The Martin O'Neill thread (with added sacking #2188)

[Sexual Ealing]

very good clip there, thanks for that paulie

Seconded. Do wonder why they've at last chosen to be objective about MON.

Maybe it's a new breed of journos coming through who he hasn't bothered to cultivate.

Or maybe it's now just too obvious that he's not the manager he was.

[hilts_coolerking]

Maybe it's a new breed of journos coming through who he hasn't bothered to cultivate.

Partly that, partly because his glory days (such as they are) seem a fair while ago, and partly because as time goes on it becomes more obvious what his level is.

[dave.woodhall]

very good clip there, thanks for that paulie

Seconded. Do wonder why they've at last chosen to be objective about MON.

Maybe it's a new breed of journos coming through who he hasn't bothered to cultivate.

Or maybe it's now just too obvious that he's not the manager he was.

I'll still hold fire until that panel is Oliver Holt, Henry Winter and that tit from the Guardian.

[Dave P]

£3.5m on Marlon Harewood.  That is all.

[pauliewalnuts]

It wasn't all bad under MON, certainly not, but there were certain things which quite a few of us spotted and got worried about, which have proven with retrospect to have been things worth worrying about.

The lack of anything resembling a plan B
A plan A which was somewhat predictable to say the least
Trying to counter attack at home.
A refusal or inability to make substitutions to tactically change the course of the game (Sidwell on 75 mins, anyone?)
A 1980s approach to tactics
The laziest, half-arsed transfer policy around (only signed two players who weren't playing in the UK already)
Dreadful signings on stupid money for long contracts (Heskey)
An obsession with right backs.
Profligate wasting of money.

There were plenty of things to worry about, and looking back now, we were right to worry about them.

The week he joined us, I was trawling some Celtic forums reading about him, and on one of them a Celtic fan pointed out that, amongst all the worship, he'd left them in a financially sticky place with some of their signings, citing the fact Bobo Balde was on a long contract on 40k a week. 40k a week in Scotland?

[Dave P]

I remember when we beat Newcastle 2-0 at VP in one of his first games and we had about 30% possession.  The analysis was this was nothing to worry about as we won and we will do more with the ball.  It is a very dangerous game to play, however, and running around chasing the ball for 90 mins means we did run out of steam by the time his fabled month of March came round.

I've probably made it sound simplistic but I'm sure you get my drift.

[rob_bridge]

The sad thing is that, at his Leicester and (to an extent) Celtic best, he could do wonders with no-mark players on sod-all money. Like with so many players we've had down the years, maybe he was the right man at the wrong time.

Here's something guaranteed to make a grown man weep. Imagine BFR with Randy's money.

I think MON was like BFR in some ways. Media savvy, good motivator leading to Cup finals/wims, always aware of other jobs about, picking of favourites (remember BFR not picking Yorkie) and to be fair an over inflated sense of their achievements by others (ala Venables).

One major difference - BFR teams played football. Objectively that Tesco Bag team he managed were very good to watch. As were the Owls before us and even took 2 years+ before Satan turned them sour. And as for Villa - well we couldhave had a goal of the season to ourselves in 1992-93.

That said I'd rather chat to BFR over a few beers about football than MON. I get the feeling Ron wouldn't care if you thought he was any good and have a good time whereas MON would be waiting for the fawning.

Not anymore for me either. Scales have fallen. MON was great for our profile and did well ala DOL at Leeds. He has got off lightly because we hired 2 completely abject successors who couldn't preside over a steady decline to mid table mediocrity and rather took us into relegation battles. The decline was more marked than 1982-1987

[hilts_coolerking]

Just as an aside, the era of BFR-type managers seems an awfully long time ago.

[SoccerHQ]

He's a lazy manager and at 60 he's not going to change his style now.

For anyone who can be bothered look at Sunderland and he's doing exactly the same things up there as he was doing here.

Craig Gardner has played most of this season at right back, Jack Coleback (a midfielder) played last night at left back.

Just like here he moved a hardworking right sided midfielder into the centre like Milner here, he's done the same with Seb Larrson there although I don't expect Man. City to come in with a 20m bid anytime soon.

Sunderland have 6 draws from 8 this season so seems fairly obvious to me they struggle to break down sides which was a familiar problem here usually at VP. And they've let in a few late goals this season when sitting back again on a 1-0 lead which again used to happen to us too often.

Basically they're a poorer version of what we were and luckily for them Ellis Short seems to have a tighter reign on the pursestrings. They'll be mid table which will probably please most of their fans as I doubt there's any great expectation of top 6.

Interesting point made earlier, I think MON does know we were his big opportunity to break into the elite managers section and get someone like Man. United interested and he knows it.

I too can see him going from Sunderland at the end of the season, really can't see that being a long term job for him and at his age it could be his last job.

[Irish villain]

Like it. Off to post it elsewhere. Thank you, paulie.

This!

[Concrete John]

In retrospect, I think the thing about MON was that the things he was good at managerially (playing on the counter, motivation, team organisation) made up for the failings he had that others have pointed out on this thread already.  So, when he left the faults remained, but his ability to compensate for them did not.

His focus always seemed to be to win the next game, so long term planning his successors could benefit from did not exist.

I still think he was a good manager and did some good things for our club, but it was all short term and unsustainable!

[kippaxvilla2]

You missed Zat Knight.

Nobody misses Zat Knight.

It's not a secret that I was a fan of his but can see that he has not adapted his style to the modern day game over recent years.  But this was one that completely pissed me off in that he signed him 3 months after he had signed a new 4 year deal at Fulham and wasn't actually that great.

[hilts_coolerking]

When the debate was raging about whether we should keep O'Neill, I was among those saying we should look to replace him.  One of the objections to that was raised by, I think, Dave (from Bath) who said 'how do we know Lerner knows enough about football to appoint a decent replacement?'.  Which, as it turns out, was remarkably prescient.

[kippaxvilla2]

£3.5m on Marlon Harewood.  That is all.

Carew for Baros.

[Ian.]

I have to admit that I bought into the MON thing full tilt at the time. There was a different feeling, a sense that under him we had become relevant again. I criticised some of the tactics at the time but thought the good outweighed the bad. As time goes by, though, the amount of bad grows and becomes overwhelming. That he was appointed at the exact moment we finally got decent financial backing is a very sad piece of timing in our history, as Randy's money spent more wisely by a better, more up-to-date manager, I believe, would have got us into something like the position Spurs are in now, if not better.

I did too. It was not just Randy who believed we had the one of the best managers in football running our team. That is so true about where we are now and where Spurs got to in the same period.