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ok. im looking through claret and blue glasses, but the signing of martin o neil must count for something. villa have had a decent pre season and o neil wouldn't come to villa without promises of a wad of cash. so i think a few speculative bets may be worth a look, if there still available in the morning.

ladbrokes 14/1 villa top 6

coral 7/2 villa top 10

most bookies villa to finish top 'without big 4' each way 33/1 (1/4 odds 1-2-3). this looks to me the most interesting in a mediocre league. if you spend £20 (£10ew) you would get back £92.50 if villa finished 7th, or £432 if they finish 5th

fill your boots and get behind the mighty villa. yey

as much as i love saint martin, i think i will keep my boots empty! ;)

are s**t

and looks like Martin O'neil takes on another job he really can fail in.....

So did he fail at wycombe, leicester and celtic then ?

sorry... should have said ...


Though I guess you make take issue with that statement too...

Just a bit confused by it. Don't know about the others, but ask John Barnes & Kenny Dalglish about failing at Celtic (and they won a trophy when they were in charge).

Okay, in his first two jobs there were absolutely no expectations over what they needed to achieve and so when he managed to do okay with those teams he came out with an enhanced reputation, and fair enough.

In his job at celtic, while I agree there are far higher expectations there was only really one opposition during his time in charge and there has always been a swing in which of those is the most dominatant for a decent period of time - I think the reference about Barnes says far more about his ability than O'neils, you only really have to watch JB on channel 5 to see he should not be let near a football team!

This time round he is supposed to have had the chance to manage Newcastle, Middlesbrough and Sunderland, where although there could be a never ending debate on big club small club in comparison to Villa there is undoubtably more expectation and pressure on the jobs than Villa - It just seems to me that he takes easy options. I'm not doubting that he is a good manager (although as I have said on previos threads I do think he is overrated) but is he ever going to let his abilities be put on trial and take a chance?

Agree 100% with rooky re O'neill, he has been offered top jobs on numerous occasions, including the England job.  IMO his reputation as a manager cannot be truly judged until he puts his neck on the line and takes a "top" job.

If he does go to Villa and they get a mid table finish, people will say he has done a good job .... and as poor as villa are, there is too much dross in the premier league this season for them to be relegation candidates.

So as rooky says, its win win for O'neill, no great expectations , and no real fear of relegation.

Kev is talking rubbish, no change there then  :D

I know from a very good mutual friend that Martin would have jumped at the chance of the England job

He attended an interivew and was faced across the table by twelve suits from amateur FA county assocations

He was asked

"how do you deal with celebrity players?

his response

"no different from any other player"

this went down badly

he was asked

"will you take Shearer as your England coach?"

his reply

"no, i choose the coaching team"

this went down badly too


He was not offered the job


On a couple of other occasions since leaving Celtic he has had the chance to go elsewhere but of course he declined due to his wife's serious illness, which is why he left Celtic in the first place. I am sure he could have got back into mamangement asap if he had wanted to but quite rightly his priorities were elsewhere


He is an absolute genius at motivating players and fantastic at signing medium price players who then improve. His coaching team, especially Steve Walford, execute his plans brilliantly


I think he will do well at Vila, albeit I agree with Kev that he is in a "win win"

Ultimately I expect him to succeed Ferguson at Man U for example, and will undoubtedly show the narrow minded people at the FA what they were missing when they appointed a yes man in McClaren 

and rooky, did ok at Leicester

We are crap, always have been, always will be

except under MON when we were top ten of the premiership three seasons on the trot, won the league cup twice and he bought excellent value like Lennon, Izzett, Savage, Elliott and the like for combined fees of well less than £2m all on crowds of 20,000 in a bad bad ground at the time

Sensational stuff

Since he left Leicester have been relegated twice, suffered Peter Taylor, gone into administration and out again


His achievements were more than ok!

Okay he did well at Leicester then, but it doesn't change my point in that I have said he is a good manager which those factors are taken into account. The fact is that he wont be making those decisions at a club like Man U, being a good wheeler dealer really isnt on the job description of the biggest clubs.

I appreciate that you may have a better knowledge of him as a person and his choices, but I am doubting the significance of the questions quoted, even if our inept FA did actually ask such tripe.

Indeed it has been well documented his reasons for wanting time away and if we believe reports then perhaps his circumstances may be changing - but surely he would wait for a job to match his reputation.

Don't forget got knockedd out of the cup by Wycombe ;)

I don't really have a view on his bigger clubs but he will always be a legend in Wycombe.  He took us from being an average non-league club to a decent division two/league one side.  He bought out the best in all his players here, just look at Steve Guppy.  He moved from us to Newcastle where he made zero impact, spent a couple of years at Port Vale and then moved to Leicester and got capped by England.  All our managers since, Alan Smith, Gregory, Lawrie Sanchez,(the woeful) Tony Adams, and even Gorman have all been under the shadow of MON.

