Unai Emery

[Monty]

The manner in which O'Neill didn't quite achieve his objectives is what determined, and determines, his legacy. There was nothing sustainable, long-term, profound in any way about his tilt at the Champions League windmill - as Paulie says, it was the last-gasp grasp of fast-outdating style both of football and transfers, and its failure left nothing to build upon.

It's not his fault that the club went so precipitously, vertically south, obviously. But he really didn't give us anything to show for those years beyond a bit of transfer income and a couple of years of Delph. Considering objectively the position the club was in relative to the rest of the league in, say, 2008, that's not great.

Anyway, Christ you can tell it's an international break when we drag the 'litigate the MON years' box down from the attic.

[Risso]

I remember the sinking feeling in my stomach when we signed the likes of Harewood and Heskey. In 07/08, Arsenal were signing the likes of Ramsey and Sagna, even Everton brought in Yakubu and Baines. We bought Harewood, Salifou, Knight and Routledge. For every good signing O'Neill made (Carew, Young, Milner) there were 2 or 3 who were rubbish and really bad value for money (Shorey, Davies, Warnock etc).

[Dave P]

I remember the sinking feeling in my stomach when we signed the likes of Harewood and Heskey. In 07/08, Arsenal were signing the likes of Ramsey and Sagna, even Everton brought in Yakubu and Baines. We bought Harewood, Salifou, Knight and Routledge. For every good signing O'Neill made (Carew, Young, Milner) there were 2 or 3 who were rubbish and really bad value for money (Shorey, Davies, Warnock etc).

Plus Baye, plus Sidwell.

January 2009 was the killer.  We were toe to toe with Arsenal for 4th place and looking strong.  Then we signed Heskey (rejecting Radamel Falcao if rumours are to be believed) and they signed Arshavin*.  The Moscow and Stoke debacles soon followed and we didn't even finish 5th. 

* in February!  Still angry the deadline was extended for them!

[danno]

Anyway, Christ you can tell it's an international break when we drag the 'litigate the MON years' box down from the attic.

Time honoured H&V tradition, along with: “should Big Ron have had more time?”.
Ground covered so often we’ve almost got a Munro.

[Risso]

One of the worst things that happened was Heskey scoring on his debut. O'Neill then stared having him in the team more often than Carew. Carew had largely been good for a goal every other game, Heskey scored one more goal that season in 13 games. He then managed 3 goals in each of the next two seasons. Utterly fucking hopeless. "But Michael Owen likes playing with him!" I couldn't give a flying fuck!

Ahem, time to let it go perhaps.

[London Villan]

We've got Gerrard to moan about now, we can leave MON behind!

[pablo_picasso]

And yes, I understand that O'Neill got us 3 top 6 spots & a League Cup final, but he also spent untold millions on players, swapped Gary Cahil for Zatiyah Knight & purposely made the signings of Steven Sidwell, Emile Heskey & Habib fucking Beye...

That's a bit #RootMaths.  If you take away the things he achieved with us, he didn't achieve anything with us.

But thats not what I said. I specifically highlighted what he achieved with us. I also highlighted the negative elements within his reign & why he actively purchased players like Knight, Beye, Sidwell, Heskey etc while walking away to ruin us so he could claim he did a magical job & nobody else could have done what he did. He build our foundations on quicksand so that as soon as he strategically left us in the shit, we would sink & he would be happily onto his next role, building on quicksand...

I think you're suggesting too much malice there. I don't believe he went into things looking at it in that way and I believe he truly wanted to be a success. The problem was that after the first 6th place he ran out of ideas and instead of adapting his style, altering the coaching, etc he just threw money at it (with the clubs backing) and that wasn't really what was needed. The last season though I do believe he was looking at ways to protect his reputation because, as mentioned above, he'd clearly reached his ceiling, I just don't think he was doing it when he signed players like Knight earlier in his time.

I genuinely believe there was malice intended on his behalf. But for self protection.

He certainly wasn't looking towards the future when he swapped Cahill for Knight. Or was it Davies? One of those two anyway.

I think he knew his own limitations, so purposely built on quicksand to protect his own media mate driven reputation...

