The Managers: Martin O’Neill, 1995-2000

[Fox92]

10 minutes ago, volpeazzurro said:

O'Neil had far far less to work with than Rodgers who had an excellent squad of players in situ when he first arrived from Celtic. 

Also, relatively speaking, Rodgers has spent far more in the transfer market and relatively speaking again, has not bought as wisely as O'Neil did who's achievements on paper look a little lower, in reality were far better for what he had at his disposal just imo. 

Why are you comparing two managers who have delivered us trophies? Appreciate both.

 

But what I will say is it was amazing O'Neill bought Lennon, Savage, Izzet, Elliott, etc from lower leagues (or in Izzet's case a reserve team) and made them good Premier League players. Imagine us signing a League One midfielder now

[coolhandfox]

9 minutes ago, Fox92 said:

Why are you comparing two managers who have delivered us trophies? Appreciate both.

 

But what I will say is it was amazing O'Neill bought Lennon, Savage, Izzet, Elliott, etc from lower leagues (or in Izzet's case a reserve team) and made them good Premier League players. Imagine us signing a League One midfielder now

Because people need to find new way to put BR down after the turn around of form.

[volpeazzurro]

46 minutes ago, Fox92 said:

Why are you comparing two managers who have delivered us trophies? Appreciate both.

 

But what I will say is it was amazing O'Neill bought Lennon, Savage, Izzet, Elliott, etc from lower leagues (or in Izzet's case a reserve team) and made them good Premier League players. Imagine us signing a League One midfielder now

Because it was a point/opinion made regarding another person's post. It's a football forum, it's what happens. Neither does it imply anyone wasn't please with winning anything. There'll always be differing opinions regarding who was a better team, manager  player, it's a natural occurrence. 

[Corky]

56 minutes ago, Fox92 said:

Why are you comparing two managers who have delivered us trophies? Appreciate both.

 

But what I will say is it was amazing O'Neill bought Lennon, Savage, Izzet, Elliott, etc from lower leagues (or in Izzet's case a reserve team) and made them good Premier League players. Imagine us signing a League One midfielder now

We did sign JJ from a League One team quite recently, to be fair.

[Sampson]

1 hour ago, volpeazzurro said:

O'Neil had far far less to work with than Rodgers who had an excellent squad of players in situ when he first arrived from Celtic. 

Also, relatively speaking, Rodgers has spent far more in the transfer market and relatively speaking again, has not bought as wisely as O'Neil did who's achievements on paper look a little lower, in reality were far better for what he had at his disposal just imo. 

Christ, this old chestnut is back again!

 

Again, re-read what I wrote. It was just responding simply to league finishes someone saying we hadn’t finished top half 4 years running but I hadn’t realised it was a very old post from years ago before we’d actually topped it.
 

It was simply an achievement listing the league finishes, nothing to do with what the managers “had to work with” 
 

Absolutely no one was comparing O’Neill to Rodgers, you’re arguing against an argument you yourself have invented.

 

Wish people would stop bumping this old post and going on some random argument that has nothing to do with anything that is actually said.

[Chrysalis]

Did an awesome job, managing us back in the days we had a very limited budget and actually achieved what he did whilst been the one that got us promoted.

[Manley Farrington-Brown]

And O'Neill was one of the few managers to listen to the fans and act on their wishes.

Ok, it took him over four years, but he did f**k off, just as a lot of fans once asked him to.

[Mendi]

Anyone buying his new book ?

[urban.spaceman]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/p0dhx5jl

[KFS]

Probably stick his Ben Foster podcast on tomorrow 

[Fox92]

Anybody see his Q+A on twitter?

 

A few City questions answered. Most interestingly for me that he had been promised some of the Heskey money in the summer and that our top 10 finishes highlight we were a couple strong additions away from a CL place.

[Sampson]

21 hours ago, Fox92 said:

Anybody see his Q+A on twitter?

 

A few City questions answered. Most interestingly for me that he had been promised some of the Heskey money in the summer and that our top 10 finishes highlight we were a couple strong additions away from a CL place.

