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

[VILLA MOLE]

Well obviously Niall hickman is talking bollocks, but it's hard to pick any holes in what MON said.

True. Bent and Makoun weren't exactly the best bits of business the club has ever done.

How can anyone criticise signing Bent?

because we now have Benteke and short memories

[Percy McCarthy]

I wasn't really getting at anything like that in my post, just saying that in his programme notes all O'Neill does is reel off some facts.

[Irish villain]

Well obviously Niall hickman is talking bollocks, but it's hard to pick any holes in what MON said.

True. Bent and Makoun weren't exactly the best bits of business the club has ever done.

How can anyone criticise signing Bent?

I'm not criticising the signing! Just that when you think about it we did spend a lot that January, we tend to associate the spending with the MON era but Houllier had a fair wad to spend too. (Just for the pedants, I'm not sticking up for MON and began losing the faith after Moscow when he blew a decent chance for us to win a prestigious trophy).

[VILLA MOLE]

the bent money all came from the fact we knew Young was going in the Summer ,  I believe Oneil would have been given that money if he stayed and been left in the same predicament

[Irish villain]

the bent money all came from the fact we knew Young was going in the Summer ,  I believe Oneil would have been given that money if he stayed and been left in the same predicament

Indeed. That's what it seemed like at the time.

When we signed Bent, Makoun and Bradley that time it felt like we had an unbelievable squad that was seriously underachieving.

[rutski]

i get emails from safc after i bought a scarf for a mackem whose funeral i went to, it went on his coffin as a present from the locals of our pub. however i digress, below is the email i had from mon after yesterdays game.


SUNDERLAND 0 - 1 ASTON VILLA


 




 



 


Dear Mark,

 We didn’t deserve to get beaten.

 We probably should have won the game but the ball just didn’t drop for us today.

We’re not scoring goals, we’ve had people in and around the penalty area, but it just doesn’t seem to be happening for us.

I could not fault the players’ effort whatsoever. I think it was epitomised by a fantastic performance from Lee Cattermole.

 It was as good a performance as I have seen from a player and he didn’t deserve to be on the losing side.

We drove at Villa and tried everything but we were unable to wear them down.

 We need to be resilient. It’s been tough going and we’ve found ourselves in the situation where we’re not getting goals.

You wouldn’t think we would have that problem with all of the attacking players we have in the team.
 We have to stick in at it and we’ll come back from this.

We have to remain strong and be resilient – we’re all in this together.

All the best,

Martin O'Neill


 





it wasnt the game i watched!

[damon loves JT]

I am so glad I'm not on Martin O'Neill's mailing list. There's already enough lying bullshit in my inbox.

[bertlambshank]

I am so glad I'm not on Martin O'Neill's mailing list. There's already enough lying bullshit in my inbox.

Did you get my email?

[LeeB]

Well obviously Niall hickman is talking bollocks, but it's hard to pick any holes in what MON said.

http://blogs.birminghammail.net/astonvilla/2012/11/re-righting-a-ron-g-martin.html

Quality.

[pauliewalnuts]

Same old tiresome rubbish from Fletch and hawkeye there. Three years later, aren't you bored of pretending that anyone who thought he was a good manager called him the messiah?

They didn't say that though.  There were many, many people who thought the son shone out of his arse, and those not joining in with the adulation and who pointed out the stupidity of the majority of his signings plus his dull football suffered dog's abuse.

Quite right, Risso.

I woud rather we hadnt set off down this road, but i have to say, i recall a few of us pointing out under MON that the football we played at home was one dimensional and predictable, that MON would not move us on, that his transfer policy was myopic, halfarsed and lazy, that he was spunking money on players we'd laugh at if rivals bought them, that he had no idea of tactics beyond getting the ball out to wingers and hoping for the best.

A few of us also pointed out that the ticking time bomb wasn't so much the fees but the wage bill.

It's all very well MON fans moaning they never thought he was the messiah, and that they didn't like being called happy clappers but I recall those of us who pointed out the above getting all sorts of abuse, being called misery arsed doom merchants, that we were nuts to be pointing these things out.

I recall "I'll take the opinion of a successful football manager over a load of Internet geeks, thank you very much" getting trotted out too.

Funny how things turn out, what with us being proved correct on all points.

