The legacy of Martin O'Neill

[Chris Smith]

He is all mouth; a horrible, hypocritical individual. Why you admire him so highly is mystifying.

We're going round in circles now but I think that you know your gushing praise for him was over the top but don't have the balls to admit it so will carry on trying to justify the ludicrous idea that getting 4th place with a team that cost almost £200m to assemble is working wonders. Whether it's better than O'Neill did is neither here nor there; the fact is that it is not the sort of astounding, earth shattering achievement you are trying to convince us it is. I think that's something only the most one-eyed Spurs fan would agree with.

On the contrary, I think he deserves all the praise he gets. Which is probably why he got the Manager of the Year award. And equally on the contrary, you know that your fawning admiration for such a limited manager as O'Neill was way over the top and rather than come out and say you totally misjudged him, what you do instead is denigrate the achievements of those who have achieved more in a shorter time. 

It's mystifying that you still think O'Neill did a wonderful job at Villa and yet decry Redknapp for doing precisely what it was beyond O'Neill's abilities to do.

And while we're on the subject of horrible hypocritical individuals, how would you describe a manager who is quoted as saying "It's not in my nature to down tools", before quitting his job and leaving Villa in an extremely awkward situation five days before the start of a new season?

Why are you uinvrenting things just to suit your agument. It's a little sad that a debate on the Internet means so much to you. You're fully aware (or should be if you've read what I've posted on this thread) that I said both did a decent job but neither worked wonders. I haven't said anything approaching O'Neill did a 'wonderful job' that's just you twisting things as is your style.

[Monty]

   Compare the squad MON took over, to the squad HR took over, and then tell me who done the better job to get into the top6.

  When was the last time a HR signing was sold for £28m?

  Now can we put this , whos better MON or HR to bed, MON left us Milner, AYoung, Delph.I am quite happy with that.We have the basis of a very good team, if Hou moves us on then we won't be far off the top 4 again.

I agree. Now is the time for intelligent movement in the market. People say that MON has left a small squad, but if the players he signed were better then we'd have had, if not a perfectly sized, then at least a much more competitive squad than we do. For example, if we got rid of Sidwell and replaced him with another central midfielder of whatever type he's meant to be but better, our squad hasn't stayed the same in size but has in fact increased by one in real terms, because Sidwell is not, right now, a viable option. Same is true to a lesser extent of NRC, Heskey and certainly Beye, maybe Guzan.

[barrysleftfoot]

   Kaboul worth £10m is he Risso?

  MON left us with Milner, we sold him after he had left.My point is, that if MON was such an unmitigated disaster as you indicate, then we would'nt be getting £28m for one of his signings.

  And to be fair if Milner had been sold at the same time as the others you have named, then we would have got more than £28m.Diarra is available for what £6m?Muntari the same?

[hilts_coolerking]

Why are you uinvrenting things just to suit your agument. It's a little sad that a debate on the Internet means so much to you. You're fully aware (or should be if you've read what I've posted on this thread) that I said both did a decent job but neither worked wonders. I haven't said anything approaching O'Neill did a 'wonderful job' that's just you twisting things as is your style.

You think O'Neill did only a "decent" job?  This from a man who would stand absolutely zero criticism of O'Neill at any point over the last four years?  That's the mother of all U-turns.

[PaulWinch again]

That's M Diarra not Lassana.

[Dave]

[

If the previous manager had made good use of the funds available chances are 'arry wouldn't have taken over a side scraping about at the arse end of the table. Or taken over at all.

Whilst the above makes logical sense, Ramos (and Jol before him) didn't have anything to do with player transfers which were in the hands of Comolli (and Arnesen before him).

True to an extent.

Comoli organised the transfers, but there was input from the manager of the time.

How much input exactly is open to question.

This model worked so well that when 'arry took over they ditched it and gave him sole control over transfers. Which would again perhaps indicate that the club wasn't in such great shape at the time and needed a change of direction.

Jol has since said that he had no input on which players were brought in - to the extent that he suggested positions on the pitch that he thought needed strengthening and was outright ignored. Ramos came from a culture at Sevilla where Ramon Rodriguez oversaw pretty much everything from the youth system to player transfers. The Jol thing could easily be put down to "sacked manager makes excuses for being sacked", but it was pretty well established that Comolli and Arnesen did pretty much everything transfer related prior to Redknapp coming in.

As for the whole approach not working and it being sensibly scrapped - I think that's quite obvious.

[eamonn]

 And to be fair if Milner had been sold at the same time as the others you have named, then we would have got more than £28m.Diarra is available for what £6m?Muntari the same?

Which says more about the highly-inflated British transfer market that O'Neill choose solely to operate in. Young, Delph and Milner were signed for a combined £25m - a hell of a lot for players who had a lot to prove. Fair play to O'Neill for getting the best out of two of them but if he hadn't been so one-eyed and instead broadened his transfer policy by signing the likes of Muntari or Diarra from abroad (instead of ''safe'' yet no less costly options such as Sidwell/Downing/NRC) who knows how well we might have done.

[Risso]

   Kaboul worth £10m is he Risso?

  MON left us with Milner, we sold him after he had left.My point is, that if MON was such an unmitigated disaster as you indicate, then we would'nt be getting £28m for one of his signings.

  And to be fair if Milner had been sold at the same time as the others you have named, then we would have got more than £28m.Diarra is available for what £6m?Muntari the same?

Amy chance you could actually check any of your facts before posting?  When has Redknapp paid £10m for Kaboul exactly?

And where did I say that O'Neill was an unmitigated disaster?

