The legacy of Martin O'Neill

[KevinGage]

There was a spell that started from Manure at home in Nov 2007 up to Hamburg away in Dec 08 when pretty much any time he stepped onto the pitch he made at least one potentially match-altering howler.

Sometimes it resulted in a goal against, but even when it didn't that wasn't a judgement call on his part.

Nice bloke, Villa fan and all the rest of it.

But good signing?

No.

[Somniloquism]

Dammit, tried to go for too much too soon.

Your above post about Harewood I agree with completely though. Considering Blackburn signed Santa Cruz who went on to score 17 league goals for them that season a few days after our Harewood coup, there is simply no argument that he was the best we could have attracted.

For 3.5 mil, those 19 goals would have been handy, but judging he has pretty much shown that the season was a one off and he has Heskeys goal scoring record and Owens injury record for almost every other season before and since. Hughes obviously wanted to help out Blackburn with his new found wealth when he paid £17.5 mil for him.

[dave.woodhall]

In summer 2007, Martin's first close-season, we bought Zat Knight, Marlon Harewood and Nigel Reo-Coker plus signing Curtis Davies and Scott Carson on loan. Also bought that summer by clubs who were by no means more attractive than us were Roque Santa Cruz (Blackburn), Phil Jagielka, Leighton Baines, Tim Howard & Yakubu (Everton), Luke Young (Middlesbrough), Sylvain Distin & Glen Johnson (Portsmouth), Gareth Bale (Spurs), Scott Parker & Craig Bellamy (West Ham).

We missed out on being able to really improve the squad that summer and we've spent the past three years trying to catch up.

 

[Somniloquism]

In summer 2007, Martin's first close-season, we bought Zat Knight, Marlon Harewood and Nigel Reo-Coker plus signing Curtis Davies and Scott Carson on loan. Also bought that summer by clubs who were by no means more attractive than us were Roque Santa Cruz (Blackburn), Phil Jagielka, Leighton Baines, Tim Howard & Yakubu (Everton), Luke Young (Middlesbrough), Sylvain Distin & Glen Johnson (Portsmouth), Gareth Bale (Spurs), Scott Parker & Craig Bellamy (West Ham).

We missed out on being able to really improve the squad that summer and we've spent the past three years trying to catch up.

Yes there was a lot of better players out there. Like most summers. I would have liked a lot of them. Until the recent release of our wage problems I would have said that the Portsmouth and West Ham signings were probably paying wages we wouldn't pay, especially as two of them had just left Chelsea. Don;t forget both teams are in serious financial difficulty stemming from that season. As for Bale, for all his world beating skills now, for 2.5 years he was a joke (how many league games played on the non winning side) until Redknapp wised up and played him as an attacking midfielder rather then a fullback.

[dave.woodhall]

In summer 2007, Martin's first close-season, we bought Zat Knight, Marlon Harewood and Nigel Reo-Coker plus signing Curtis Davies and Scott Carson on loan. Also bought that summer by clubs who were by no means more attractive than us were Roque Santa Cruz (Blackburn), Phil Jagielka, Leighton Baines, Tim Howard & Yakubu (Everton), Luke Young (Middlesbrough), Sylvain Distin & Glen Johnson (Portsmouth), Gareth Bale (Spurs), Scott Parker & Craig Bellamy (West Ham).

We missed out on being able to really improve the squad that summer and we've spent the past three years trying to catch up.

Yes there was a lot of better players out there. Like most summers. I would have liked a lot of them. Until the recent release of our wage problems I would have said that the Portsmouth and West Ham signings were probably paying wages we wouldn't pay, especially as two of them had just left Chelsea. Don;t forget both teams are in serious financial difficulty stemming from that season. As for Bale, for all his world beating skills now, for 2.5 years he was a joke (how many league games played on the non winning side) until Redknapp wised up and played him as an attacking midfielder rather then a fullback.

We hardly had the financial instability of West Ham and Portsmouth. In fact, wasn't this smack in the middle of the "Henry's not good enough" optimism?

[hilts_coolerking]

For 3.5 mil, those 19 goals would have been handy, but judging he has pretty much shown that the season was a one off and he has Heskeys goal scoring record and Owens injury record for almost every other season before and since. Hughes obviously wanted to help out Blackburn with his new found wealth when he paid £17.5 mil for him.

Yep. 19 goals and a £14M profit. We dodged a bullet there.  Thanks Martin.

[David_Nab]

In summer 2007, Martin's first close-season, we bought Zat Knight, Marlon Harewood and Nigel Reo-Coker plus signing Curtis Davies and Scott Carson on loan. Also bought that summer by clubs who were by no means more attractive than us were Roque Santa Cruz (Blackburn), Phil Jagielka, Leighton Baines, Tim Howard & Yakubu (Everton), Luke Young (Middlesbrough), Sylvain Distin & Glen Johnson (Portsmouth), Gareth Bale (Spurs), Scott Parker & Craig Bellamy (West Ham).

Blimey seeing that makes me relise what a poor job we did that summer ,especially when we went on to sing Luke Young for double what Boro paid.

We missed out on being able to really improve the squad that summer and we've spent the past three years trying to catch up.

 

Blimey seeing that makes me relise what a poor job we did that summer ,especially when we went on to sign Luke Young for double what Boro paid.

