The post in question is this one on Aston Villa Underground. I've never visited the blog before so I don't know about the normal standard of content, but unfortunately it wasn't a great start. I'll reproduce in full and respond to each section at a time. The post is about Martin O'Neill and was centred around him not being the standard of Football manager he gets credit for.
Martin O’Neill: The Truth #avfc #safc
Poor old Sunderland. First Aston Villa take Darren Bent off their hands and then they have the genuine misfortune of signing away a three year contract to Martin O’Neill. Times must be very hard indeed up north, where money is tight, the logical step being to appoint a manager of MON’s calibre, famed for his ability to bring top 6 finishes on a shoestring.
Or rather not.
Sarcasm and banter aside, there is a purpose to this much pondered piece. And that is to awaken Sunderland fans to the fact that they have not pulled off a coup. Further, it should also serve to remind Villa fans that everything wasn’t all so rosy under O’Neill.
Actually, it pretty much was. There was some discontent about the decision to prioritise chasing the Champions League spot over a Europa League game by playing a mostly reserve side in Moscow, one I and many others fully agreed with at the time, but aside from that I can't remember anything outside of exciting times chasing the big boys with the big money.
Indeed, his actions, inability to take the team forward, astonishing waste of vast sums of the clubs/Randy Lerners fortune, brought our historic and beloved club to its knees.
Wow. Where to start with this one. Inability to take the team forward? So constantly improving season on season isn't taking the team forward? As for the astonishing waste of Lerners [sic] fortune, well to any reasonable person, there was no waste and thus it wasn't astonishing. The vast majority of players bought improved the team and helped Villa to climb the table, challenge for the Champions League spots and to challenge for cups. I can see that by this end of this rebuttal I'm going to have to make a list of players bought by O'Neill and their sale price. Taking that business into context with the overhaul required of the squad, I think it'll become apparent that it was mostly shrewd business.
Need I mark one Emile Heskey as the principle evidence to those whom dissent? Heskey, the purchase made to drive Villa’s Champions League ambitions? The prosecution rests.
Need I mark any of Ashley Young, Stewart Downing, James Milner as principle evidence to the contrary? I'm not even sure what the point is here, but Emile Heskey was bought for £3.5m from Wigan while still playing as England's no.9. John Carew had become interested in other parts of life outside of Football and was regularly injured and there's nothing to suggest that Lerner would allow any more than £3.5m at the time. In fact, a quote I remember a quote from the time (but which I'm unable to find now) about that January transfer window was along the lines of "The chairman would like to run the club a little more within its means" when he was asked about the January kitty. We'd also spent quite a bit of money in the summer on Carlos Cuellar (SFW player of the year), James Milner (now plying his trade at the richest club in the world), Luke Young (Middlesbrough fans' favourite and aptly named 'Mr Reliable'), Brad Friedel, Curtis Davies, Steve Sidwell and Nicky Shorey. The latter 3 were less successful than the others in the long run, but each had a pedigree which made them good buys at the time. Curtis Davies performed so well for Villa so as to receive an England call-up and was being talked about as a realistic replacement for Rio Ferdinand, Steve Sidwell was the best player at Reading a few seasons previous which led to Chelsea buying him, and Nicky Shorey has had England call-ups and is now playing well for West Bromwich Albion.
I have the utmost respect for Sunderland fans. But beware of Martin O’Neill. He possesses a rhetoric that is deceptive, has built a faux brand of trustworthiness, impassioned loyalty and every other sentence will remind you how “delighted” he is. Did I mention how humble he is? He’ll be sure to mention that as well.
But nothing that ever goes wrong will ever be his fault. Ever.
So he's slightly eccentric? Is that what we're accusing him of here? As for the suggestion that he shifts blame away from himself, I can honestly say I've never thought he was anything other than honest and respectful.
Man motivator? Rejuvenater of players? Quite the opposite - O’Neill will ostracise and overlook the very players he has bought if they don’t immediately buy into the philosophy and pray at the O’Neill altar. And whilst erratic dressing room harmony is less than desirable to any team wanting to progress, it is also detrimental to the balance sheet to harbour numerous expensive “misfits” along the way.
More subterfuge. Surely it's in his best interest to make players he has bought a success at the club he manages? Why would he ostracise or overlook them without good reason? There are always reports of managers losing the dressing room, and with O'Neill coming from the Clough school of Football, I wouldn't doubt he would demand respect from his players. Having a massive interest in Criminology probably helps with the psychology, too.
Nigel Reo-Coker, Luke Moore, Stephen Warnock, Stephen Ireland, Steve Sidwell, Gary Cahill, Thomas Sorenson, Moustapha Salifou, Shaun Maloney…but this is not a game of lists.
A list looks an impressive way to back up a theory, but let's examine them, shall we?
- Reo-Coker - Got into a 'contretemps' with the manager. Allegedly rolling around the floor. A player challenged the manager and the manager responded. After this the player was sent to the reserves for a few weeks. I'm not sure what was wrong with that. Any show of weakness would have the players exerting more authority, not a good situation.
- Luke Moore - Err, what? Not a very good player who was sold on very early because he wasn't good enough.
- Stephen Warnock - A dip in form resulted in him being dropped. Again not sure on the problem here.
- Stephen Ireland - Really? The author must be really angry to blame Martin O'Neill for shutting out a player who was at Manchester City at the time.
- Steve Sidwell - Did a job, not the most expensive buy. When we had better options, he was on the bench. That's how Football works. Simple enough for most people to grasp, but to some people, anything can be used to criticise.