[Chris Smith]

Why are you uinvrenting things just to suit your agument. It's a little sad that a debate on the Internet means so much to you. You're fully aware (or should be if you've read what I've posted on this thread) that I said both did a decent job but neither worked wonders. I haven't said anything approaching O'Neill did a 'wonderful job' that's just you twisting things as is your style.

You think O'Neill did only a "decent" job?  This from a man who would stand absolutely zero criticism of O'Neill at any point over the last four years?  That's the mother of all U-turns.

I've argued with the ridiculous, ill informed and monotonous critcism you've posted because like in this thread it's always been exaggerated to make a point. My position was that you don't sack a manger who has finished 6th  (unless the targets you set him were higher of course but I don't believe that to be the case).

[eamonn]

Getting more than £28m for Milner...Christ, I wasn't his greatest fan but those who are can surely see we got as good a price as we could ever hope to get for him.

[KevinGage]

[

If the previous manager had made good use of the funds available chances are 'arry wouldn't have taken over a side scraping about at the arse end of the table. Or taken over at all.

Whilst the above makes logical sense, Ramos (and Jol before him) didn't have anything to do with player transfers which were in the hands of Comolli (and Arnesen before him).

True to an extent.

Comoli organised the transfers, but there was input from the manager of the time.

How much input exactly is open to question.

This model worked so well that when 'arry took over they ditched it and gave him sole control over transfers. Which would again perhaps indicate that the club wasn't in such great shape at the time and needed a change of direction.

Jol has since said that he had no input on which players were brought in - to the extent that he suggested positions on the pitch that he thought needed strengthening and was outright ignored. Ramos came from a culture at Sevilla where Ramon Rodriguez oversaw pretty much everything from the youth system to player transfers. The Jol thing could easily be put down to "sacked manager makes excuses for being sacked", but it was pretty well established that Comolli and Arnesen did pretty much everything transfer related prior to Redknapp coming in.

As for the whole approach not working and it being sensibly scrapped - I think that's quite obvious.

What you have there then if true (and I have no reason to doubt you) is a scenario whereby players were signed by first Arnesen (before he went to Chelsea) and then Comoli and then played (or not) by Jol and shifted around by Ramos.

This does not sound like some dream scenario to walk into, a club in such good shape that all any half decent manager has to do is turn up for training and cruise on autopilot.

There would have been a whole host of dissatisfied players, players gambled on who had perhaps not turned out to be that good, players who were the choice of the DM but for which the coach/manager had absolutely no use for, and good players suffering a crisis of confidence.

Yet within the space of 18 months 'arry had moulded that lot into an effective CL challenging unit, shipping out those not fit for purpose and acquiring players to improve the side. And all within the financial constraints imposed by ENIC, and with a lower wage bill than that at the Villa.  I think it does him a disservice to suggest this was only 'tweaking' too. That might be valid if he had just signed one or two key individuals to complement an already outstanding side. But the volume in both the players in and players out column since he's been in the role isn't consistent with that train of thought.

[hilts_coolerking]

I've argued with the ridiculous, ill informed and monotonous critcism you've posted because like in this thread it's always been exaggerated to make a point. My position was that you don't sack a manger who has finished 6th  (unless the targets you set him were higher of course but I don't believe that to be the case).

No, your position was that any criticism of O'Neill was unjustified, which is why you steadfastly refused to make any, and immediately jumped on those who did. I know that, you know that and the whole board knows that.  You were the happiest of happy clappers, with the possible exception of villadawg.  And I don't for a moment believe the upper limit of our ambition was sixth, any more than you do.

So, for you to now say you think he did only a "decent" job and no more, flies in the face of virtually every post you have made over the last four years.

[Monty]

There's no doubt Redknapp has done a good job, because getting a side to play as well as they should isn't necessarily the easiest thing in the world - competence is difficult to achieve in any line of business. However, I would certainly say that the position they were in when he took over was a false one, as they were underachieving horrendously despite some good players - largely thanks to a transfer policy and management structure which Redknapp didn't have to contend with as Spurs decided to get rid of it on his arrival. The squad itself required some tweaking (and I would use the word tweaking, as they had the basis of a really good side with players like Modric, Huddlestone, King and Gomes), which he did at mostly large but, for Spurs, affordable cost, Liverpool had a mare and Spurs were the team to take advantage. However, I do think the 'relegation to Champions' League' is exaggerating it somewhat, as they were underachieving when he took over. It's not a transformation of genuine Clough-like proportions, in other words, but definitely a good job.

[KevinGage]

They probably wouldn't have gone down.

But with the wrong appointment at that time who knows?

When you're on the kind of losing streak they were on, and with the accompanying crisis of confidence thrown in anything is possible.

I do know a fair few Spurs fans who were looking over their shoulder at that point and were more interested in the results of the likes of Hull, West Ham, Boro and so on than further up the table.

As we have seen countless times in the past, being a big club or having an expensively assembled side is no guarantee of success - or even a guarantee that you can avoid relegation.  Ask Newcastle and Leeds.

[Monty]

Certainly, and as I say, he's done a good job, whereas Newcastle and Leeds didn't address their problems and continued their floundering downwards. Spurs, with a bit of Levy common sense, woke up, smelled the coffee and did something about it. The point is that Redknapp has done a good job, but not necessarily a fantastic one. To do a fantastic job he'd have to have got Spurs playing above their level OR bought a squad that can win the league for the same price he's spent on his fourth-place contenders now - and they're still fourth place contenders having finished there last year, by the way, because I don't think they're finishing above Arsenal and they definitely could finish below City, for instance.