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

[eastie]

He under achieved given the amount of money spent .

[tomd2103]

I'm not gonna start saying O Neill didn't do good things here because he did.

His 100% record against Blues was certainly welcome!! 

[Ger Regan]

How can there be an argument that 6th place was an under achievement when the O'Neill detractors say that he left us with a mediocre squad?

Because of the money paid in developing the mediocre squad. Are you trying to tell me that we couldn't have got a much better striker for the combined value of Heskey's wages and transfer fee, for example?

[not3bad]

I think it's the point around insisting on playing the same side that's key to that, the players just got tired out. It was no coincidence that we never won games in March, it was poor management. If he'd been flexible and switching things around a bit, I'm convinced we would have been top 4 that year we were miles ahead of Arsenal.

What was really frustrating was that two years in a row he talked about switching things around but never did.

[DB]

I was chatting to a Sunderland fan last night in the pub, who says they are awful and a lot of them are not impressed with him.
Good point in that clip - we are still counting the cost of his tenure. Look at Spurz, started below us, old Harry took them passed us on a lower wage bill - got them into the CL and now they are still in good position. Us on the other hand....

Helped by the Champion's League money! If we had got there, who knows, we could be same position.

For all the talk about 'could have been where Spurs are', let's not forget that we stopped spending while they carried on doing so.

[Ger Regan]

See Paulie's earlier post. We would have been found out very quickly.

[DB]

I was chatting to a Sunderland fan last night in the pub, who says they are awful and a lot of them are not impressed with him.
Good point in that clip - we are still counting the cost of his tenure. Look at Spurz, started below us, old Harry took them passed us on a lower wage bill - got them into the CL and now they are still in good position. Us on the other hand....

For all the talk about 'could have been where Spurs are', let's not forget that we stopped spending while they carried on doing so.

Within their means.

Spot on.  As much as we all hate them, they a much better run club that we were at the time, who actually appeared to have a plan or strategy in place.

Spot on.
They were down the bottom when Harry took over, over-took MON to get them into the top 4 on a lower wage bill. That video said it all, MON spend money on UK based players and high wages. We now seeing the result of that model failing.

[Rigadon]

Supertom pretty much sums how I feel up about our Martin.   He did some good things, not least making us relevant again.  But in doing so he spent all of Lerner's money and this splurge also unfortunately  coincided with a financial meltdown and the rise of Man City and their millions.  I'd say that the mistake 'pundits' make when talking about Villa in terms of where we were under MON and are now, is that they infer that we overachieved as a club in the late 2000's.  We didn't, it's just that MON didn't overachieve as a manager.  He merely performed to par and as such we missed out on the only thing that would've kept us up there and challenging: Champions league qualification.  We didn't win anything either. 

Anyway, O'Neill seems to be struggling up there and I can't say I'm unhappy about the fact due to the nature of his departure. 

[dave.woodhall]

It wasn't just the money but the fact that for maybe  the only time in history everyone at Villa from owner to supporters were on the same side. In those first couple of years it seemed anything was possible. O'Neill had the most favourable working conditions imaginable and got us top six and a cup final.

[Monty]

See Paulie's earlier post. We would have been found out very quickly.

Agreed. The fundamental fact for me is that when we finally got some proper investment, two years before the rise of Man City even began, the manager we had in was hardly a visionary, and unable to adapt when the situation demanded..

[WarszaVillan]

I like Martin O'Neill. I enjoyed his time here, I liked seeing players like Young, Carew, Gabby, Milner and the like, I enjoyed the way the team gave their all and you felt we were always in with a chance, I loved the quick attacking football and mean defense, I enjoyed his nervy eccentric manner, I admire his success at Leicester and Celtic and how he put football second when his wife was ill, I like the way he made us feel we we're on the up and could take anyone on, I love the fact he always won derbies and won at places like Old Trafford and Arsenal.

I don't think he was the messiah or without faults and was frustrated by his lack of rotation and his failure to look for players abroad. My attitude towards him were similar to the vast majority of those on this board, but now it seems fashionable to call him pube head and think that everything he did was crap.

[glasses]

See Paulie's earlier post. We would have been found out very quickly.

I am certain people on this forum said the same of Spurs when they qualified. Losing in the quarter finals to Real Madrid having knocked out AC Milan was it? Not specifically saying you did, Ger.

[pauliewalnuts]

See Paulie's earlier post. We would have been found out very quickly.

I am certain people on this forum said the same of Spurs when they qualified. Losing in the quarter finals to Real Madrid having knocked out AC Milan was it? Not specifically saying you did, Ger.

Spurs were a much better footballing side than us, which is why they did so well.

I suspect people saying they'd get booted out pretty quickly were doing so to a large degree out of the usual football fan dislike / jealousy of other teams

[Ger Regan]

See Paulie's earlier post. We would have been found out very quickly.

I am certain people on this forum said the same of Spurs when they qualified. Losing in the quarter finals to Real Madrid having knocked out AC Milan was it? Not specifically saying you did, Ger.

We were in Europe, and regularly got found out at a lower level than the CL. There's no evidence to suggest the CL would have been any different. We would have been Everton MKII, not Spurs.

[Dave]

I suspect people saying they'd get booted out pretty quickly were doing so to a large degree out of the usual football fan dislike / jealousy of other teams

I don't know about that - I think most people whether they love or hurt Spurs would have expected them to go out to either Inter or AC Milan that year.