I remember the sinking feeling in my stomach when we signed the likes of Harewood and Heskey. In 07/08, Arsenal were signing the likes of Ramsey and Sagna, even Everton brought in Yakubu and Baines. We bought Harewood, Salifou, Knight and Routledge. For every good signing O'Neill made (Carew, Young, Milner) there were 2 or 3 who were rubbish and really bad value for money (Shorey, Davies, Warnock etc).

Plus Baye, plus Sidwell.

January 2009 was the killer.  We were toe to toe with Arsenal for 4th place and looking strong.  Then we signed Heskey (rejecting Radamel Falcao if rumours are to be believed) and they signed Arshavin*.  The Moscow and Stoke debacles soon followed and we didn't even finish 5th. 

* in February!  Still angry the deadline was extended for them!

That Stoke game with the family of pigeons camped in our half, while Stoke fans cheered getting close to the half way line because they were so shit, yet we still blew a 2-0 lead, STILL haunt my dreams...

[Risso]

We've got Gerrard to moan about now, we can leave MON behind!

The football was shit, but not going to knock signing Kamara, Coutinho and Carlos. At least our owners now seem to realise the right time to act.

[Monty]

We've got Gerrard to moan about now, we can leave MON behind!

The football was shit, but not going to knock signing Kamara, Coutinho and Carlos. At least our owners now seem to realise the right time to act.

Of those, Coutinho is the most obviously attributable to Gerrard; the other two are at best collaborations no? And as much as I want Phil to succeed he's hardly been an unalloyed triumph of a signing.

Better than Heskey though.

[Hookeysmith]

We've got Gerrard to moan about now, we can leave MON behind!

The football was shit, but not going to knock signing Kamara, Coutinho and Carlos. At least our owners now seem to realise the right time to act.

Forgive me as i do not follow a lot of football outside of the Prem but are we in danger of making Carlos one of those players that thought of as being better the less he plays?

He was as abysmal as all the others in that opener at Bournemouth and i think i could of defended against the powder puffs of Everton when he got injured.

I do not know much of his reputation but he is mentioned on here as being the next saviour for us and i have yet to see any evidence of it

[pauliewalnuts]

...because someone from his call centre was about the only person he could find that would be ok with MON being the real power at the club.

That's exactly it.

Nobody who really knew what they were doing would have put up with MON.

[pauliewalnuts]

We've got Gerrard to moan about now, we can leave MON behind!

The football was shit, but not going to knock signing Kamara, Coutinho and Carlos. At least our owners now seem to realise the right time to act.

Forgive me as i do not follow a lot of football outside of the Prem but are we in danger of making Carlos one of those players that thought of as being better the less he plays?

He was as abysmal as all the others in that opener at Bournemouth and i think i could of defended against the powder puffs of Everton when he got injured.

I do not know much of his reputation but he is mentioned on here as being the next saviour for us and i have yet to see any evidence of it

In as much as seeing him as the next saviour (which nobody really does tbh) is over the top, so is judging a player over 1.5 games for us.

[OCD]

Let's see what he's like with Emery's coaching. Not sure how many opportunities he'll get between now and the end of the season. We play a high line and rely on playing teams offside and Mings/Konsa have been really good at that. I don't see us changing that partnership so early into Carlos' recovery. I see him being used more as a sub when we're defending a lead and want a third centre back.

[Risso]

It's impossible to know how Carlos will turn out, or how he'd have played this season if he hadn't been injured. But I do know he was the main man in a defence that was the third best in Europe that season, so the ability is certainly there.

[LeeB]

We've got Gerrard to moan about now, we can leave MON behind!

The football was shit, but not going to knock signing Kamara, Coutinho and Carlos. At least our owners now seem to realise the right time to act.

Forgive me as i do not follow a lot of football outside of the Prem but are we in danger of making Carlos one of those players that thought of as being better the less he plays?

He was as abysmal as all the others in that opener at Bournemouth and i think i could of defended against the powder puffs of Everton when he got injured.

I do not know much of his reputation but he is mentioned on here as being the next saviour for us and i have yet to see any evidence of it

In as much as seeing him as the next saviour (which nobody really does tbh) is over the top, so is judging a player over 1.5 games for us.

1.5 games under carpethead too