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

[dave.woodhall]

Average out all our seasons final finishing place over 20 years & it'll be a lot closer to 9th/10th than 5th ....

Do it then, and then do it for every other club and tell me who's better than us. And if you want to be pedantic it's four times bottom half in the Premier League, compared to nine top sixes.

[Ads]

On average we're the 5th placed side in the Premier League since it began, behind Man United, Arsenal, Chelsea and Liverpool. We’re also 5th in terms of points.

I also believe that’s where we are in the average Football League places as well, 1888-1992, and as we all know, we’re the fourth most successful team in English football too.

So Dave is most definitely correct, 6th/5th is about where we have been for the past 20 years and pretty much where we’ve been for the past 100 odd.

[old man villa fan]

It seemed to me that everyone had accepted the new sell to buy policy

There are 2 policies based on 'sell to buy'

The first is sell your top players and the second is sell your 'deadwood'

The media have been making it out to be the former and from your posts you are too.  It would appear (and I believe it to be true) that Randy wants to follow the latter policy, other than stupid bids for your star players that are too good to turn down.  I think most people on here believe that the second policy is the way the club want to move forward.

A well balanced wage bill can still build a good competitive squad.  Granted, it will not win you the PL for the forceable future but football goes in cycles and something will happen to football in England in the future which will change the current structure.  I cannot say what but something turns up that changes the landscape e.g. abolishment of maximum wage, Bosman, the Premier League etc.  Perhaps the new squad restrictions might change it more than we currently think.  A European league, a reduction in the number of CL places could all have an impact.  You never know, we could pull out of the EU (doubt it mind) and that would have a dramatic effect on clubs.

[old man villa fan]

MON seemed to have his supporters in the media that portray him in a certain way.  It is strange, however, that when he was manager, his supporters in the media were never actively promoting Villa in their persuit of new players like they are with, say, Spurs and Ashley Young.  The way how they try and talk players out of Villa never seemed to work the other way round.

[The Man With A Stick]

Tommy Gemmell says Villa offered £5m for McGeady.
If that is Lerner's limit then where can Premier League players from? USA? Perhaps? 
Selling the brand abroad is where the money comes from now.
Fallow couple of years ahead methinks..barring a miracle.

Or maybe we only offered that because a penny more would have been robbery on a scale of Barry Fry wanting £28m for Jonathan Hunt.  Even £5m sounds overpriced for that pleb.

[tonyh]

On reflection MON and indeed the rest of the staff at VP have done a great job building the infrastructure of the Club at all levels.
 
The image and profile of the club has risen over the last 4 years and predominantly because of the image projected of an harmonious club looking to build success both on and off the pitch

Indeed the working relationship between RL and MON was often referred to as the perfect couple when compared with other American Owners.

I have often advocated that the demise began from Moscow when MON or RL denied the players of the opportunity to play in Europe to contend for the 4th place in the PL. It was a policy that failed on all fronts. The lack of goodwill to the competition, the fall out from divided supporters opinions, the Moscow Dinner fiasco and the subsequent draw against Stoke thus scuppering the idea in the first place.

I'll always admire what MON did for us to begin with, some great games and results but we did become a one trick pony in the end and that was our undoing and progress had stagnated.

The timing isn't good but at least we now have some fresh hope.

The players have a lot to answer for and they should go out on Saturday and start answering them.

A bit of joie de vivre and a bit of luck will nab us 3 points and at least put a smile back on our faces.   

[*shellac*]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7bb4Qq66k_4

[enigma]

My favourite victories under MON:

Derby 0-6 Villa
Villa 2-0 Chavski
Villa 5-1 small heath
Everton 2-3 Villa
Arsenal 0-2 Villa
Liverpool 1-3 Villa
United 0-1 Villa

Lots of great games and memories of O'Neill - I do feel people are going a bit OTT. OK, he was annoying at times, and has left at a really bad time, but you can't say he hasn't turned us around as a team. He has taken us far and hopefully our next manager can take us that step closer to Champions League football.

He took us back to where we've been, on average, for the past twenty years. His time at Villa was like every other part of that period, just without the ups and downs.

True, but I'm sure I heard you say on the radio that no other Villa manager has achieved three successive top six finishes. He deserves some credit for that, no matter how much he spent.