- Gary Cahill - Was behind the excellent (at the time) pairing of Curtis Davies and Martin Laursen. Was too impatient to wait for his chance so went to Bolton. Had he stayed I'm very confident he would be England's first choice centre back by now, rather than getting bit parts.
- Thomas Sorensen - To be replaced with Brad Friedel. Or isn't the manager allowed to improve the team?
- Moustapha Salifou - This is getting to the point where I'm not sure what the author is actually complaining about. If a player costs little, shows promise and is worth a punt, then when they aren't in the first team when they don't perform. Then when they aren't in the first team, apparently the manager is at fault for leaving them out? How does that work?
- Shaun Maloney - Got homesick.
The myth of working to a budget was the biggest fallacy blown out of the water by O’Neill’s Aston Villa project. Whilst developing an exciting counter attacking team, there was never a move to add the personalities or personas that would take the squad to the next level. This was not about achieving success; O’Neill didn’t want to have the limelight shifted to a bigger star. In short, he must be the big fish. This is the same man that swapped Gary Cahill for Zat Knight afterall - he probably can’t wait to work with Titus Bramble.
I've never seen it claimed that Martin O'Neill was supposed to be working on a budget. O'Neill made quite a public move for Wesley Sneijder at one point, but the player decided to stay at Real. The claims above are blatantly false due to the big money deals for Downing and Milner, and the lack of a £20-30m next-level player surely should be the fault of the chairman, if someone decides it's a criticism at all.
Now, there can be the argument that the Alex Ferguson’s of this world have consistently maintained this ruthless approach - as in instances where Beckham’s influence extended beyond that of the managers he was shipped out. But in reality Ferguson has managed the worlds best players, to great and repeated successes. Rooney, Giggs, Stam, Keane, Yorke, Ronaldo and co. The difference is that Ferguson is a winner and O’Neill wants to give the perception that he is on the same par.
Everyone wants to be successful as a manager. O'Neill has never claimed more success than he has earned. What's the point being made?
And thus O’Neill is a victim of his own hype - because quite simply he isn’t that good. A procurer of success? Or more accurately a perennial failure and nearly man? He won’t be bringing up the effort of qualifying for the Europa League beforefielding a team of kids in Moscow having already beaten Ajax. Tricky thing reality checking on you like that. But in all seriousness, such failure was and is inexcusable for a man who holds himself in such high esteem. He did all he has promised Sunderland with Villa, before abandoning it, along with all sense and reason.
Ad nauseam..
And under the notion of “value for money” Villa fans were under the impression for his entire tenure that we could only attract/afford the Heskey’s of this world; that we must focus and develop the Ashley Young’s and feel hard done to when they just missed out - or were sold on to our rivals. The belief still holds true for some that they had their heads turned by bigger things - well of course they did, with no reasonable prospect of O’Neill being capable of managing the team to anything higher or willing to add the faces who could make it happen.
The very idea we were operating to a limited “budget”. This was utter rubbish - there were ample funds, it was just that Martin casually overlooked that he had personally frittered it away on utter dross (Curtis Davies, Nicky Shorey, Habib Beye, James Collins…but less of these lists, facts don’t sit well afterall).
Those players were not dross, as shown above. And he didn't personally fritter it away, players were bought and sold with the chairman's consent. As shown time and again, if a 'next-level' player is to be tempted to Birmingham to a current mid-table club like Villa, they will only come for massive wages. So to get these players we need to pay them a lot in wages. But it's O'Neill's fault for paying too much in wages. He really couldn't win, could he?
Which is why Villa’s purchase of Darren Bent in January 2011 underlines O’Neill’s failure. And it’s glaring. Yes, it was a vital £24m purchase as Villa lurched in the 2010/11 campaign - but it evidenced that the funds were there - and either he couldn’t be trusted (think Heskey) or he was a coward. Either notion will suffice.
Really no. Bent was purely purchased to save Villa from being relegated. The chairman correctly realised it was better to spend £18m on Bent, being able to mostly recoup it later, rather than being relegated. Under normal circumstances, those funds wouldn't have been released. It wasn't simply that the manager wouldn't spend the money (although if he had, it would have been another stick to beat him with).
It underlines how close Villa were - and how O’Neill’s stubbornness and inability to produce results at the very highest level, where key decisions matter, were the root cause and obstacle. Villa needed the Bent goals to elevate the squad in 2009 - but O’Neill’s refusal to make the big call, take on the potential ego of a star player and risk his own reputation should tell anyone all they need to know. We needed Bent - what O’Neill chose was Heskey. And he didn’t join Sunderland for £24m I recall (£15m).
This whole premise of O'Neill choosing to buy Heskey over Bent falls down when the evidence shows that funds weren't available.
Sympathisers will refer to how the cheque book was taken from him at the point he needed backing - we will never know
But the whole argument above relies on that. Now the author is revising the theory. It was apparently definitely, absolutely, positively, that we had the money, but O'Neill wouldn't spend it, because he was afraid of a bigger star than him, but now it's changed to we will never know. So I've read all of this for nothing?
And with that, I can't be bothered to refute any more. The rest is just more of the same diatribe, same tired, bigoted, contradictory arguments banded around by Villa fans who are still bitter about O'Neill walking out on the club 5 days before the season starts. No-one outside of the group involved and the tribunal knows what actually happened, but interestingly O'Neill won the tribunal..
Welcome back Martin; we’ll look forward to seeing you on the 21st April 2012.
I don't doubt that he'll leave the happier.