Rooky I agree with most of what you said but he did much more than just OK with us.  While here we won the F.A trophy twice narrowly missed out on promotion to the league and then got promoted the next season before going up to division two through the play-offs, that's a pretty good record IMHO.  

But still that was way back when and at a much lower.  i guess only time will tell if he can do it at the highest level.
Having said all that

With new owners and some fine young players (albeit with a lot of deadwood to be cleared out)..I am thinking of Ridgewell etc...and presumably a transfer budget to match I am assuming that MON thinks this is a big opportunity

Lots of support, nice stadium, young players, transfer budget etc... perhaps this is a job that can enhance hsi reputation further

I don't think there is much for him to lose with it


Finally, as is sometimes the way with autocratic figures running clubs, when they leave....in this case Doug Ellis....quite often this can have a very liberating experience on the whole organisation...i expect MON can then do as he wishes and have the control over decisions on the footballing side that he would require in any job

Thus my reason for quoting the questions earlier were that the England job wouldn't have been given to him on his own terms, it would have come with strings attached...as he was unprepared to compromise then he was deemed unsuitable by the suits.

I regard this as a terrible missed opportunity for our national side.

He hasn't had an offer froma big club (as the 3/4 of them have settled managers). Hardly a fair condemnation of his attitude if he hasn't had a chance to do it at a big (in English eyes)  club is it?

Re England job he has come out and said it live on TV in front of Shearer. He was definitely interested in the job, but too much his own man for the FA (much like Clough).

Biggest is not a definitive term... if I would have said one of the big clubs you'd have a point. Undoubtedly Newcastle, Middlesbrough and sunderland are three of the biggest jobs in the country in terms of support, coverage, pressure and expectations which highlighted my point.

Never the less its all a deviation from my initial post.

Please!

erm... about 96 clubs in the PL and football leagues... all those would be in the top 20.... the fist one without doubt in the top 5 on the terms i mention above

I am still not sure how Shearer gets dragged into it... he has always said he didnt want anything to do with management this year. I cant believe his name would pop up if they had asked him first.

The FA were negotiating with him to be part of a new England coaching team before they appointed the new manager

Subsequently he decided to stay at newcastle


Hence the questions of MON and Shearer on various world cup pundit panels

did you  mean to say "three of the biggest jobs in the north east" rooky?

No, see the post above.

More people watch two of those three at home than the champions of our country. you are right in the north east being a thriving footbal area that consistantly produces quality footballers

ok remind me, how many trophies have these  three teams won in the last 40 years? is it two?

yawn... lets go back to my earlier post about the big club debate... its never f***** ending so lets not go there. Please dont be so narrow minded to think that trophies are the only measure of a big football club, trophies as a measure of success perhaps. yes we'd all love them but there arent enough to go round. What also gives you the right to limit the period of time to assess a club over a given period of time?

A clubs history is part of what makes a big club. (amuses me the short sightedness of some sets of supporters)
A clubs support, either week in week out at a stadium or a world wide following, is a great measure of a big club
A club that attracts the top names in the game at a given period of time is a big club
A club that is marked for various performances and styles as well as trophies is a big club
A club that has the financial power to compete with any club in the world in terms of player wages is a measure of a big club
God I could go on but i'm hoping the ounce of sense on this issue might prevail!

For the record... the answer to your question was three I believe

Rooky,

Sunderland and Middlesboro are not big clubs. Newcastles average home gate 15 years ago was 11,000. Yes, Newcastle are a top 6 club now, but the other two are no where near the same stature as Newcastle. Sunderland have a big stadium, but that doesnt mean shit, they are a yo-yo club and I class them as big as Leicester/Derby etc... with Middlesboro being the same size as Bolton/Birmingham City etc...


I class a big club as being in the top 20 clubs in the WORLD!!! Not the English league. :D

yawn! do you think that sunderland and middleboro suit the above criteria?

Nem, what was Newcastle average crowd in the 1950's?
 
I'll tell you it was bigger than it is now - a fine example of my point. Also there arent many clubs who have there name on the trophy more times than NUFC.

Agreed about your big club point

I have no desire to 'big' (lol) either of them up... or continue the never ending debate

so we are all agreed then, middlesboro and sunderland are shite and martin oniell is a saint? ;D

Yes

Unless Ellis goes, O'Neil will be gone in 12months

p.s I hope Roeder does a 'Roeder' and get Newcastle relegated... :D ;goodvevil;

Fancy a wager?

Em what was the original point concerning MON before the detritus about defining big clubs appeared? I think MON has proven himself at a big club- you may not rate Celtic currently  but in terms of attendance, revenue, trophies, European runs and history, we urinate on Sunderland, Newcastle and Villa from a great height and MON was a great success there.

Watching the his unveiling at Villa gave me a really uncomfortable feeling in my stomach, kinda the same when you see your ex your still hung up on out kissing another guy- an ugly and smelly guy at that  ;goodvevil;

Not Newcastle.

think the bet here is a lay instead.

Aston villa to finish bottom think i saw it at 4-1 somewhere that they would be bottom three lay the crap out of that