Quote from: OzVilla on December 20, 2015, 11:18:36 PMIt's not necessarily the amounts spent it's the way it's been spent that's the issue. It's been the issue to differing degrees since Randy first opened his chequebook.That's it exactly. With Randy Lerner came a glorious opportunity to embark on a long-term plan, to invest in the infrastructure of the club and build some solid foundations that would see us make steady progress. That was the key to success. Instead what we've had is a fatally short-sighted, short-termist approach to everything, beginning with Lerner handing great wodges of his fortune to completely the wrong man. Two hundred and fifty million quid may not even have bought a title winning squad, but it should have been ample to buy the knowledge and expertise required to run a club capable of challenging for trophies for years. Lerner didn't have to know anything about football, he just needed to employ people who did. He failed to do that. I despair to think that after so many years of Ellis strangling us with his miserly approach we finally got what we wanted, what we needed, what any club needs to compete these days in the money-driven world of the Premier League: we got our sugar daddy: we got his millions: and then O'Neill wasted the lot on a glut of Sidwells and Shoreys. And for what? Sixth place finishes? Even O'Leary managed that, with a fraction of O'Neills' funding. And that was our chance, folks. That was our future and O'Neill blew it. Anyone who thinks he's is in no way culpable for this mess five years down the line is as short-sighted as he is. His reckless spending crippled us, his behaviour clearly damaged Lerner, and our current predicament is the result. Lerner is to blame for trusting him, for not knowing that he was a very limited football manager, and for the car crash we've witnessed since, but it's not his fault that O'Neill is a spiteful, self-serving litigious bastard.
It's not necessarily the amounts spent it's the way it's been spent that's the issue. It's been the issue to differing degrees since Randy first opened his chequebook.
Quote from: Chinchilla Bathhouse on December 21, 2015, 12:56:52 AMQuote from: OzVilla on December 20, 2015, 11:18:36 PMIt's not necessarily the amounts spent it's the way it's been spent that's the issue. It's been the issue to differing degrees since Randy first opened his chequebook.That's it exactly. With Randy Lerner came a glorious opportunity to embark on a long-term plan, to invest in the infrastructure of the club and build some solid foundations that would see us make steady progress. That was the key to success. Instead what we've had is a fatally short-sighted, short-termist approach to everything, beginning with Lerner handing great wodges of his fortune to completely the wrong man. Two hundred and fifty million quid may not even have bought a title winning squad, but it should have been ample to buy the knowledge and expertise required to run a club capable of challenging for trophies for years. Lerner didn't have to know anything about football, he just needed to employ people who did. He failed to do that. I despair to think that after so many years of Ellis strangling us with his miserly approach we finally got what we wanted, what we needed, what any club needs to compete these days in the money-driven world of the Premier League: we got our sugar daddy: we got his millions: and then O'Neill wasted the lot on a glut of Sidwells and Shoreys. And for what? Sixth place finishes? Even O'Leary managed that, with a fraction of O'Neills' funding. And that was our chance, folks. That was our future and O'Neill blew it. Anyone who thinks he's is in no way culpable for this mess five years down the line is as short-sighted as he is. His reckless spending crippled us, his behaviour clearly damaged Lerner, and our current predicament is the result. Lerner is to blame for trusting him, for not knowing that he was a very limited football manager, and for the car crash we've witnessed since, but it's not his fault that O'Neill is a spiteful, self-serving litigious bastard. Can we have this copied and pasted on every thread about O'Neill. people accuse many of the people who could see through the O'Neill media induced love in of being blind to the facts of three 6th place finishes and a cup final. If that's your definition of success under the limited O'Neill you need to have a word with yourself.
You're basically right though. Any manager in the world will spend as much as they are allowed to, on the players they think are the best value for the spend. Why would they do otherwise when the manager job is so precarious and success is measured over such short periods? In hindsight it's absurd to think beye/heskey/Davies were the best use of those funds but MON thought it was so it is a crime that he took the money and spent it on them?Also, I distinctly remember a lot of transfer day angst because he wasn't spending the fund being made available (pelty?) and talk of him spending money like it was his own, so I don't necessarily buy the whole he sold the farm argument which has become accepted fact.
The spending argument is only part of the issue. It should not be allowed to overshadow the issue of O'Neill's personal conduct, which was conniving, spoilt and shitty, and arguably caused more damage than anything he did with Lerner's chequebook. Lerner still had some money left when O'Neill buggered off, but he no longer had the faith, the trust, the ambition or the drive. It seems O'Neill broke him.If you can defend O'Neill by asking who amongst us wouldn't have spent that money given the chance, you can also put yourself in Lerner's shoes and ask who amongst us wouldn't be far more cautious once we'd had our fingers burned?
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Topic: MO'N on Goals on Sunday (Read 40361 times)
