MO'N on Goals on Sunday

[glasses]

We're where we are because we as a club bought Darren Bent, Jean II Makoun, Jermaine Jenas, Charles N'Zogbia, Stephen Ireland, Shay Given and paid them all silly money for no return. Players bought with money earnt from sales of the much better players we  bought during O'Neills tenure. He bought some players that didn't return much, but not huge sums individually were spent on them. Beye and Heskey were probably the worst.

(I'll add that I think had Fabian Delphs contract been handled better by the club, he'd have been another £20m sale. £8m for him was a steal.)

His impact was over after we'd struggled in the league the season after, then clambered up to 9th in the last few games.

At that point the club appointed Alex McLeish.

The lack of structure could have been looked at then, couldn't it?

We are where we are, because the owner hasn't put the right people in charge of his investment. He's a rich boy who inherited wealth and businesses, and has pretty much failed at all of them.

100% right mate.

Except the bits that are wrong.

We didn't buy Jermaine Jenas. Care to elaborate

We got plenty of return from Bent, right up until he suffered a career-ruining injury. The other players were on the whole more miss than hit but none of them damaged us either then or now as much as O'Neill's behaviour. As I've said before, I believe that his, and to a lesser extent Houllier's, behaviour altered Lerner's ideas to a radical and detriimental extent.

For a £24m outlay, and at least £60k a week, his goals were acceptable.

I use him as an example of an over-priced English player, the sort O'Neill gets slaughtered for making. One that left on a free transfer. Isn't that what makes NRC and Davies failiures? I use him as an example that O'Neill didn't just use all of the money. We were happy to keep spending that season, and once the injured players started to drop back in we finished in a correct and respectable position.

You're telling me that selling Ashley Young, Stewart Downing and appointing Alex McLeish (who was supported with funds to sign Given 5yr contract at 60k a week and N'zogbia) was O'Neills fault?

[glasses]

But as for top 4 and a trophy, "nearly" might just as well be "miles away". Both count as fuck-all. DOL, JG, HWWOW, BFR, SGT, you have to go quite a way back to find a Villa manager who failed to make top six.

Since we got back into the top flight 40 years ago I think Turner & Lambert are the only managers that spent more than a year at the club and didn't manage a top 6 finish.

That is a very interesting fact. I'm not saying what O'Neill achieved was amazing or anything, and believe me there are things that went on I could never understand. No rotation etc, drove me nuts. What I won't have though is blaming fuck up after fuck up behind the scenes since being blamed on him.

[conman]

We're where we are because we as a club bought Darren Bent, Jean II Makoun, Jermaine Jenas, Charles N'Zogbia, Stephen Ireland, Shay Given and paid them all silly money for no return. Players bought with money earnt from sales of the much better players we  bought during O'Neills tenure. He bought some players that didn't return much, but not huge sums individually were spent on them. Beye and Heskey were probably the worst.

(I'll add that I think had Fabian Delphs contract been handled better by the club, he'd have been another £20m sale. £8m for him was a steal.)

His impact was over after we'd struggled in the league the season after, then clambered up to 9th in the last few games.

At that point the club appointed Alex McLeish.

The lack of structure could have been looked at then, couldn't it?

We are where we are, because the owner hasn't put the right people in charge of his investment. He's a rich boy who inherited wealth and businesses, and has pretty much failed at all of them.

100% right mate.

Except the bits that are wrong.

We didn't buy Jermaine Jenas. Care to elaborate

We got plenty of return from Bent, right up until he suffered a career-ruining injury. The other players were on the whole more miss than hit but none of them damaged us either then or now as much as O'Neill's behaviour. As I've said before, I believe that his, and to a lesser extent Houllier's, behaviour altered Lerner's ideas to a radical and detriimental extent.

For a £24m outlay, and at least £60k a week, his goals were acceptable.

I use him as an example of an over-priced English player, the sort O'Neill gets slaughtered for making. One that left on a free transfer. Isn't that what makes NRC and Davies failiures? I use him as an example that O'Neill didn't just use all of the money. We were happy to keep spending that season, and once the injured players started to drop back in we finished in a correct and respectable position.

You're telling me that selling Ashley Young, Stewart Downing and appointing Alex McLeish (who was supported with funds to sign Given 5yr contract at 60k a week and N'zogbia) was O'Neills fault?

and Hutton on 40k a week

[Duncan Shaw]

We're where we are because we as a club bought Darren Bent, Jean II Makoun, Jermaine Jenas, Charles N'Zogbia, Stephen Ireland, Shay Given and paid them all silly money for no return. Players bought with money earnt from sales of the much better players we  bought during O'Neills tenure. He bought some players that didn't return much, but not huge sums individually were spent on them. Beye and Heskey were probably the worst.

