Return of O'Neill - divided opinion

[Dave Javu]

I agree with the sage Greg N'Ash too.

Personally, I will welcome MON back to Villa Park with a huge round of indifference. Anything else will give the man satisfaction one way or another.

[Concrete John]

Ideally there should be a 60 seconds of booing 6 minutes in to signify his inability to get us anywhere near the top 4 or the 83rd minute to commemorate how much (nett) money he pissed up the wall (I'd include what he wasted on wages as well but i can't see the game having 30 minutes of stoppage time.)

Given that we've sold £60m worth of talent (Ash, Milner & Downing) from his expenditure since he left, I'm happy to join in with this if we move it to the 23rd minute.

[Greg N'Ash]

right so we now including the money from players that he had nowt to do with selling but that he bought? In that case take the Barry money off what he raised as he didn't buy him. Likewise cahill, baros etc...

[Concrete John]

To be fair, Greg, we've had this argument so many times it just bores me now, so I'll leave it at that.

[dave.woodhall]

I'm pointing out to you there are 2 sides to the story as opposed to the dead head attitude that MON is wrong in all things, read my post and you'll see that's precisely what I'm saying, so please correct me if I'm wrong the hearing that occurred after the game who did they find in favour of.

As for him getting on with the job you've either lived a very sheltered life are your talking rubbish, many many many times in all kind of situations and circumstances surrounding all manner of things sometimes sometimes you are left with no alternative to go a certain way, if you look back at the previous 6 months of MON's tenure Randy Lerner made it publicly clear he was no longer prepared to support MON and he didn't walk out then, it took him another 6 months.

There is way more to this than meets the eye that either you or I are privvy to.

The 2 sides to this story are that they are both as bad as each other, that said looking at the track record of the club since MON's departure I know where my sympathies lies with.

Under MON we had Europe, we had good league standings, we had winning ways, we had Cup finals and we where a great opposition to anybody out there. Look at us now.

How many times does it have to be explained that he did not win that hearing? It's an myth up there with Villa being on course to run away with the league before signing Cascarino and Alex Ferguson getting off to a bad start with Manchester United.

I haven't led a sheltered life, and that's why I stand by what I say. In the normal world people, particularly those with a scrap of decency and honour, do not walk out on jobs because their working conditions have gone from perfect to less so. Let's be realistic - this wasn't a case of workplace bullying or budgetary constraints meaning a job was not only impossible but it had become dangerous to his health and that of his staff. Martin O'Neill was being asked to do his job in the way almost all of his fellow managers do theirs. Of course he had an alternative to leaving - he could carry on with the job he was doing, was being very well paid to do, and to which he owned at least a modicum of loyalty. He could have proved that he is indeed a top manager by doing the job without an unlimited budget and without unprecedented influence. Instead, he chose to walk out at a time which would cause maximum inconvenience to the Villa. We don't know the exact reasons why he left but that is the only fact which is known for certain.

Interesting choice of phrase, "I know where my sympathies lie." You certainly do.

[AV82EC]

As good an example of a cheque book manager as you will ever see - and even then we could only just about hit sixth in a very mediocre league

Please explain reversal of form at Sunderland?
A little reading on this site should tell you that MON+chequebook  = disaster around the corner. If anything he's the very definition of a non-chequebook manager and would surely suit a partnership with the right director of football...

MON is one of the best managers in the game, that's very widely excepted, look at the pattern of events that have befallen the club since his departure and it becomes very obvious that the situation that led to MON going wasn't just down to him, and to believe that a club like Villa are still counting the cost from the MON era, years or seasons after him going is tosh, Villa are suffering from ineptitude, was then and still are now, even more so, that's what we are suffering from, and I have to say this, these so called horrendous figures that where chalked up by MON, I would love to see the actual figures of his expenditure of the wage deals he created and how that balances out with the fact that a lot of the players have since been moved on and at a profit, Like Young, like Downing like Milner, massive influx of money from these, what was it he paid for those 3 players, Young 10ML, Milner 12ML and Downing 12ML was it and how much did they go for, and as for Heskey, there have been 2 managers since MON and neither have opted for getting rid, why not.

Just a further point that had nothing to do with MON who are the current highest earners in the club at this time, correct me if I'm wrong but  pretty sure it starts with Ireland and Bent.

You are Oliver Holt and I claim my £5.

[Simon Ward]

In summary he will get booed!

[pauliewalnuts]

Under MON we had Europe, we had good league standings, we had winning ways, we had Cup finals and we where a great opposition to anybody out there. Look at us now.