[Whiney MacWhineface]

I think there are a lot of things to remember him fondly by - the derbies, the win at Old Trafford, getting so many Villa players into or on the fringes of the England team, starting the job of extremely well (the first 6th was excellent, the second a tad unlucky, the third somewhat negligent), being someone I could be proud to call the Villa manager.

On the other hand I can't help feeling that this period will be looked back on as the best chance we'll have had to break into the top echelon, and we've failed. Not all O'Neill's fault (see Man City) but as he's had what seems like total control over what he spent and how he's used those resources then that's where I feel most of the accountability lies (though a case can be sketched in for the owner appointing more football-savvy board members to keep an oversight on these matters).

Edit: And ultimately leaving us in a totally unacceptable way.

[Mazrim]

I think there are a lot of things to remember him fondly by - the derbies, the win at Old Trafford, getting so many Villa players into or on the fringes of the England team, starting the job of extremely well (the first 6th was excellent, the second a tad unlucky, the third somewhat negligent), being someone I could be proud to call the Villa manager.

On the other hand I can't help feeling that this period will be looked back on as the best chance we'll have had to break into the top echelon, and we've failed. Not all O'Neill's fault (see Man City) but as he's had what seems like total control over what he spent and how he's used those resources then that's where I feel most of the accountability lies (though a case can be sketched in for the owner appointing more football-savvy board members to keep an oversight on these matters).

Edit: And ultimately leaving us in a totally unacceptable way.

I'd agree with this. Almost word for word.

[Guy M]

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.

It's fair to say that the Moscow gamble / calculated risk was probably the first point at which he lost the support of a number of people, but it can't be denied that when the big refereeing decisions came around last season, Villa and MON had stinking luck.

If Vidic had been sent off after 5 minutes...
If Webb had given a penalty for Mikel's foul on Gabby, Terry had seen red instead of yellow for attempting a mid-game leg-removal of James Milner and Deco had received his second caution for the cynical foul on Petrov immediately after that...

How different this Summer might have been with a cup win. Going somewhat off-topic, consider also what can be viewed as similar pivotal of points in Fergiescum's career:

If ManUre hadn't beaten Palace in that FA Cup Final...
If Cantona hadn't fallen out with Wilkinson and Fergie called him at just the right time...
If Keane had gone to Blackburn as he'd given his word to do and not been kidnapped by Fergie until he signed for them instead...
If Schmeichel hadn't kept them even in contention "that magical night in Barcelona"...

I'm not suggesting the two managers are on a par, but there's been enough times when things have REALLY gone the Scotsman's way to suggest he might have done a deal with the REAL Red Devil.

[Guy M]

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

Great post Richard. Really enjoyed that. And as Mazrim said, same to Nick Lees' too.

[Guy M]

He took us back to where we've been, on average, for the past twenty years. His time at Villa was like every other part of that period, just without the ups and downs.

I think he took us above our average over the last 20 years to be fair .

Fifth highest points scorers since 1992 and the fifth highest average place.

I didn't think you bought into the whole football started in 1992, Dave?! 

I assume those figures include MON's four seasons in charge, don't they? Anybody got an idea of how things stood for the period post-1992 before he took charge?

[MarkM]

For some Mon will be the best manager ever, he has that kind of aura surrounding him, a bit like Liverpool still being the biggest club, or Newcastle United having the best and most loyal fans in the world!

When commenting on Mon's time at Villa all we can seem to come up with is a list of a few good results and couple of good cup runs, I think we can all say that about pretty much all our recent managers.

Mon gave us some good results for sure but he also gave us some dross, now to make an accountants analogy...

(average results) x (average league place) x (average cup performances) x (zero trophy's) = average manager [or is my maths wrong]

And to compare Randy to Doug Ego [sorry Ellis] is rediculous

Just my view

[badluckeric(gates)]

My overriding memory will be of the early days under him. When it seemed like we had woken from a bad dream. Ellis on the way out, a new billionaire owner and MON was the final piece in the jigsaw.
It was almost religious!
That it didn't turn out that way was sad although obvious when you think about it that it couldn't be that good. However, the excitementof the early days etc. will be my memory.
Having said that, now the shock has worn off its certainly going to be interesting again now.