Statement this morning

[Dave Cooper please]

Really!

He was wrong about Heskey at least, reports all put Ashley Young as the top earner.

Fucking hell Chris!

He was absolutely spot on about the biggest story in the Lerner era but you are going to try to discredit him over Heskey's wages?

[KevinGage]

I think it was planned and I think the General was right to give the club's perspective however "unofficial" it was.

I'm not so sure it was planned, but I fully understood why the General did what he did.
If anything, I thought it was quite respectful, given the circumstances. He could have said a whole lot worse.

I genuinely think the board carry no blame in this.

If you set the conditions, tell staff (which effectively what MON was, despite his inflated sense of worth) what's required and the parameters within which they can operate; if all this is clear -and you get their acknowledgement that they accept- how are you then liable if they just decide one day "fcuk it" ?

MON wasn't expected to work under harsher conditions than most of his peers. We were entering a period when we had to tighten our belts, in line with many clubs. If he left purely because he didn't have free reign at the till for once then he's a brat. And deserving of very little sympathy. If he's left because of the deteriorating relationship he had with the playing staff, that was largely self inflicted. And again, he would deserve very little sympathy.

I would tend to side with the board in all this, as they haven't let us down yet.
MON has on a number of occasions previously shown that if he doesn't get his way he can be prone to the tantrum. This bears all the hallmarks of a similar (though more extreme) response.   

[Sister of Top Cat]

   As for our goal scoring problem, somebody must surely want him.

There's been quite a few posts on here the last couple of days that have made me smile.  That comment, however, had me laughing out loud.

Me too Pauline - as did your comment about the job vacancies on the new OS!

[Chris Smith]

Really!

He was wrong about Heskey at least, reports all put Ashley Young as the top earner.

Fucking hell Chris!

He was absolutely spot on about the biggest story in the Lerner era but you are going to try to discredit him over Heskey's wages?

He gave opinions mostly not facts, but as they chimed with yours  naturally you'd say they were spot on. I don't believe he spent money on a fair amount of garbage, I do believe he was working on improving the team, I think that wages are the responsibility of the chairman and CEO and having to reduce the wage bill before you sign new players is a sell to buy policy by any other name.

It does raise the question though, if this was the official thinking and was how they felt about the manager why the fuck didn't they do something about it?

And before I get the usual tiresome responses, I'm not excusing anything O'Neill has done this week.

[Greg N'Ash]

heheheh

[Toronto Villa]

Really!

He was wrong about Heskey at least, reports all put Ashley Young as the top earner.

Fucking hell Chris!

He was absolutely spot on about the biggest story in the Lerner era but you are going to try to discredit him over Heskey's wages?

He gave opinions mostly not facts, but as they chimed with yours  naturally you'd say they were spot on. I don't believe he spent money on a fair amount of garbage, I do believe he was working on improving the team, I think that wages are the responsibility of the chairman and CEO and having to reduce the wage bill before you sign new players is a sell to buy policy by any other name.

It does raise the question though, if this was the official thinking and was how they felt about the manager why the fuck didn't they do something about it?

And before I get the usual tiresome responses, I'm not excusing anything O'Neill has done this week.

the wages on the players are fine if you're going to play them, or they are coming off the bench and making a significant contribution. We paid transfers fees for certain players like they are starters, are paying them a wage per week like they are starters, yet sitting them on the bench for the most part. That's naturally going to draw the attention of the blokes signing the weekly payroll.

I agree with you that it is a joint responsibility, but you have to imagine they put a lot of trust in MON, maybe naively. Once they sharpened up to some of the balance issues, they had a right to question him. I'm guessing that was the big change that MON couldn't accept. That he was being challenged in his decision making. We all get challenged at work every day, why should he be any different?

[Small Rodent]

And before I get the usual tiresome responses, I'm not excusing anything O'Neill has done this week.

Well said Chris.

I know you were a MON supporter, but it's a more mature response than some other answers this week from either side of the bizarre barriers that Villa fans build for themselves.

