MON would argue he got results.For me, the biggest revelation there is that Houllier, despite being our contracted manager, basically encouraged one of our best players to move to Liverpool and blabbed on about how he would love it. Disgrace, they let us down so badly.
Could be true, but could also be an element of Downing making excuses for fucking right off after 18 months in the team (after we nursed him back to fitness) and Dunne for being a big fat sweaty piss-flap for most of his Villa career.
Quote from: Villan82 on October 20, 2021, 04:58:07 PMMON would argue he got results.For me, the biggest revelation there is that Houllier, despite being our contracted manager, basically encouraged one of our best players to move to Liverpool and blabbed on about how he would love it. Disgrace, they let us down so badly.I was reading something recently, I wish I could remember where, which said that over the last 20 odd years, the most reliable indicator of league position in the premier league is wage bill - something like 90% accurate in terms of predicting a club's relative position. I'd love to know what our wage bill was under the peak MON team and how it compared across the league. It always felt like we bought players at (or just beyond) their peak and put them on big fat contracts.So as much as the MON years felt like they were relatively successful in terms of competing for European positions/top 6, I do wonder if we actually under or overachieved based on how much we spent on those players?
Quote from: Smithy on October 20, 2021, 05:40:45 PMQuote from: Villan82 on October 20, 2021, 04:58:07 PMMON would argue he got results.For me, the biggest revelation there is that Houllier, despite being our contracted manager, basically encouraged one of our best players to move to Liverpool and blabbed on about how he would love it. Disgrace, they let us down so badly.I was reading something recently, I wish I could remember where, which said that over the last 20 odd years, the most reliable indicator of league position in the premier league is wage bill - something like 90% accurate in terms of predicting a club's relative position. I'd love to know what our wage bill was under the peak MON team and how it compared across the league. It always felt like we bought players at (or just beyond) their peak and put them on big fat contracts.So as much as the MON years felt like they were relatively successful in terms of competing for European positions/top 6, I do wonder if we actually under or overachieved based on how much we spent on those players?I wonder if we've ever debated what ours was Vs, say, Spurs?
You won't see me defending O'Neill. We all know his faults. My point was I am still shocked that the Aston Villa manager in 2011 sat down with one of our main players and basically helped sell the Liverpool move to him. I think that is an utter disgrace and surely unethical.