[Somniloquism]

For 3.5 mil, those 19 goals would have been handy, but judging he has pretty much shown that the season was a one off and he has Heskeys goal scoring record and Owens injury record for almost every other season before and since. Hughes obviously wanted to help out Blackburn with his new found wealth when he paid £17.5 mil for him.

Yep. 19 goals and a £14M profit. We dodged a bullet there.  Thanks Martin.

No, possibly 19 goals and the profit only occurred as Hughes left to manage Money bags Man City. Would he have signed Santa Cruz if he hadn't already played for Hughes. For us, Santa Cruz could well have not had his one good season. We will never know.

We did get a £16 mil profit and a £12 mil profit for Milner and Barry from them though.

[eamonn]

Yep, considering we finished 6th in 2008 with an average enough previous lot of summer signings, we could really have challenged for 4th had we showed a bit more ambition in the transfer market. I know we'd come back off a season of finishing 11th in MON's first year and the fact that we beat Wigan to the signature of Marlon suggests we struggled to get quality players in during summer 2007. But the examples Dave gives shows that we should have done better. We scored a highly impressive 71 goals in 07/08 but we also conceded 51 I think it was. Oh for a Jagielka (or perhaps Collins/Cuellar) beside Laursen that year instead of Knight/Davies.

Actually I'm just remembering Haangeland failed a medical in August 2007 didn't he? Maybe a bit too dominant to play with Laursen but you can only imagine our defensive record would have been a lot better that season with him in tow. O'Neill the nearly man - he came quite close to doing a Brian Little-esque transformation on the pitch but not close enough.

[Somniloquism]

We hardly had the financial instability of West Ham and Portsmouth. In fact, wasn't this smack in the middle of the "Henry's not good enough" optimism?

Neither did they at the time. The Icelandic biscuit barons had just taken over the Ammers and were buying people on large wages. Portsmouth were letting Arry do the signings and the wages which lead to them winning the Cup in 2008 and going into administration in 2010.

There might have been "Henrys not good enough" opinions from some but wasn't there also "Lets not do Chelsea, but rather build a squad and team for the long term" opinions as well from others. We did neither it turns out and still let the wages spiral as well.

Like I mentioned earlier, if we knew the wages MON was splashing out on the backups then we should have gone for some of names mentioned in your post. Although you have been selective with the names as we know that they have worked out well but say for example Faubert, Dyer, Kaboul and Mido were also signed by those clubs at the time but you definitely would not want them now.

[dave.woodhall]

Players were available. We didn't sign them.

[Monty]

The players signed by MON were generally from a very specific bracket: overpriced, largely British, dependable, not so hot on technique and so on. Players like Knight and even Harewood, as short term measures, I can forgive, but some of the money he squandered on players who were supposedly our long-term but ended up causing more problems than they solved was not.

[Somniloquism]

And if Jagielka hadn't been a success, which name would you have chosen instead. If Knight or Curtis had been a success, whose name would you have chosen as a bad buy.

You have won the argument because hindsight is 20/20 and I'm only talking in possibilities and opinions. I do remember that the majority of fans thought Curtis had a good loan season and apart from slightly over priced was a good purchase in 2008, especially as we had a blip when he got injured after the Arsenal match. 2 years later and he is held up as a mistake in the transfer market. I never heard any dissenters on Sidwells signing at the time. Again two years later he is a transfer mistake. Alot of fans were eating huimble pie on the Collins transfer as most thought it was a bad decision at the time. Although with some like Heskey and Harewood it is quite obvious the way it would go beforehand.

[dave.woodhall]

And if Jagielka hadn't been a success, which name would you have chosen instead. If Knight or Curtis had been a success, whose name would you have chosen as a bad buy.

You have won the argument because hindsight is 20/20 and I'm only talking in possibilities and opinions. I do remember that the majority of fans thought Curtis had a good loan season and apart from slightly over priced was a good purchase in 2008, especially as we had a blip when he got injured after the Arsenal match. 2 years later and he is held up as a mistake in the transfer market. I never heard any dissenters on Sidwells signing at the time. Again two years later he is a transfer mistake. Alot of fans were eating huimble pie on the Collins transfer as most thought it was a bad decision at the time. Although with some like Heskey and Harewood it is quite obvious the way it would go beforehand.

If Knight or Davies had been a success we'd have had a better team and O'Neill would have been a better manager, so what your point is there, I don't know.

I always love the "Nobody complained at the time" argument. By the same token, Peter Withe was a bad signing because nobody cheered at the time. You can claim hindsight all you like, but the fact is that players who proved good signings were available and Martin O'Neill didn't sign them. 

[Risso]

In summer 2007, Martin's first close-season, we bought Zat Knight, Marlon Harewood and Nigel Reo-Coker plus signing Curtis Davies and Scott Carson on loan. Also bought that summer by clubs who were by no means more attractive than us were Roque Santa Cruz (Blackburn), Phil Jagielka, Leighton Baines, Tim Howard & Yakubu (Everton), Luke Young (Middlesbrough), Sylvain Distin & Glen Johnson (Portsmouth), Gareth Bale (Spurs), Scott Parker & Craig Bellamy (West Ham).

We missed out on being able to really improve the squad that summer and we've spent the past three years trying to catch up.

 

That's as good a summing up of O'Neill as I've seen.