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

[TheSandman]

If Randy is Young Doug then MoN is most definitely a Deluxe Gregory.

[kippaxvilla2]

How much did Doug (or his backers) put into the club in his first few years.  This is a genuine question as I do not know the answer and of course the sums would have been relative to the day.

The square root of fuck all, I believe is the phrase.

Nothing at all?  Is that correct?  Or a best guess?

He secured a loan, and bought shares which he later sold in 1979, presumably at a profit. From his return in 1982 he didn't put one single penny into the club.

Mr Lerner's company has advanced a loan to AVIL (or whatever the vehicle was) for the purchase of the club and subsequent investments.  Are you seriously suggesting that he will not seek to recoup that loan in the event he has enough or, indeed, the most likely scenario will recoup it plus a sizeable profit when he sells the club on.  I think that day could be sooner than we think.

[richardhubbard]

Thanks for some great victories

For bringing the pride back to the club

For signing good players like Young, Collins, Milner

For telling Liverpool to fuck off

For giving Gabby a chance

For putting back in top 6

For getting close in cups last season

Who made mistakes but that not for this thread

[pauliewalnuts]

How much did Doug (or his backers) put into the club in his first few years.  This is a genuine question as I do not know the answer and of course the sums would have been relative to the day.

The square root of fuck all, I believe is the phrase.

Nothing at all?  Is that correct?  Or a best guess?

He secured a loan, and bought shares which he later sold in 1979, presumably at a profit. From his return in 1982 he didn't put one single penny into the club.

Mr Lerner's company has advanced a loan to AVIL (or whatever the vehicle was) for the purchase of the club and subsequent investments.  Are you seriously suggesting that he will not seek to recoup that loan in the event he has enough or, indeed, the most likely scenario will recoup it plus a sizeable profit when he sells the club on.  I think that day could be sooner than we think.

The only way he can recoup that loan if he decides he has had enough is it he can get enough money to cover what he paid for the club, and what he has subsequently invested, which is, what, 200m plus?

I wish him luck with that one.

What people seem to be missing with some of the panicky "oh no, he's going to be cheap and appoint Curbishley" stuff is that he's now protecting a vast investment he has made in the business. Get the appointment wrong, and the value  of that investment goes in the wrong direction.

Not referring to you necessarily, but until Monday, there was, bar literallly two or three people, total approval of Lerner and co on here, built up over four years.

The manager walks out, we're told it is because he doesn't want to work on trimming the wage bill, and an amazing number of people are turning on the chairman and comparing him to Ellis.

That's disappointing. I also get the impression that he's going to make a decent appointment, support the manager (as he always has done) and we'll build on this, leaving quite a few people looking a bit daft following the last few days.

[dave.woodhall]

Mr Lerner's company has advanced a loan to AVIL (or whatever the vehicle was) for the purchase of the club and subsequent investments.  Are you seriously suggesting that he will not seek to recoup that loan in the event he has enough or, indeed, the most likely scenario will recoup it plus a sizeable profit when he sells the club on.  I think that day could be sooner than we think.

Randy has never made a secret of his financial arrangements; I've said from the off he wasn't in it purely for the good of his health. I would be amazed if 'that day' has even been considered yet and when it comes, if Randy makes anywhere near in percentage terms the profit from his investment that Doug made from his.

[KevinGage]

Ta for everything up to Moscow.

I agree with this - I mentioned a season and a half ago we played decent football.  People will say we have done this to death,
but I do think this was a monumental error that he never got over and some of the players never forgave him for.

I don't know if it was the players who never forgave him, but there was a point at which he started changing in the way he dealt with the fans, the way he reacted to them, and there was a point at which we started to hear more stories of him falling out with players.

I don't know if that was Moscow or not, but it sounds a bit too convenient for that to be the case.