(I'll add that I think had Fabian Delphs contract been handled better by the club, he'd have been another £20m sale. £8m for him was a steal.)

His impact was over after we'd struggled in the league the season after, then clambered up to 9th in the last few games.

At that point the club appointed Alex McLeish.

The lack of structure could have been looked at then, couldn't it?

We are where we are, because the owner hasn't put the right people in charge of his investment. He's a rich boy who inherited wealth and businesses, and has pretty much failed at all of them.

100% right mate.

Except the bits that are wrong.

We didn't buy Jermaine Jenas. Care to elaborate

We got plenty of return from Bent, right up until he suffered a career-ruining injury. The other players were on the whole more miss than hit but none of them damaged us either then or now as much as O'Neill's behaviour. As I've said before, I believe that his, and to a lesser extent Houllier's, behaviour altered Lerner's ideas to a radical and detriimental extent.

For a £24m outlay, and at least £60k a week, his goals were acceptable.

I use him as an example of an over-priced English player, the sort O'Neill gets slaughtered for making. One that left on a free transfer. Isn't that what makes NRC and Davies failiures? I use him as an example that O'Neill didn't just use all of the money. We were happy to keep spending that season, and once the injured players started to drop back in we finished in a correct and respectable position.

You're telling me that selling Ashley Young, Stewart Downing and appointing Alex McLeish (who was supported with funds to sign Given 5yr contract at 60k a week and N'zogbia) was O'Neills fault?

and Hutton on 40k a week

Who was then bombed out, then brought back in and given a contract extension!!

[West Derby Villan]

My issue with MON was the timing of his departure. If he had left at the end of the previous season most people would of held him in high esteem and wished him good luck. Whatever his disagreement with Lerner it's the fans that he let down by his walk out

I totally agree, he had taken us as far as he or his tactics could take us
This. He must have known Lerner was pulling the plug well before a couple of days before the season started. He hadn't bought a player all summer. If he'd resigned earlier and given a new manager time to bed in we'd have had a chance to settle. Instead he gave us no time to identify a replacement, and consequently no time to add to the squad. We've been in terminal decline since.

I'm no MON fan, far from it but maybe he was given assurances that Milner wasn't going to be sold? Or maybe he was told that if Milner did go, he would be given all of the funds to spend how he liked but then had Ireland forced on him? None of us know  for definite what made him quit and when he decided to do it.

Personally I think he had taken us as far as he was going to anyway with his style of football and management, we should have been looking to replace him with someone able to take us to the next level

[The Edge]

MoN is conscientious in a scurrilous minefield of wntreneurial capitalism which has zero/zilch regard for club or supporters. Good luck with Irish endeavours Martin.

What are you smoking man

[The Edge]

But as for top 4 and a trophy, "nearly" might just as well be "miles away". Both count as fuck-all. DOL, JG, HWWOW, BFR, SGT, you have to go quite a way back to find a Villa manager who failed to make top six.

Since we got back into the top flight 40 years ago I think Turner & Lambert are the only managers that spent more than a year at the club and didn't manage a top 6 finish.

That is a very interesting fact. I'm not saying what O'Neill achieved was amazing or anything, and believe me there are things that went on I could never understand. No rotation etc, drove me nuts. What I won't have though is blaming fuck up after fuck up behind the scenes since being blamed on him.

Well said mate. In a nutshell how I see it.......now I'll  wait for the onslaught from the O'Neill haters.

[themossman]

You can argue all night about how much blame is apportioned where but we're in this position because of them both. If MON was a slightly better manager, especially in his transfer dealings, we probably would have made the top 4 during the initial splurge and gone off in a different and presumably much better direction which might have excused lerner's shortcomings. But if Lerner and his proxies weren't so apparently gullible and/or spineless and/or clueless before and after MON left then we wouldn't be getting relegated.

[cheltenhamlion]

We haven't had one of these debates in a while! For my two penneth as to why he is the devil incarnate, then read on.

A few points of order first though. What I post about his departure is based at least 90% in fact (others here can comment on the bona fides of my ITK info). In small part I have had to read between the lines but they are very much educated guesses based on what I do know to be fact.

The time line of events started around the time Chelsea smashed us (by 7?). Anyhow, it was the third year and not long before his Wembley trips.

Faulkner was in post by then and MON had kicked up a storm about it. He had seen off proper business types before and wasn't going to accept having to report to this fucker.