[Irish villain]

I'm probably speaking for myself here but I think some of us who lost faith in MON after Moscow (and had even began to question his methods as early as the summer of 2007 when we made some pretty under-whelming signings) felt reluctant to air criticisms because things were going quite well. I remember agonising over an anti-MON post I made in March 2009 in which I criticised his tactics and made the point that our season seemed to lose momentum after we were knocked out of Europe. I had felt that way in a while but agonised over making the criticism because it sort of felt like I was 'biting the hand that fed me' so to speak.

I have a feeling there was a kind of 'Martin knows what he's doing' vibe about this place back then. By that I mean we tended to gloss over some of his more perplexing methods or obvious flaws because fundamentally he seemed to be taking us somewhere great.

I remember posting around that time (March 2009) that I couldn't see him taking us to the top four and that it would probably take another manager to bring us to that level.

[ozzjim]

Same old tiresome rubbish from Fletch and hawkeye there. Three years later, aren't you bored of pretending that anyone who thought he was a good manager called him the messiah?

They didn't say that though.  There were many, many people who thought the son shone out of his arse, and those not joining in with the adulation and who pointed out the stupidity of the majority of his signings plus his dull football suffered dog's abuse.

Quite right, Risso.

I woud rather we hadnt set off down this road, but i have to say, i recall a few of us pointing out under MON that the football we played at home was one dimensional and predictable, that MON would not move us on, that his transfer policy was myopic, halfarsed and lazy, that he was spunking money on players we'd laugh at if rivals bought them, that he had no idea of tactics beyond getting the ball out to wingers and hoping for the best.

A few of us also pointed out that the ticking time bomb wasn't so much the fees but the wage bill.

It's all very well MON fans moaning they never thought he was the messiah, and that they didn't like being called happy clappers but I recall those of us who pointed out the above getting all sorts of abuse, being called misery arsed doom merchants, that we were nuts to be pointing these things out.

I recall "I'll take the opinion of a successful football manager over a load of Internet geeks, thank you very much" getting trotted out too.

Funny how things turn out, what with us being proved correct on all points.

There were some avid MON fans when he went that will defend him till the end of time. I was not one thankfully. Sunderland home night match with Cuellar at right back and us knackered on 60 minutes yet again was my final straw with him.

[Ian.]

I was hoodwinked into the MON euphoria and thought he was some managerial genius and was amazed when we got him as our manager. When the transfers were being made, ie, selling Cahill for Knight and signing Harewood and Shorey I was a bit underwhelmed but I was into the idea MON could polish turds, as its put.

A lot of the excitement was also based on the arrival of Randy and the money being spent on infrastructure, facilities as well as the squad. The soundbites from the club were all so positive and as a Villa fan from an armchair (the last decade) like my self it was hard to understand some of the negative comments from a small minority. If only we had someone within the club who could have raised these same worries to the board about the way things were heading. Maybe we would never have been in such a financial mess.

[hilts_coolerking]

Quite right, Risso.

I woud rather we hadnt set off down this road, but i have to say, i recall a few of us pointing out under MON that the football we played at home was one dimensional and predictable, that MON would not move us on, that his transfer policy was myopic, halfarsed and lazy, that he was spunking money on players we'd laugh at if rivals bought them, that he had no idea of tactics beyond getting the ball out to wingers and hoping for the best.

A few of us also pointed out that the ticking time bomb wasn't so much the fees but the wage bill.

It's all very well MON fans moaning they never thought he was the messiah, and that they didn't like being called happy clappers but I recall those of us who pointed out the above getting all sorts of abuse, being called misery arsed doom merchants, that we were nuts to be pointing these things out.

I recall "I'll take the opinion of a successful football manager over a load of Internet geeks, thank you very much" getting trotted out too.

Funny how things turn out, what with us being proved correct on all points.

Absolutely spot on.  There were more than a few on here who simply would not entertain the idea that there was anything about O'Neill - the man or his methods - which warranted criticism and that doing so called into question your loyalty as a fan.  Not a pleasant time.

[Rigadon]

Hmm, I can mainly recollect people being happy with with the good things (exciting counter attacking team full of promise for a couple of years), frustrated with the not-so-great things (slightly dull home games where we lacked the guile to break teams down in a league that increasingly became all too aware of how to nullify our 'plan A') and disgusted with the disgraceful thing (leaving us in the shit the way he did). 

Football is a transient thing and it's VERY rare a manager is the right man for a club for longer than a handful of years a la Ferguson at Man Utd or Wenger at Arsenal.  O'Neill was a good Villa manager who left under a black cloud.  Nobody need apologise for supporting him while he was at the club.