[pauliewalnuts]

I agree with you that it is a joint responsibility, but you have to imagine they put a lot of trust in MON, maybe naively. Once they sharpened up to some of the balance issues, they had a right to question him. I'm guessing that was the big change that MON couldn't accept. That he was being challenged in his decision making. We all get challenged at work every day, why should he be any different?

I would also say that, even if it is a joint responsibility, surely the thing to do is to work together to rectify and get the best out of the situation.

It sounds like one party didn't fancy even trying to do that. In fact, he fancied it so little, he left right before the start of the season.

[stevenjos]

He was wrong about wages...... Priceless comeback

[Toronto Villa]

He was wrong about wages...... Priceless comeback

all wages, or just those players that he didn't utilize? Because I'm glad he was able to justify the contracts of Dunne, Milner, Bouma, Collins, Cuellar, Delph, Warnock, Fonz, Laursen, Ash, Gabby and Carew to name but a few in that time.

[Dave]

He was wrong about wages...... Priceless comeback

all wages, or just those players that he didn't utilize? Because I'm glad he was able to justify the contracts of Dunne, Milner, Bouma, Collins, Cuellar, Delph, Warnock, Fonz, Laursen, Ash, Gabby and Carew to name but a few in that time.

I'm guessing he's referring to Chris' response rather than O'Neill's management.

[KevinGage]

And before I get the usual tiresome responses, I'm not excusing anything O'Neill has done this week.

Well said Chris.

I know you were a MON supporter, but it's a more mature response than some other answers this week from either side of the bizarre barriers that Villa fans build for themselves.

It's certainly a bit more mature than railing against the Board for not being clairvoyant enough to second guess MON flouncing off when he did.

[KevinGage]

He was wrong about wages...... Priceless comeback

We don't even know if that was the case.

It was reported at the time we signed Heskey that he was on between £60-£62k a week. To see off attention from Liverpool (damn) and because he would have been a free agent in the summer. Someone on this site about two/three months later posted that they had had it confirmed by someone working at the club that Ivanhoe was indeed on £62,000.

The improved contract for Ash was widely reported to be around £50-55k.

I've only seen it this week being reported as £65k, so -unless he's renegotiated a new contract that none of the press or the official club media outlets picked up on, I wouldn't take it as gospel.

Richard Dunne was mentioned as being on £70k a week in some newspaper recently too. This I doubt, as the reason for the whole delay during his move to us from Citeh was the payoff he was waiting on to make up the shortfall.

I'd say pelty -in contrast to all of the above- might be in a better position than most to know.  And if Ivanhoe is on anything approaching that it's fcuking lunacy. It just sends out all the wrong signals. One of your least effective/ most derided players being top earner (or even anywhere near that level) ?

Madness.

[sfx412]

The Board have handled the situation and are handling it superbly, even the General's comments were spot on and just what was needed to counter the media's previous bias towards O'Neill.
Can't see they have done anything wrong, they haven't run away, they didn't sack O'Neill and they even slipped in a new policy statement most have glossed over, very neat management, no wonder Mon couldn't cope when he'd been found out.
Thing is its about time the Emperors followers faced the fact he's run off , he's gone and all that's left is to see over time what he can do in the media to regain some cred, because there aren't many sane club owners out there who will be willing now to give him the free hand he had at Villa.
Obviously backing him as they did has proven to be a folly, such is life, personally I can't wait in the hope RL chooses a modern thinking manager who has at least some experience of tactics and overseas players. Its such a pity Liverpool didn't pick Mon instead of Hodgson.
The guy I feel sorry for is the one who has to sort out the mess left behind, luckily, unless RL sells them in the interim, he'll have some decent players who haven't done much in the last few seasons to work with, even if he will not have time to drill them into a serious footballing side who have done little in the way of serious training, tactics, or squad rotation, before the season is a few games old.

As to the rumour RL would only offer 5 mill for MacGeedy, bloody superb if so, he's obviously got more clue about players value than Mon ever had

[eamonn]

I wonder what MON will have to say about us when he's an pundit (I'd say analyst but..) on MOTD with his Beeb buddies in a few weeks.