5% Villa- Oliver Holt Interview

[pauliewalnuts]

How can you divorce the qualities of the players who have left from the economics?

What kind of economic impact do you think losing the likes of Osbourne or Salifou would have had?

I see you also threw Ashley Young in as one if the players sold in this spree which is evidence of MON having had reason to leave. He has gone to the champions and one if th biggest clubs in the world. If we'd sold him to the likes of Spurs you might have some basis for this, but he didn't. With one year on his contract, how were we meant to stop him joining Man United?

I can't see how anyone would want to give O'Neill the benefit of the doubt when his departure did the club such damage.

Meanwhile, he's getting your continued adulation, and we are still stuck with some of the shit, ageing utter dross he got in on absurd contracts because he couldn't be arsed to try to get value for the money he spent when he could just grab another handful of notes from the money tree.

As soon as the flow of money became anything other than endless, he downed tools and was out of here like a rat up a drainpipe, regardless of the effect on the club, lest it damage brand O'Neill. Whatever you think of his achievements here, it is mind boggling that some Villa fans manage to see beyond the height from which he shat on the club and continue to deify him.

[Lambert and Payne]

I've never argued that he left because of economies, you brought that up. I just pointed out that there does appear to have been a step change in the level of investment. Regardless of your opinion as to the quality of the players who have left, the economics remain the same.
 

1. It seems that's exactly what you where saying
2. Are you seriously telling me that you'd want to fork out the wages of Sidwell et al that are going to sit on the bench? Sidwell was on a reported 40k a week right?

For my part, I don't have any difficulty in imaging that Paul Faulkner misjudged something and made O'Neill's position untenable. On that basis, until I learn more about what happened, I'm willing to give O'Neill the benefit of the doubt.

But your willing to imply Faulkner had something to do with it even though there's no basis to this argument merely a hunch?

[Ger Regan]

I see you also threw Ashley Young in as one if the players sold in this spree which is evidence of MON having had reason to leave. He has gone to the champions and one if th biggest clubs in the world. If we'd sold him to the likes of Spurs you might have some basis for this, but he didn't. With one year on his contract, how were we meant to stop him joining Man United?

Not to mention the fact that we were more than willing to offer him a new contract, but he refused.

[citizenDJ]

For my part, I don't have any difficulty in imaging that Paul Faulkner misjudged something and made O'Neill's position untenable. On that basis, until I learn more about what happened, I'm willing to give O'Neill the benefit of the doubt.

So you imagine that it's all down to Paul Faulkner? Is that it? If so, then it's exactly as easy to 'imagine' that he was doing a very good job of getting to grips with the finance of things, and O'Neill didn't like it and so threw his toys out of the pram, isn't it? Why is one imagining any more valid than another? Seems a very strange argument to me.

[citizenDJ]

Ah. Forgot to cancel the italics there, sorry.

Edit: Also forgot I was able to edit here!

[Hopadop]

The only certainty to my mind is that there was fault on both sides, and that both are happy for the facts to remain hidden.

I dislike MON for leaving when he did, but I don't trust the club because, you would assume, they would have nothing to fear from any tribunal. But they clearly did.

Villainous is right - we don't know any more than this. At least I don't.

[Eigentor]

Clearly there was a problem between MON and the board, and the club seemed unable or unwilling to solve it, or, worse, unaware that it existed.

The board could not possibly have predicted MON's petulant walk-out, but it seems fair to say that they didn't have their eye on the ball at the time.

[Hopadop]

One thing I really don't get is the reasoning that MON would walk out when he did in order to preserve 'brand O'Neill'.

Something that everyone (non Villa) who has talked to me about it has mentioned is what a crappy thing to do it was, they thought he was an honourable man etc.

I know he's still got his admirers, but his reputation still suffered. He must have known this.

[Eigentor]

One thing I really don't get is the reasoning that MON would walk out when he did in order to preserve 'brand O'Neill'.

Maybe the alternative was worse: carrying on in a job he wasn't interested in doing anymore, with his best player last season gone, a real nutter as his replacement, virtually no pre-season preparations, Dunne completely unfit for PL action, half the squad in the doghouse -- it's fanthomable that MON wasn't confident that the team would perform in a manner that would preserve his reputation as a top manager.

[Hopadop]

I can see that, but surely he would have read all that writing on the wall much earlier.

For me, the timing didn't seem bitter or cynical, but a bit desperate. Like he'd gambled on something important and lost, or massively misjudged something.

[Eigentor]

Before the summer he said that the club now had a sell-to-buy policy and it wasn't ideal. He also said that he wasn't the kind of person to "down tools". He gave the impression of not being happy but that he would try to get on with it.

Five days before the season he changed his mind. Either because he spent the summer realising that he wasn't interested anymore (eg after witnessing his lack of participation in pre-season), or because something happened that tipped him over the edge. My guess is the former.

[Ghost of Pongo Waring]

I can see that, but surely he would have read all that writing on the wall much earlier.

For me, the timing didn't seem bitter or cynical, but a bit desperate. Like he'd gambled on something important and lost, or massively misjudged something.

What I've heard is this. MON was unhappy at the end of the season and was going to call it a day. After a meeting with Paul Faulkner he was made certain promises which made him decide to remain. Five days before the start of the season another meeting with Paul Faulkner resulted in him being told that the promises made previously were either not going to be honoured or were unable to be honoured.

As the club had reneged on the promises that had stopped him from leaving earlier, MON walked.

This is only what I've been led to believe happened. Ultimately I have no more proof than those that claim it was just vindictiveness or spite.

It does make more sense to me than the 'spiteful MON dropped us in the shit on purpose' arguments.

[Hopadop]

If it wasn't for the club settling I'd agree. The fact they did makes me think the latter is more likely,  or at least he could credibly argue it enough to worry the club.

He's a rich man.  If it was just a case of walking away why not just do it? To pursue the club for money makes me think he at least believed he had been wronged. The fact he 'won',  at least to some degree,  must suggest he had a point?

[Hopadop]

If it wasn't for the club settling I'd agree. The fact they did makes me think the latter is more likely,  or at least he could credibly argue it enough to worry the club.

He's a rich man.  If it was just a case of walking away why not just do it? To pursue the club for money makes me think he at least believed he had been wronged. The fact he 'won',  at least to some degree,  must suggest he had a point?

Sorry,  this in response to Eigentor - lazy with the quoting.

[pauliewalnuts]

One thing I really don't get is the reasoning that MON would walk out when he did in order to preserve 'brand O'Neill'.

Something that everyone (non Villa) who has talked to me about it has mentioned is what a crappy thing to do it was, they thought he was an honourable man etc.

I know he's still got his admirers, but his reputation still suffered. He must have known this.

Look at the general attitude of the press to him over the last (near) year. I am struggling to think of a single journalist who saw it as reflecting badly on O'Neill.

I do think that where he got it wrong was in the way other clubs have reacted to it. If he'd have left Villa at the end of the season before, he might have had a chance of a better job. Leaving when he did, he just made himself look a chequebook manager prone to petulant strops.

He'll never get a better job than Villa. In the past you might have thought maybe the England job, but that now seems nailed on to be Redknapp's, so that is out of the question.