I know it's a quibbling point, but we didn't have "cup finals" at all.

[Monty]

Under MON we had Europe, we had good league standings, we had winning ways, we had Cup finals and we where a great opposition to anybody out there. Look at us now.

I know it's a quibbling point, but we didn't have "cup finals" at all.

And we didn't have much Europe, the only year we got through to the next round was the infamous Moscow debacle.

For those of us who believed in him and believed in his hype it was a tough thing to come to terms with, but my God is Martin O'Neill a limited manager. He appears bright, engaging, thoughtful, persuasive - all the qualities which make so many former players talk about running through brick walls for him - but underneath it all he has a very limited and, frankly, antiquated footballing outlook. He is a fantastic motivator, but especially of the players he tends to buy: limited, jobbing, hard-working, unspectacular. There are exceptions - Ash and, to some degree, Downing - but his football template has always been the same no matter what division. All he has over the likes of Bruce, Dowie and even McLeish is a clearly magnetic personality, which can carry you only so far, and certainly not into the top 4.

[ktvillan]

You can blame Lerner and Faulkner for a lot of things (and I do) but putting the brakes on O'Neill's transfer and wages policy was just about the only thing they got right in the last 3 years.  They had to do it otherwise our increasing debts would have threatened the existence of the club.   They shouldn't have allowed it to get that far in the first place, but that's another argument.  And the fact they royally fucked it up since O'Neill flounced off doesn;t prove anything.   I think if Houllier had stayed or if we'd recruited Hughes or possibly Jol,  we'd have been challenging at least top 8 this season and playing much better football than under pube head.

He was a good but not great manager, limited in many ways, with an ego way beyond his ability.  Sure it was nice to be challenging at the top, but given the budget he had, so we should have been.  It always felt a bit hollow to me because I always felt we would never break the top 4 or win much with his outdated one dimensional brand of football.   And so it proved.  Good riddance in my view.

[dave.woodhall]

All he has over the likes of Bruce, Dowie and even McLeish is a clearly magnetic personality, which can carry you only so far, and certainly not into the top 4.

It's carried him for about 15 years.

[pauliewalnuts]

Under MON we had Europe, we had good league standings, we had winning ways, we had Cup finals and we where a great opposition to anybody out there. Look at us now.

I know it's a quibbling point, but we didn't have "cup finals" at all.

And we didn't have much Europe, the only year we got through to the next round was the infamous Moscow debacle.

For those of us who believed in him and believed in his hype it was a tough thing to come to terms with, but my God is Martin O'Neill a limited manager. He appears bright, engaging, thoughtful, persuasive - all the qualities which make so many former players talk about running through brick walls for him - but underneath it all he has a very limited and, frankly, antiquated footballing outlook. He is a fantastic motivator, but especially of the players he tends to buy: limited, jobbing, hard-working, unspectacular. There are exceptions - Ash and, to some degree, Downing - but his football template has always been the same no matter what division. All he has over the likes of Bruce, Dowie and even McLeish is a clearly magnetic personality, which can carry you only so far, and certainly not into the top 4.

It'll never get him to the next level - to do that you need two things above others, transfer market nous, and tactical sharpness - in other words, the two biggest weaknesses he has.

I actually think his results are most impressive when he's forced to work with what he has, rather than when he's allowed to go out and buy a squad

I thought he got results and performances way beyond what you'd imagine in his first season with us. That front three of Moore, Angel and Gabby was good to watch. He's doing (although looking a tad iffy of late) similar with Sunderland.

The problem for Sunderland is that they're going to need to buy a reliable striker over the summer, and we could probably guess the pool of three or four strikers he'll be fishing in, and none of them will be particularly inspirational fish.

[Monty]

All he has over the likes of Bruce, Dowie and even McLeish is a clearly magnetic personality, which can carry you only so far, and certainly not into the top 4.

It's carried him for about 15 years.

It can carry you so long, but only so far. Football, in particular English football, is littered with limited managers whose longevity in the game is contrasted with their ability, but who keep getting jobs.

[Clampy]

I stopped caring  a year and a half ago.

[Sexual Ealing]

All he has over the likes of Bruce, Dowie and even McLeish is a clearly magnetic personality, which can carry you only so far, and certainly not into the top 4.

It's carried him for about 15 years.

It can carry you so long, but only so far. Football, in particular English football, is littered with limited managers whose longevity in the game is contrasted with their ability, but who keep getting jobs.

This is all true, but I think the reason that some of us still wish he was here is that he was the best manager we could realistically have had (and that was then, we've got seemingly no chance of anyone remotely as good now).