I think that’s very optimistic. We had a decent side, but only 3 teams made the CL back then and we were a lot more than a couple of players away from CL finishes. It certainly would’ve taken more than a couple of additions to realistically compete with those ManUtd, Arsenal, Liverpool, Chelsea, Leeds and Newcastle sides really.

 

Our defence was always very much ageing when O’Neill left. Walsh was past it and not starting anymore and Elliott was on the decline too. Think we were incredibly leaky and conceded almost 60 league goals or something in that 99-00 season.

 

Taylor wasted a lot of money and was a terrible appointment to do the rebuild job, but I always thought the defence needed a sizeable rebuilding job in 2000 and O’Neill got out at the glass ceiling  for us at the time really. Think his reputation here likely would’ve been damaged had he stayed longer.

Edited 8 December 2022 by Sampson

[CosbehFox]

People tend to forgot the number of flops O'Neill bought as well!

[Rain King]

37 minutes ago, CosbehFox said:

People tend to forgot the number of flops O'Neill bought as well!

Fenton, Gunnlaugsson, Eadie all cost a lot at the time for what they delivered.

Eadie heavily restricted by injuries obviously.

[Fox92]

56 minutes ago, CosbehFox said:

People tend to forgot the number of flops O'Neill bought as well!

Of course. But every manager in the World has bought flops but success sort of earns you that right.

[Fox92]

1 hour ago, Sampson said:

I think that’s very optimistic. We had a decent side, but only 3 teams made the CL back then and we were a lot more than a couple of players away from CL finishes. It certainly would’ve taken more than a couple of additions to realistically compete with those ManUtd, Arsenal, Liverpool, Chelsea, Leeds and Newcastle sides really.

 

Our defence was always very much ageing when O’Neill left. Walsh was past it and not starting anymore and Elliott was on the decline too. Think we were incredibly leaky and conceded almost 60 league goals or something in that 99-00 season.

 

Taylor wasted a lot of money and was a terrible appointment to do the rebuild job, but I always thought the defence needed a sizeable rebuilding job in 2000 and O’Neill got out at the glass ceiling  for us at the time really. Think his reputation here likely would’ve been damaged had he stayed longer.

Tbf he did say the financial side of the league was starting to take shape at that time, but someone asked the question because Taylor went top of the League with O'Neill's squad.

 

If he'd had stayed I doubt his reputation would have been damaged. Not at all. He was a good manager and I'd have trusted him to rebuild the team. Look at how he rebuilt Celtic and made them a force again, even taking them to the Europa League final.

[CosbehFox]

33 minutes ago, Fox92 said:

Of course. But every manager in the World has bought flops but success sort of earns you that right.

Don’t doubt it but just saying that the money from Heskey’s departure might not have been used as well as we like to think. 
 

Gunnlaugsson should be up there as one of our worst ever top flight players. 

[Sampson]

4 hours ago, Fox92 said:

Tbf he did say the financial side of the league was starting to take shape at that time, but someone asked the question because Taylor went top of the League with O'Neill's squad.

 

If he'd had stayed I doubt his reputation would have been damaged. Not at all. He was a good manager and I'd have trusted him to rebuild the team. Look at how he rebuilt Celtic and made them a force again, even taking them to the Europa League final.

People forget that great starts to seasons was always always really typical of us under O’Neill anyway to be fair, so even though we were never made it to the top, it certainly wasn’t unusual for us to be 5th in the league or something in October/November time. It was kind of indicative of his sides anyway.

We’d come flying out the blocks and start the season really well. Then would be poor over the winter months and often go on lengthy winless runs between November-March and drop down to the bottom half, before ending the season really well and climbing back to mid-table.
 

It’s often quite typical of PL clubs with a good XI but no real depth. Brighton have been a similar modern example in the last couple of seasons too. Bolton under Sam Allardyce often had a similar seasonal U-curve too.

[smudger63]

8 hours ago, Sampson said:

People forget that great starts to seasons was always always really typical of us under O’Neill anyway to be fair, so even though we were never made it to the top, it certainly wasn’t unusual for us to be 5th in the league or something in October/November time. It was kind of indicative of his sides anyway.

