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

[Monty]

I agree with both comments above. The way MON fostered an admirable togetherness was at the expense of unity outside of the first 11-15 players. What with the lack of training commitments and the guaranteed first team places, it's no wonder the loyalty shown to him by certain players.

[Concrete John]

It's Ok for criticise him for his failings, but let's not try and re-write history and pretend his Villa side was anything other than a highly motivated outfit who would run through walls for the cause.

[Hookeysmith]

Hello Kingshirker.

The thing about MON is that he needs to spend far greater-than-average money in order to achieve slightly better-than-average results. This is mostly because he has to be the least imaginative manager in the transfer market out there (seriously, I rate McLeish above him - McLeish signs some good players, just has no idea what to do with them). He will willingly pay the absurd premiums for flavour-of-the-month British or British-based names, never seeming to care about the amount of money he's wasting. He spent £50m across two summers building two different defences for us, sprees which included £10m on Curtis Davies, £8m on Cuellar and £6-7m on Stephen Warnock. That's just one example.

Also, he has this stubborn streak which seems too have become an utter unwillingness to learn or deviate at all from anything he's ever done. His football - always functional and limited - now just looks absurdly anachronistic. If he can't spend £100m on it, his style will yield little besides sterility. But he will never change, he will never attempt to modernise his style, he will never value technique as much as industry or intelligence as much as pace and power. He'll certainly not buy from Abroad, as Abroad is the scary place where these things are valued. He is, or at least has been, an inspirational man-manager, but a lot of that comes from the fact that he never rotates - meaning half the squad end up hating him for never giving them a chance, no matter how out-of-form his favourite in the first XI is - and that his training regime is minimal at best - there was a recent revelation that our players would sometimes not be asked to train until Thursdays during the week. So, if you think this is bad, wait for the customary March burnout, where his overplayed, undertrained favourites will be exhausted beyond the reach of man-management rescues. And don't expect him to change the team after that either.

I feel for you, I really do, because I was one of the saps on here who didn't see it at the time. MON is very good at creating a kind of club bubble - one of his better traits because, as with Mourinho and Ferguson, it breeds loyalty and togetherness - and I couldn't see the stubbornness for what it was. I wasn't quite as blind as some - I could see the limited football, the unimaginative signings - but for some reason convinced myself that he was going to change. Some on here saw through the mask though, and more power to them, and your fans booing, for all that I don't get onside with that sort of thing, shows that a good number of them have seen the Emperor's nudity early on, and for your sake I hope that drives him out earlier than he would usually flounce off.

As good a synopsis of his time with us as i have seen.

It is no coincindence that every fan of the club he was at prior to being at your own, those fans can tell you almost verbatim what he will do and how he will do it. It is also no coincidence that Celtic, Leicester and ourselves are left with some pretty heavy financial wounds once he realises his time is up. The title of this thread sums it up "The Myth of MON" he has created something very big out of not a lot of material

I am sure he is destined to end up at Forest - be warned Forest fans, be Warned

[eastie]

It's Ok for criticise him for his failings, but let's not try and re-write history and pretend his Villa side was anything other than a highly motivated outfit who would run through walls for the cause.

In fairness to him he was a good motivator of his team, they tended to give everything for him but those outside the first 11 rarely had much chance as be seemed to be reluctant to change .

[Rudy Can't Fail]

It's Ok for criticise him for his failings, but let's not try and re-write history and pretend his Villa side was anything other than a highly motivated outfit who would run through walls for the cause.

Oh, absolutely. You couldn't fault his teams for effort. They never stopped running, trying to get the ball back.

[Jarpie]

As good a synopsis of his time with us as i have seen.

It is no coincindence that every fan of the club he was at prior to being at your own, those fans can tell you almost verbatim what he will do and how he will do it. It is also no coincidence that Celtic, Leicester and ourselves are left with some pretty heavy financial wounds once he realises his time is up. The title of this thread sums it up "The Myth of MON" he has created something very big out of not a lot of material

I am sure he is destined to end up at Forest - be warned Forest fans, be Warned

Unfortunately I can see him getting welcomed to Nottingham Forest with "The Apprentice of Clough is here!", and they might fall, hard.

