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

[Dave]

Ditto. Of course, it helped that Villa had meat 'n'potatoes dullards like Young, Gabby, Carew, Milner, Downing and Barry playing out of their skin. But apart from that, yeah, it was really boring.

This is my main issue with the overall grumpiness. On the whole I really enjoyed the way that we played. I certainly have no real desire for us to turn into a Swansea or a Mowbray-era West Brom clone.

[pauliewalnuts]

Ditto. Of course, it helped that Villa had meat 'n'potatoes dullards like Young, Gabby, Carew, Milner, Downing and Barry playing out of their skin. But apart from that, yeah, it was really boring.

It was certainly boring at home on a very frequent basis.

Those are all good players you name, but the last two years in particular, at home, were dull as dishwater.

[Concrete John]

My only gripe with the article is that we made a profit on Zat Knight!

As for style of play, it was fine for his first two years, but should have then evolved as better players were brought in.  We often talked about a creative central midfielder or top class striker, which he never bought, and players like that would have lead us to add a extra dimension to our game.

[Percy McCarthy]

Paulie: it's DITCHWATER!

[Broughty-Villian]

Has anyone mentioned that in within a season of MON taking over average home gates went from 33k to 40k.

[pauliewalnuts]

Paulie: it's DITCHWATER!

I'm talking about particularly dull dishwater, but good to see you agreeing with the gist of the post. I knew you'd come round in the end.

[pauliewalnuts]

Has anyone mentioned that in within a season of MON taking over average home gates went from 33k to 40k.

That's not really surprising, though, what with being taken over by a billionaire. Even Small Heath would get a spike if they got taken over by one.

[Broughty-Villian]

well i would put it down to a better brand of football under MON than under odreary.

[gervilla]

We play better football now than we did under TSM.
On that basis, shouldn't our gates be way up on last season ?

[Percy McCarthy]

I was actually disagreeing with a poster who said it was as bad as TSM. What do you reckon?

[claret and blue blood]

It's difficult to make a balanced comment as the last two seasons' pain have magnified our blame of MON.
While he was our manager I felt confident we would be top six and had no inferiority complex of any other club.Times change Citeh's Arab money Spuds' rise under Harry etc. mean it's a different ball game now. MON gave a clue to his exit when he said we needed to spend big just to stand still then left shortly afterwards.Some of the best memories of his tenure contained players Like Laursen, Barry, Melberg, Bouma Agbonlahor none of them his signings. The sale of some of our youngsters like Cahill, Gardner  frustrated us as did the home performances, particularly in his last season where the oppostion seemed to have possession of the ball more than us. The legacy we have seems familiar to Leicester after he left and even Celtic (Petrov and Larrsen were'nt his signings)   I always felt he thought he was doing us a favour being our manager and you felt he was never far away from taking another job .I do feel we now have a chance to get our club back and we can now at least get behind the crop of youngsters who we know have a fight on their hands to survive this season. Strangely that feeling of being part of that fight feels better than some of the times when MON was here.

[Irish villain]

Neil Moxley

Extremely good article.

It seems quite similar to some of my posts on this thread!

[PeterWithesShin]

For me it's simple, there was some great stuff and some some shite under MON. Just like there's been under every Villa manager. 15 goals in 3 games, 0 goals in 4 games at home to Wigan. Winning at Old Trafford, getting twatted for 7 at Chelsea. Plenty of feelgood factor for the first 2 or 3 years, but as much of that was down to Randy as it was MON.

And that for me is the issue, despite the most money and best working conditions MON was like most of our other managers who were here for more than a year. Except a fair few of them actually won things.

[Broughty-Villian]

I thought our home gates hod gone a tad, thought we were back around the 37k, last season we were 33 again.

[Dave Clark Five]

We play better football now than we did under TSM.
On that basis, shouldn't our gates be way up on last season ?

Only if you believe those who said they would never return until Alex McLeish had gone.
 HE'S GONE! Not that it makes any difference to me.