The first questions had started to be asked about his lack of use of the expensively assembled squad he had and the players were getting pissed off by the lack of progress on the pitch, as well as annoyed by his archaic methods.

That day broke the spirit in the team. An injured Milner forced to travel to the game at the 11th hour. Luke Young thrown in as a sacrificial lamb as he was pissed off at being questioned as to why we were playing anyone at right back but the one you spent £5m and £60k a week on. Shortly after,  he announced his own bomb squad.

You all know what happened on the Wembley visits. The season ends. Now this is where my first dig at the club comes. They knew it wasn't right but didn't have the bollocks to remove him. And so started the battle of Randy/Faulkner/MON.

MON was convinced that he could keep the doors to the bank vault open if he could just get the annoying call centre bloke out of the way. It had always worked on the past with better qualified business types. But he misread Lerner and the fact he wanted shot of him. Therefore, Faulkner stays.

The club put up what were perfectly reasonable requests of how he ought to approach the summer business, that couldn't possibly fall foul of a tribunal evidentially, but did so knowing he wouldn't stand for it and would likely jack it in at the end of season 4 when diminishing performance would start to damage brand MON.

He had been a prickly fucker all of the pre season for what should have been year four. He realised he wasn't going to win with the chairman chucking another £30m in the mix without some being moved on and that Faulkner was sharing Lerner's position, rather than it being his own.

The high water mark came when he was told by Faulkner he would not sign off on signing Aiden McGeady from some Russian club for 2 reasons.

For one, we already have 2 England international wingers in the squad, and 2, you haven't shifted Luke Young, Davies etc as requested for the bank to open again.

Man Citeh then pile in with a bid for Milner. Ireland plus the money for McGeady and another?  Do the deal.

But he didn't immediately get the money as he wanted to spend it on McGeady and had not come up with a good reason as to why he was a vital signing.

At the 11th hour he tried again. Luke Young to Liverpool. Little fee but his wage was gone (Young decided against it and we found out at Walsall away when Percy and I were eavesdropping a Sky journo on the premise of a fag break outside the ground at half time).

Young hasn't gone and you can't sign a player we don't need Martin. Randy will support you, but you have to explain who you want and why. I will be part of the discussion. Says Faulkner.

MON knew the game was up. We won't do better than last year ever if I am asked to manage like everyone else. I can't have brand MON damaged.

A last ditch meeting was arranged with just Randy so he could reconcile himself with what Faulkner was saying and get closure that Randy meant it. He did.

And ten days later, for no good reason why that day should be the catalyst (other than Randy was half way home and would have to turn back Mid Atlantic) he jacks it in. 5 days before the season starts and spends the next year hitting out time and again at the club through his mates in the media. Like a cleverer version of Sherwood.

Come the tribunal,  it was very much "pay him off and finish this unedifying episode" rather than him having a winnable case.

And with that burning his arse and fortune, Lerner gave up on being involved. Personally feeling brutalised and let down by a man he trusted.

He has done himself no favours since and has plenty of accountability. But do not dare to defend that self serving, 4 eyed, snivelling, bottler in my presence. He is a malignant little bastard.

[The Edge]

We're where we are because we as a club bought Darren Bent, Jean II Makoun, Jermaine Jenas, Charles N'Zogbia, Stephen Ireland, Shay Given and paid them all silly money for no return. Players bought with money earnt from sales of the much better players we  bought during O'Neills tenure. He bought some players that didn't return much, but not huge sums individually were spent on them. Beye and Heskey were probably the worst.

(I'll add that I think had Fabian Delphs contract been handled better by the club, he'd have been another £20m sale. £8m for him was a steal.)

His impact was over after we'd struggled in the league the season after, then clambered up to 9th in the last few games.

At that point the club appointed Alex McLeish.

The lack of structure could have been looked at then, couldn't it?

We are where we are, because the owner hasn't put the right people in charge of his investment. He's a rich boy who inherited wealth and businesses, and has pretty much failed at all of them.

100% right mate.

Except the bits that are wrong.

Which bits are wrong?

[peter w]

Thanks for that cheltenham.

[Dave]

The high water mark came when he was told by Faulkner he would not sign off on signing Aiden McGeady from some Russian club for 2 reasons.

Fairly trivial compared to the rest of it, but that bit's not right - McGeady only joined Spartak four days after O'Neill quit. He'd have been signing him from Celtic.

[CT]

We haven't had one of these debates in a while! For my two penneth as to why he is the devil incarnate, then read on.

A few points of order first though. What I post about his departure is based at least 90% in fact (others here can comment on the bona fides of my ITK info). In small part I have had to read between the lines but they are very much educated guesses based on what I do know to be fact.