I thought he got a lot of unfair stick for Moscow (mind you, i was sat in my living room watching it, not in Moscow, so it is easy for me to say that), and I thought he actually made the right call on it at the time, but I wonder whether it really was the point at which a number of things started going badly, or if it is just something we lump more importance on to now, with the benefit of hindsight.

I've dug out the Luke Young quotes a few times, so I won't go down that path again.

But as much as the fans (or a fair percentage of them) were pissed off with the Moscow bottle job, the players probably felt it even more so.

Players want to test themselves at the best level possible, against the best and in the major competitions. Someone like Luke Young or a player similar in age might not get that opportunity again. To rob them of that, after they had progressed through the earlier rounds and started the season early would be viewed as a major slap in the face.

I understood the reasons for doing it. I even agreed that we needed to freshen things up a bit and rotate with the volume of games coming up. And that the odds were stacked against us even if we picked a full strength side out there. Resting one or two (or possibly three) might have been palatable. But giving debuts to Albrighton and Bannon and packing the side out with reserves amounted to a white flag. And that's what many fans and players found so hard to accept.

Even with a competitive squad out there, just resting one or two, we could have pulled it out of the bag. Our good form that year had been built on our away form. Even decent English sides were finding it hard to deal with us on the counter. It is by no means a foregone conclusion that we would have bowed out regardless.

[dave.woodhall]

If we'd beaten Stoke..............

[Bent Neilsens Screamer]

Wins against SHA.
Semi finals against Blackburn.
Ashley Young.
Raised profile of the club.

Plenty more as well as some negatives.

Onwards and upwards.

[kippaxvilla2]

Not saying I am turning on Randy.  Just saying that to me he resembles a richer and quieter version of Doug.  He bought the club cheaply, so had the money to invest.  Seems to me that he has seen the Man Citeh scenario develop and thought we aren't going to break the top 4 so need to cut our cloth accordingly.  And with that, his ambitions and ours are downgraded.

[dave.woodhall]

A thought. Would Randy have turned round virtually in mid-Atlantic and come back if his heart was no longer in the club?

[kippaxvilla2]

A thought. Would Randy have turned round virtually in mid-Atlantic and come back if his heart was no longer in the club?

I haven't said his heart isn't in the club.  I just believe he has downgraded his and our ambitions.

[sfx412]

Jg's win percentage was better than O'Neills, and he won a few things and got to the FA cup final, and he spent less, and he didn't walk away when he couldn't cope, sadly.

Seems to me the Emperors followers are just as poor losers as the emperor was.

[pauliewalnuts]

Not saying I am turning on Randy.  Just saying that to me he resembles a richer and quieter version of Doug.  He bought the club cheaply, so had the money to invest.  Seems to me that he has seen the Man Citeh scenario develop and thought we aren't going to break the top 4 so need to cut our cloth accordingly.  And with that, his ambitions and ours are downgraded.

It's one thing having the money to invest, plenty of people fell into that category.

Wanting and being prepared to invest it, though, is a different thing entirely

He's pumped a fortune in to us over the last four years. For the first time, he's asked MON to do something about the wage bill. Not balance it, not make incomings match outgoings, just to work on it.

In fact, weren't you largely of the opinion for most of last season that we had plenty of players not getting used, but costing us decent money? Apols if I am getting confused, I know you weren't a fan of the football by any stretch, but I thought you were amongst those who criticised the under use of some of those players.

Imagine what it must be like having to pay for them. Every manager in the league bar one has to juggle players. Redknapp is doing it now, and they're in the CL next season. It looks very much like MON didn't fancy having to do that.

[KevinGage]

If we'd beaten Stoke..............

If we'd been buzzing from a famous victory in Moscow what kind of impact and momentum might that have provided for the final push?

Instead of the backbiting and recriminations that started then. And never really stopped, truth be told.

[Villa'Zawg]

He was taking us to the level of ambition the club declared and was funding. He had me believing we'd get there. £120m on players and £70m wages is enough for a good manager to begin challenging for CL places and trophies and we were beginning to do that.