He was/is decent manager but the times have left him behind, and he seems to be way too stubborn to change his ways, and I can see him retiring from managing and going to work for BBC as pundit, unless he goes to Nottingham Forest for the last job.

[pauliewalnuts]

One thing I would say is that, if you're willing to accept his foibles - and Monty's post above is about as good an explanation of them as you're likely to get - you'll probably like having him as your manager.

I do wonder, though, if he's still as motivated as he used to be, and whether he's starting to realise he can't escape his limitations - for all that he has strengths and weaknesses, one thing I think is very true is that he's a stubborn fecker, and he's not going to change for anyone.

If you can accept all that, then you'll enjoy having him as your manager.

The problem I think Sunderland have now is that they probably have the same ultimate aim that we do - to qualify for Europe. Thing is, although it was not really "easy" when he was with us, I think it is much, much harder now.

His comments at the weekend about how we qualified for Europe etc etc are interesting. Take a look at what happened the last two seasons we qualified, though, and the result and performances say a lot more than the fact we qualified.

[pauliewalnuts]

That loyalty was not built, it was bought. If you stick any player on stupid wages he'll always say good things about the manager. That was certainly the case during his time at Villa.

The loyalty point is a good one, there were without doubt players in our squad who were highly motivated by MON and thoroughly respected him for that.

As someone else said, though, the flip side was that there seemed a "love you or loathe you" approach, if the player was in his "loved" camp (as, say Cuellar was) then they'd play pretty much all the time.

if they weren't loved (and lots of these were players he signed himself) then they'd too often get frozen out, which all contributed to the side dying on their arses in March.

[pauliewalnuts]

We should have ignored Moscow and concentrated on seizing the crucial oilfields in the Caucasus.

Once we had possession of Maikop and Grozny, Stalin would have sued for peace and we could probably have forced him to cede the Ukraine.

*coffee through nostrils*

very good

[Rip Van We Go Again]

One memorable feature of the arguments was where his detractors said that his Scottish silverware was meaningless shite (true) whilst his supporters regularly made mention of his cup wins in chilly Jocko land.

[pauliewalnuts]

One memorable feature of the arguments was where his detractors said that his Scottish silverware was meaningless shite (true)

I remember how we used to say "Ha, yeah, Scottish football is so shite, even McLeish won loads of silverware up there"

Little did we know what would happen in the future ...

[Percy McCarthy]

Nobody mentioned it more than you Fletch. Speaking for myself, I don't think his success with Celtic meant he was anything special. I think getting them to the UEFA Cup final was pretty impressive though.

[Rip Van We Go Again]

Nobody mentioned it more than you Fletch. Speaking for myself, I don't think his success with Celtic meant he was anything special. I think getting them to the UEFA Cup final was pretty impressive though.

I'll give you the UEFA.
But Scottish trophies are a load of cack, if Strachan and McCatpiss can win them, anybody can.
Not hard when it's a 2 horse race.

[pauliewalnuts]

I think one thing he has done until recently is pick his jobs very carefully.

At Leicester he had loads of chances to leave, and turned them down until the Celtic job came up. When he came to us, he knew we had a benevolent billionaire waiting, that we had the spine of a decent side, and that he couldn't fail to improve us.

When he left us, he did so in a way which led to us being treated as if we'd sacked him. When we then declined, that strengthened his position, as it turned into "look what happened when they binned MON".

However, I do think, in the year he was out of the game, more people have cottoned on to the longer term effects of his time here, and his stock has fallen.

No massive disrespect to Sunderland, who are a decent historic club, but really, I bet he didn't for a moment consider he'd be making what could - at the very best - be described a sideways move.

[damon loves JT]

My abiding memory of that game is the TV pictures of thousands of pissed Glaswegians dossing down in the streets of Seville.