How far up MON's a*se is Rod Liddle?

[Mazrim]

I find his articles thought provoking and interesting. I think a lot of his comments hit the mark and frankly the negative reaction here is because often the truth hurts.

I honestly don't understand what this means.

[Mister E]

I file him alongside Littlejohn, Clarkson, Laurie Penny, Alan Green; people in the media who hold views just in order to get a reaction.

Best ignored. Read the travel section.

Absolutely, Damon.
It was really just the bit about "if not MON, then no-one". It's precisely because MON didn't get us into the top four with the money he spunked that commentators should be revisiting the assertion that he is in the same league as Clough and Ferguson (as some of them seem to think).

But I suppose I'm attributing these Sunday broadsheet writers with some level of intelligence, whereas they are they - as you said - merely to provoke responses. I know I should know betrer.

[CorkVilla]

This is a clip for RTE Sport from a few years ago when Liddle wrote a particurly nasty artice about Roy Keane (who has since become one of his favourite people along with MON for some reason). Skip to 8.12 to listen to what Eamon Dunphy thinks of Liddle  

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[markeeeebeeee2005]

Read the marriage section of Rod Liddle's wikipedia page http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rod_Liddle

Judgement doesn't seem to be his strong point. I would take anything he says with a shovel of salt.

His political views are also quite special to say the least. Member of the labour party with right wing views in all the wrong places - bell end.

[lovejoy]

Serious question - which manager would be able to get us top 4 at the moment? Listing managers who did it years ago when the top4 wasn't such a closed shop and many teams flitted in and out is clearly not comparible today with money bags teams at the top. MON with all Randy's money behind him couldn't quite crack it - with less investment its difficult to see us doing it again in the short term. in my opinion of course.

Cue another picture of Godzilla from mazrim to add to the debate.

[Villa'Zawg]

In today's Sunday Times, the poisonous Liddle makes yet more disparaging remarks about our club - all done weaved within the sort of rampant speculation that's been evidernt on here during the past week or so.
"the man on a white charger racing towards Villa Park might be Steve McClaren, with his gelaming new teeth and sudden acquisition of a Brummie accent. The Villa faithful may cleave to the hope that it might be Carlo Ancelotti but I cannot see why he would want to go there.
"As things stand, you would not bet on Villa finsihing higher than Fulham next season, whoever ends up in charge; they still look oddly uncompelling and there are likely to be more notable dpeartures from the club this summer than arrivals. If Martin O'Neill can't hoist them into the top four, who can?"

I don't mind people having a view on the Villa - blimey, I'm hardly in a position to sensor anything! nor would I want to - but he seems to trot out his snidey, insidious stuff every week, feeding the careworn myths about MON and using all the belittling tools and undermining drivel employed by DOL in his 'prime'.

The article reads somewhat different when you add in the opening paragraph where he talks about how Randy Lerner isn't the kind of Chairman to touch a "disloyal" manager like Mark Hughes with a bargepole and the beginning of the sentence that you missed from your quote where he says "And the terrible thought is that the man on a white charger racing toward Villa Park might be Steve McClaren...



 

[darren woolley]

Rod should start his own MON fan club give pictures of both of them sharing an intimate moment together saying love always.

[TheSandman]

I find his articles thought provoking and interesting. I think a lot of his comments hit the mark and frankly the negative reaction here is because often the truth hurts.

Rod Liddle? Thought provoking and interesting. Fuck me.

You could argue he is right in this case (indeed I don't see us finishing in the top four any time soon) but thought provoking and interesting? The man is the journalistic equivalent of Mrs Overall. It is reactions he tries to provoke
rather than thoughts. He contradicts himself too. I remember him criticising O'Neill not so long ago. Indeed I recall people on here were cross about that too.

[LeeB]

Read the marriage section of Rod Liddle's wikipedia page http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rod_Liddle

Judgement doesn't seem to be his strong point. I would take anything he says with a shovel of salt.

His political views are also quite special to say the least. Member of the labour party with right wing views in all the wrong places - bell end.

Associate editor of The Spectator, which is cased closed as far as I'm concerned. Collectively the biggest bunch of bellends I've ever had the misfortune to work with.

[Percy McCarthy]

A decent journalist would find out the truth about why MON really left and write a decent article.

It surprises me that I've seen no article with an angle that even vaguely sides with Villa/Randy over O'Neill's departure. One of them mentioned the wage bill on Sunday Supplement once, and was shouted down by that prick Holt. I thought Neil Moxley of the Daily Mail might have written an objective piece, he was never much of a MON fan, but if he has I haven't seen it.

[pauliewalnuts]

A decent journalist would find out the truth about why MON really left and write a decent article.

It surprises me that I've seen no article with an angle that even vaguely sides with Villa/Randy over O'Neill's departure. One of them mentioned the wage bill on Sunday Supplement once, and was shouted down by that prick Holt. I thought Neil Moxley of the Daily Mail might have written an objective piece, he was never much of a MON fan, but if he has I haven't seen it.

For the last 6 months or so, Moxley seems unable to write anything re AVFC which isn't sneering and contemptuous. A real about turn, as he wasn't previously that way.

re journos siding with the club, I remember (the excellent) Phil McNulty at the BBC being at least a bit balanced.

Holt is unbelievable. I understand it is possible to lie on the other side of the divide on the issue re MON, but he is pathologically unable to detach himself from his worship of the bloke. He was tweeting the other day that "surely all Villa fans would have MON back if they could" - I bet it never crossed his tiny mind that maybe, regardless of what we though of him before he left, a good many of us were sufficiently fucked off by the manner of his departure to not feel that way.

If this is what it's like for us having had MON leave us, and in circumstances which didn't reflect very well on him, even, then can you even begin to imagine what it would ever have been like had we sacked him?

oh, and one more think re Rod Liddle. When we signed Bent, I remember him being apoplectic with rage that we'd somehow single handedly invented the concept of attracting footballers to play for us by offering them a lot of money, but also ranting about how Sunderland were every bit as big a club as us, and it was a step down now, as Sunderland would be playing in Europe and we were fighting relegation.

Well, looking at the table, it didn't turn out quite that way. I get the impression that a lot of the stick we took over Bent was about the fact that, having told us that MON left because Randy slammed the brakes on the spending, he'd inconveniently gone and spent 25-30m or so in the January window, leaving them all looking like absolute mugs.

Liddle is just moving down a sliding scale of clubs to suggest are as good as us. First Sunderland, now Fulham. If they hadn't gone down, I reckon he'd have run with one of those "the balance of power is shifting in the second city" bullshit articles about Small Heath over the summer.

[Surrey Villain]

Did anyone read Liddle's article in the main body of the Sunday Times about FIFA freeloaders geting free access to Olympic tickets?  How they will arrive in London, be wined and dined at five star hotels and be ferried to any Olympic event they want?  It is a far more pointed and accurate article than his entry in the Sports section which has aroused passion in some Villa supporters.  It seems he is allowed to criticise many sporting things but when it gets a bit close to home he is a 'bell end'.

[markeeeebeeee2005]

Surrey villain read my post again he is a bell end for a whole host of reasons, and not just because he is having a go at Villa.

[dave.woodhall]

Google 'Rod Liddle racist' then make your mind up.

[Clampy]

I don't take that much notice what so called 'football media experts' write in their papers anymore. Let's face it, what do they know about football that a lot on here don't?

Let's take Oliver Holt for example, he writes for the Daily Mirror. There's not that much more to be said really?