You know the way when your with a bird for a while and you just get sick of her. You concentrate on her negative traits and they irritate the fuck out of you so much that you forget what was actually good about her in the first place.
I’m sick of Martin O’Neill MBE and his putrid football style. He has had the money to put Villa into the Champions League but has failed. He has failed to get Villa higher in the EPL than Brian Little and even David O’Leary. They had only a fraction of his budget
O’Neill’s trouble with Villa, as far as I can see, is that he never signed an attacking midfield player or trequartista who can open up a team with a little bit of skill or vision. They don’t have anyone really to slide through a cute pass or whatever. They seem to be all about getting it wide and whipping crosses in and are very hard running and committed but just don’t have that missing piece of quality.
He plays a stopper Carlos Cuellar at full back for nigh on two seasons despite the fact he cant pass the ball or do fuck all. Luke Young one of the best right backs in the EPL is on the bench. He plays the same players into the ground week in week out. He doesnt rotate players so by March our best players are fucked. He bought Emile Heskey and plays him repeatedly despite him adding zero to our attacking play. Our midfielders dont seem instructed to get on the ball. He bought two central midfielders who are not comfortable on the ball Reo Coker, Sidwell for about 12m in total. He buys almost solely overpriced players from the EPL or SPL. John Carew the exception but that was a swap with Baros instigated by Lyon. With the exception of Gabby he has brought no youth players through, likes to sell them and replace them with muck. The squad is lobsided in terms of personnel as MON has no strategic vision of how he wants the side to play. Tactically, substitutions etc he is weak He has had his chance.
But yes we needed a deep lying centre forward to partner Gabby or Carew last year but he went for a typical useless British bulldog Heskey. Reckon Ashley Young could have filled in there but we badly needed a player with guile who could also chip in with goals. MON will point to the Cup runs this year as progress but we had incredibly soft draws. In any case, Little won a league Cup, Gregory got us to an FA Cup final. Their reigns came to natural ends and so has MON’s.
Would agree totally with that, Villa’s players look wrecked come March, squad isnt deep enough and O Neill is far too cautious in mixing up his team. We see it every year. Time to try a new approach.
Tony Mowbray may well be availale and would probably fancy a return to the black country. Would make a nice symmetry with one former Celtic manager replacing another and continue the recent history of managers being in charge of Celtic and Villa at various stages of their career.
Might be alright as youth team coach but we have a good youth staff since before MON’s time. He will go to Ipswich I reckon.
Hard to know who Villa might go for. Still reckon its an attractive proposition if Lerner gets the cheque book out for a new manager. A lot of deadwood to be cut now aswell. Laurent Blanc might see it as a stepping stone.
On the Cuellar / Young thing, others have said that O’Neill’s very averse to changing his preferred team and rarely rotates the squad. I’m not completely sure what’s behind that but he’s generally very loyal to players that have gone the distance for him. It might be a bit crass to say it but Young’s half brother died suddenly in August and he went off on compassionate leave for around 4-6 weeks and missed a chunk of games. I wouldn’t actually be surprised if O’Neill was taking that into consideration. As others have said, their game is about working hard, pressing and so on and that surely takes its toll on players as the season develops so the general point about not using the squad fully is fair enough in my opinion.
Young missing the start of the season was presumably the reason we signed Habib Beye. Remember him. A very good right back for Newcastle for a few years. Beye was doing alright but Cuellar was shunted in place of him after he got suspended. Collins got injured there for a while and Cuellar came into centre half where he was doing alright next to Dunne. Luke Young got his place back and was playing very well. Collins return from injury left MON in a bit of a pickle. Cuellar hadnt done too much wrong to get dropped but Collins and Dunne were a more solid pairing. Low and behold Warnock gets injured so he is able to shunt Luke Young across and move Cuellar to right back. But once Warnock came back Young was dropped and hasnt been seen since. MON pulled a similar stunt last season with disastrous results. I dont mind a manager making a mistake but MON doesnt learn from his evidently. Cuellar is absolutely shocking at right back. But against weaker teams in particular where we have more possession you have got to have decent footballers at full back. This was evident last season too but again MON failed to pay heed.
I actually rate Luke Young very highly. Think he has been the best right back I can remember at Villa in about 15 years so I cant understand or accept his treatment over the past 2 years. Fabio Capello was begging him to return to the England squad not too long ago. Habib Beye always impressed me at Newcastle also but MON puts a stopper in the team ahead of them both.
Another thing, no player in their right mind would come to Villa unless they were pretty assured of a first eleven place. The treatment of Delph this season beggars belief.
Is Luke Young really that much better than Cellular, i thought he’s been pretty good anytime i’ve seen Villa. I presume MON is going for having as many good “defenders” across the back as possible. Young is good going forward, is he as good a defender as Carlos though?
Wouldn’t have thought there was much between them. Its the lack of creativity that hurts them the most.
I was watching some of the Villa v Wolves game at the weekend and it seemed that the Villa fans were groaning everytime Cuellar touched the ball. It seemed really noticable at one stage.
Its not really his fault. He is a hopeless right back. There was the second leg of the CCup semi final against Blackburn where he truly embarrassed himself.
I watched the Wolves game aswell but on the Villa forums they have some right stories about MON’s antics that day on the touchline. Luke Young was sent to warm up at one stage in the second half and the Holte End gave him a standing ovation. He was promptly told the sit back on the bench again. Same thing happened with Delfouneso the young striker - he got a huge reception and was told to sit down. MON then made two panic subsitutions. Marc Albrighton a young winger came on for Dunne who was injured (but played yesterday and made a show of himself). The players on the pitch had no idea what was going on as Villa already had two wingers on so Downing came briefly infield. MON realised some mistake was made and then sent on Sidwell a shit defensive midfielder for Downing. Both subs who came on had little or no warm up done. Cuellar and Heskey were left on till the end as a kind of show of defiance. On his way off the field MON started cupping his ear as he was getting justifiable stick from the fans.
I had an underage manager like that. If he heard lads in the stand say move that player or this player he would do the opposite just to spite them.
O’Neill can be a very frustrating manager but I think you’re getting carried away with yourself there. It’s highly unlikely that he made substitutions to spite the fans, it’s amazing to think he’s been in any way successful if that’s his motivation.
You do also believe that Trap isn’t picking Andy Reid to spite the Irish media though so maybe you do genuinely suspect that professional managers are that petty.