The time line of events started around the time Chelsea smashed us (by 7?). Anyhow, it was the third year and not long before his Wembley trips.

Faulkner was in post by then and MON had kicked up a storm about it. He had seen off proper business types before and wasn't going to accept having to report to this fucker.

The first questions had started to be asked about his lack of use of the expensively assembled squad he had and the players were getting pissed off by the lack of progress on the pitch, as well as annoyed by his archaic methods.

That day broke the spirit in the team. An injured Milner forced to travel to the game at the 11th hour. Luke Young thrown in as a sacrificial lamb as he was pissed off at being questioned as to why we were playing anyone at right back but the one you spent £5m and £60k a week on. Shortly after,  he announced his own bomb squad.

You all know what happened on the Wembley visits. The season ends. Now this is where my first dig at the club comes. They knew it wasn't right but didn't have the bollocks to remove him. And so started the battle of Randy/Faulkner/MON.

MON was convinced that he could keep the doors to the bank vault open if he could just get the annoying call centre bloke out of the way. It had always worked on the past with better qualified business types. But he misread Lerner and the fact he wanted shot of him. Therefore, Faulkner stays.

The club put up what were perfectly reasonable requests of how he ought to approach the summer business, that couldn't possibly fall foul of a tribunal evidentially, but did so knowing he wouldn't stand for it and would likely jack it in at the end of season 4 when diminishing performance would start to damage brand MON.

He had been a prickly fucker all of the pre season for what should have been year four. He realised he wasn't going to win with the chairman chucking another £30m in the mix without some being moved on and that Faulkner was sharing Lerner's position, rather than it being his own.

The high water mark came when he was told by Faulkner he would not sign off on signing Aiden McGeady from some Russian club for 2 reasons.

For one, we already have 2 England international wingers in the squad, and 2, you haven't shifted Luke Young, Davies etc as requested for the bank to open again.

Man Citeh then pile in with a bid for Milner. Ireland plus the money for McGeady and another?  Do the deal.

But he didn't immediately get the money as he wanted to spend it on McGeady and had not come up with a good reason as to why he was a vital signing.

At the 11th hour he tried again. Luke Young to Liverpool. Little fee but his wage was gone (Young decided against it and we found out at Walsall away when Percy and I were eavesdropping a Sky journo on the premise of a fag break outside the ground at half time).

Young hasn't gone and you can't sign a player we don't need Martin. Randy will support you, but you have to explain who you want and why. I will be part of the discussion. Says Faulkner.

MON knew the game was up. We won't do better than last year ever if I am asked to manage like everyone else. I can't have brand MON damaged.

A last ditch meeting was arranged with just Randy so he could reconcile himself with what Faulkner was saying and get closure that Randy meant it. He did.

And ten days later, for no good reason why that day should be the catalyst (other than Randy was half way home and would have to turn back Mid Atlantic) he jacks it in. 5 days before the season starts and spends the next year hitting out time and again at the club through his mates in the media. Like a cleverer version of Sherwood.

Come the tribunal,  it was very much "pay him off and finish this unedifying episode" rather than him having a winnable case.

And with that burning his arse and fortune, Lerner gave up on being involved. Personally feeling brutalised and let down by a man he trusted.

He has done himself no favours since and has plenty of accountability. But do not dare to defend that self serving, 4 eyed, snivelling, bottler in my presence. He is a malignant little bastard.

I just wish you'd say what you think and stop sitting on the fence. 😉

[themossman]

Thanks Cheltenham very enlightening. For me it damns Lerner more for not pulling the trigger when he knew it was all over with MON. Why try and manage out a man like him, who, whether you love or hate him, has a clear gift for wily self preservation. Why not just sack him, which in this scenario would be more straightforward and dignified and with less risk of long term fallout?

I mean, if MON was being asked to justify purely football related decisions (why mcgeady not player X) by Faulkner and they knew he wouldn't tolerate it, then they were in a ridiculous situation. He shouldn't have still been in the position he was. Can you then blame MON if he reacts exactly the way they expect? And if they are trying to push him out why should he resign at a convenient time for them?

On the last point, sorry but that does grind my gears. Am I to be sympathetic with a billionaire who abandons us to nosedive into the championship because he has his ego bruised by his one time ally? Sorry but grow a set, randy.

[peter w]

I have to say though that as much as I do agree with cheltenham and O'Neill's culpability. I real don't think he left because he was consiously thinking of a "Brand O'Neill". I think he decided to go because he didn't want to work under Faulkner and wanted to stomp his feet rather than protecting an image, which to be fair is the natural progression.