contenders.

I really don't envision a day filled with quite so much promise as that day for a while to come. We've had the good side of a brand spanking new Yank owner, followed by the crushing crash to reality. That will always play on our minds when a new incumbent comes in. I couldn't have envisioned four straight years of relegation battle to come as our players strolled onto the Wembley pitch for the LC Final in 2010.

Right...I'm off for a cry, and possibly to howl at the moon a bit. 

This.

And I just knew we were gonna beat Yanited that day at Wembley. I just knew it!

[Gregorys Boy]

I genuinely thought we'd get a trophy and break the top four with O Neill. I remember when it seemed O Leary was a dead man walking, and those first weeks after he got the boot, we were heavily linked with Curbishley. I'd have been satisfied with him back then because I honestly never thought we'd get O Neill. We did and I was delighted.

There were good and bad aspects to O Neill which we've debated to death, but in all honesty, he turn us around and gave us a good run at it. A first season of stabilising with a good start and good run in that showed a bit of style, then three 6th placed finishes where were got within sniffing distance of top 4. In fairness to him too, three 60+ point hauls was impressive. O Neill's last season he actually attained our second highest points finish in the Premiership. A point more than Little's 4th place finish.

At our best under O Neill I also maintain we played some bloody good stuff. We were great to watch when we had the likes of Barry, Young, Big John and Gabby on form. We could also genuinely give anyone a good game on our day back then.

Close but no ceegar. Always 1-2 of the right player away from being genuine contenders.

I really don't envision a day filled with quite so much promise as that day for a while to come. We've had the good side of a brand spanking new Yank owner, followed by the crushing crash to reality. That will always play on our minds when a new incumbent comes in. I couldn't have envisioned four straight years of relegation battle to come as our players strolled onto the Wembley pitch for the LC Final in 2010.

Right...I'm off for a cry, and possibly to howl at the moon a bit. 

This is all fair.  Sad thing is with the money and uneven playing field nowadays not only is it all the more harder to be a top four side, or even compete for the title, but it is even harder to win an FA Cup or League Cup than it used to be.  That last season under MON we were just a bit unlucky to face Utd in one cup and Chelsea in the other the two most dominate sides at the time.

[Damo70]

His first game in charge when we played Arsenal at the new Emirates ( and Olof scored the first ever goal there) under our new chairman is up there with one of my finest Villa supporting moments. Without Doug, I felt like an East German after the fall of the Berlin Wall. Minus the dodgy mullets and sleeveless denim jackets, of course.

USA..USA...USA

How naive of me.

The icing on the cake would have been David Hasselhoff turning up to sing Looking For Freedom.

[Damo70]

Was at a sports psychology lecture a few weeks ago.
Lecturer is a Villa fan.
he highlighted the difference between o'Dreary final season and MON in the first season with basically the same group of players

O'Dreary after another defeat  "they did as well as can be expected I can't ask for anymore from them"  -  subconscious interpretation by the players as no matter how hard we try we are not good enough

MON after the Arsenal game   " we gave it a right good go but tired really badly in the second half, when we get the fitness levels right we will be fine" - subconscious interpretation by the players we are good enough and when our fitness is up to speed we will be more competitive.
We then went onto to have one of our best starts to a premier league (if not the best ?)


Use of managers words and player interpretation is becoming more and more critical in player and teams performance

I have no idea what "we pick ourselves up and we go again" means though!

In his last season David O'Leary did an interview before a game at Arsenal that made me want to kick the TV in. He was pretty much saying we shouldn't really be sharing a pitch with them they were so much better than us. We lost heavily. Before MON's first game at Arsenal he pointed out how good they were, how he had not had much time to buy players or get the players working as he wanted, but he finished on a high by praising the players and pointed out that as a big Premier League football team it was our job to get results against other Premier League teams. Two totally opposite ways of approaching a tough game.

[Gregorys Boy]

Was at a sports psychology lecture a few weeks ago.
Lecturer is a Villa fan.
he highlighted the difference between o'Dreary final season and MON in the first season with basically the same group of players

O'Dreary after another defeat  "they did as well as can be expected I can't ask for anymore from them"  -  subconscious interpretation by the players as no matter how hard we try we are not good enough

MON after the Arsenal game   " we gave it a right good go but tired really badly in the second half, when we get the fitness levels right we will be fine" - subconscious interpretation by the players we are good enough and when our fitness is up to speed we will be more competitive.
We then went onto to have one of our best starts to a premier league (if not the best ?)


Use of managers words and player interpretation is becoming more and more critical in player and teams performance

I have no idea what "we pick ourselves up and we go again" means though!

In his last season David O'Leary did an interview before a game at Arsenal that made me want to kick the TV in. He was pretty much saying we shouldn't really be sharing a pitch with them they were so much better than us. We lost heavily. Before MON's first game at Arsenal he pointed out how good they were, how he had not had much time to buy players or get the players working as he wanted, but he finished on a high by praising the players and pointed out that as a big Premier League football team it was our job to get results against other Premier League teams. Two totally opposite ways of approaching a tough game.

Say what you will about MON but he always got the tone just about right when it came to interviews/press conferences etc..   Just knew how to be the right level of postive without getting carried away.  When he first came I remember him making it clear that he wanted us to get back to being a top side, while saying we were a long way off, but we can still aim for it.  And when we beat Chelsea 2-0 at VP he said it was a great result, but made it clear than it was just one result against a very good team. Great times!

[CorkVilla]

I'm not sure I'd start getting all rose tinted about O'Neill just yet. I often think that if he had been managing 20 years ago he would have been hugely successful but he's an 80's/90's manager who was simply wasn't cut out for the modern game no matter how much Lerner let him spend on mediocre players.

Remember this is the same guy who sold Gary Cahill for four million quid and replaced him with Zat Knight for the same money. He was one of the best paid managers probably in Europe at the time and had full support of the owner and supporters for the first three years at least. It wasn't until we had guys languishing in the reserves on 40k a week that Lerner decided to intervene.

I think he's probably a nice guy and a very good manager up to a certain level. I wish him well with Ireland but, when you consider the great opportunity we had back then, I really think he was the wrong man for us.