O'Neill talks about Villa

[lovejoy]

Yeah its all O'Neill's fault. Ashley Young and James Milner are sh!te.

[Dave]

didn't he quit and get talked round by RL about 6-12 months prior to him going?

That was certainly the talk from those in the know at the time.

Who knows what happened? maybe the tribunal will flush the truth out?

It was on sky that he'd resigned and the club put out an official statement denying it so something clearly happened

As I recall it, a news outlet without too many hang-ups about accuracy copied something from Ian "what a dimwit" Robathan's blog and other journalists without the time or inclination to check for facts repeated the story.

The club then said that the whole thing was a fabrication.

Remind me again why something 'clearly happened'?

[bob]

The General said explicitly, not cryptically, that MON had agreed to the policy of reducing the wage bill at the start of the summer but then just before the fall out had changed his stance. The club had failed to sell the players that they had been trying to and the obvious conclusion is that the manager decided that if we wanted to compete we had to make our signings anyway and Faulkner said no

Did the General say that we had failed to sell the players we had been trying to?

[pauliewalnuts]

I think mon basically has seen that without being given funds for transfers the club would not progress and therefore decided he couldn't take us on from there- quite understandable in that sense , seems we couldn't move certain players on and reached an impasse, I can see both sides of the story but the timing of his departure was disappointing, had he gone in may it would have been better.

Without huge investment no club is going to break the top 4 , and maybe  mon wasn't prepared to settle for just top 6?

That could have been written by Oliver Holt himself......making MON ambitious the club less so.

MON's failing was not getting rid of the shit he signed, getting them off the pay roll.  Maybe if he put a bit more effort into this he'd still be here and we'd now be looking to offload MCGeady and Keane in the Summer and get them off the pay roll..

That's the point.

Every manager, bar Mancini, has to work on the payroll and the squad, it can't just be "buy, buy, buy".

He clearly felt he was above that. Which is a shame.

[Blackcountry Villa]

Yeah its all O'Neill's fault. Ashley Young and James Milner are sh!te.

Ashley Young is.

O'Neill is a twat.

[TheSandman]

It's not about people speaking up about his record. It's excusing him for the shit he left us in, it's excusing him for the wages he spunked, it's blaming other people for him leaving. I wish he'd stayed, but then he'd decided he couldn't a shit about us. I find it strange how one or two are seemingly still in love with him.

I guess it might be that some, such as myself, don't see it as 'being left in the shit'.  We had a good squad and are/were capable of much better that what we've seen this season, but the new manager has been a disaster - not his fault.

I don't blame anyone for him leaving other than Martin himself, but I do think the full reasons behind what happened are yet to be disclosed.

Indeed. I just don't get this argument that O'Neill walked out five minutes before the season out of little more than contempt and spite that is so widely accepted. It is almost Overallian. It is simply not believable.

I'm sure MoN had his reasons for leaving and I am very interested to find out what they were. It is then and only then that I will decide if he is a twat and whether he left for a good reason.

[Chris Smith]

The General said explicitly, not cryptically, that MON had agreed to the policy of reducing the wage bill at the start of the summer but then just before the fall out had changed his stance. The club had failed to sell the players that they had been trying to and the obvious conclusion is that the manager decided that if we wanted to compete we had to make our signings anyway and Faulkner said no

Did the General say that we had failed to sell the players we had been trying to?

He didn't need to, the players not leaving gave it away. *wink*

[sfx412]

I don't blame anyone for him leaving other than Martin himself, but I do think the full reasons behind what happened are yet to be disclosed.

So leaving the club with no coaching staff 5 days before the season kicked off after having had several talks and agreements with the management about continuing in the job, is a), not his fault and b) of no detriment to the club or our season ?

Dear me, how sad is that.

[cdward]

I guess it might be that some, such as myself, don't see it as 'being left in the shit'.

He walked out five days before the season started, taking every member of the first team coaching staff with him. A more exact definition of "being left in the shit" I defy anyone to make.

This is exactly the point of the upcoming tribunal, some people think he left, some think he was forced out i.e constructive dismissal.
It will be interesting to hear both sides of the story.

So GH has spent £30m in 7 months compared to MONs £70m in 4 years.

[WarszaVillan]

I guess it might be that some, such as myself, don't see it as 'being left in the shit'.

He walked out five days before the season started, taking every member of the first team coaching staff with him. A more exact definition of "being left in the shit" I defy anyone to make.

This is exactly the point of the upcoming tribunal, some people think he left, some think he was forced out i.e constructive dismissal.
It will be interesting to hear both sides of the story.

So GH has spent £30m in 7 months compared to MONs £70m in 4 years.

Just about sums it up.

[Clampy]

It's not about people speaking up about his record. It's excusing him for the shit he left us in, it's excusing him for the wages he spunked, it's blaming other people for him leaving. I wish he'd stayed, but then he'd decided he couldn't a shit about us. I find it strange how one or two are seemingly still in love with him.

I guess it might be that some, such as myself, don't see it as 'being left in the shit'.   

Me neither. It's not as if he got rid of 3 or 4 players during the summer, then decided to fuck off leaving 2 weeks for the new man to bring in replacements. The only player who left before he walked was Nicky Shorey and if you go back to the 'Stephen Ireland Signs' thread (i'm sure there was one), the majority of us were in agreement that we'd got a good side of the deal. How wrong we all were.

The O'Neil haters can bleat on about him all they like, but i think in truth, what's cost us this season was the horrendous injury list and the shocking manager we eventually employed.

[eastie]

What's cost us this season clampy is the manager leaving when he did, the long delay in replacing him, the manager who replaced him and the injury crisis- not one thing but a combination of all four.

[stuart445]

It's not about people speaking up about his record. It's excusing him for the shit he left us in, it's excusing him for the wages he spunked, it's blaming other people for him leaving. I wish he'd stayed, but then he'd decided he couldn't a shit about us. I find it strange how one or two are seemingly still in love with him.

I guess it might be that some, such as myself, don't see it as 'being left in the shit'.  We had a good squad and are/were capable of much better that what we've seen this season, but the new manager has been a disaster - not his fault.

I don't blame anyone for him leaving other than Martin himself, but I do think the full reasons behind what happened are yet to be disclosed.

Just 1 question, If O'Neil left at the start of the last summer would we have Houiller?

Or would we have been able to get someone better?

His timing made sure that Houllier was the best we could get as no decent honourable person would ditch their club at that part of the season, so in response to your comment of it not being his fault, Yes it is his fault because if he did the right thing we wouldn't have Houllier incharge.

[WALTERS WARRIORS]

MON has acted with "gross misconduct". If Sky pulled out of showing all the games allocated for the season five days before it started, they would be legally slaughtered ....

[eastie]

MON has acted with "gross misconduct". If Sky pulled out of showing all the games allocated for the season five days before it started, they would be legally slaughtered ....

What a ridiculous comparison!