We’d come flying out the blocks and start the season really well. Then would be poor over the winter months and often go on lengthy winless runs between November-March and drop down to the bottom half, before ending the season really well and climbing back to mid-table.
 

It’s often quite typical of PL clubs with a good XI but no real depth. Brighton have been a similar modern example in the last couple of seasons too. Bolton under Sam Allardyce often had a similar seasonal U-curve too.

Although we were actually 4th in the league at the start of March of that season after beating Liverpool 2-0. That is what was so bizarre about us then losing to Wycombe in the quarter final of the FA Cup the following week! From that point we couldn't win a game, something which carried on into the following season  and saw us relegated of course. Had O'Neil stayed, I do think we may have been pushing for champions league. Certainly Collymore would have stayed, Lennon wouldn't have followed him to Celtic, and Guppy and other key players wouldn't have been pushed out. The O'Neil team was certainly better than the one that Peter Taylor had somehow managed to get to 4th at the start of March anyway.

[BrummieFOX]

On 28/11/2022 at 11:15, Manley Farrington-Brown said:

And O'Neill was one of the few managers to listen to the fans and act on their wishes.

Ok, it took him over four years, but he did f**k off, just as a lot of fans once asked him to.

Yeh a good point that and an underrated quality. He continued that at Villa too from what my mates say. Just small things like moving the away fans from behind the goal in the North Stand and giving it back to home fans. Added signs at Aston Train station saying Aston for Villa Park. All help with that connection to the manager/players I think.

 

He has a new autobiography out. Bought it the old man for Xmas so already lined up reading it after him.

[Muzzy_Larsson]

Talking from a Celtic point of view but absolutely love the man to this day, could still listen to him speak all day and is the greatest Celtic manager I've seen in my lifetime by some distance.

 

Had the pleasure of meeting him once or twice and they say never meet your heroes but he was the exception to this rule, he was brilliant, so friendly and genuinely interested in what he had to say!

 

He was the catalyst for a huge power shift in Glasgow that remains to this day, Celtic have won 16 out of 22 titles since he arrived and probably about 80% of all trophies on offer.

 

We don't call him blessed Martin in Glasgow for nothing.

Edited 9 December 2022 by Muzzy_Larsson

[Fox92]

12 hours ago, Sampson said:

People forget that great starts to seasons was always always really typical of us under O’Neill anyway to be fair, so even though we were never made it to the top, it certainly wasn’t unusual for us to be 5th in the league or something in October/November time. It was kind of indicative of his sides anyway.

We’d come flying out the blocks and start the season really well. Then would be poor over the winter months and often go on lengthy winless runs between November-March and drop down to the bottom half, before ending the season really well and climbing back to mid-table.
 

It’s often quite typical of PL clubs with a good XI but no real depth. Brighton have been a similar modern example in the last couple of seasons too. Bolton under Sam Allardyce often had a similar seasonal U-curve too.

Think he used to be the same at Villa. They used to always seem in the run in for top 4 then fall away.

[CosbehFox]

4 hours ago, BrummieFOX said:

Yeh a good point that and an underrated quality. He continued that at Villa too from what my mates say. Just small things like moving the away fans from behind the goal in the North Stand and giving it back to home fans. Added signs at Aston Train station saying Aston for Villa Park. All help with that connection to the manager/players I think.

 

He has a new autobiography out. Bought it the old man for Xmas so already lined up reading it after him.

Yeah but a lot of Villa didn’t forgive him for the team he put out in Moscow during the UEFA Cup. 

[coolhandfox]

20 hours ago, CosbehFox said:

Don’t doubt it but just saying that the money from Heskey’s departure might not have been used as well as we like to think. 
 

Gunnlaugsson should be up there as one of our worst ever top flight players. 

O'Neill had left before we spent any of the Heskey money.

 

 

[BrummieFOX]

20 minutes ago, CosbehFox said:

Yeah but a lot of Villa didn’t forgive him for the team he put out in Moscow during the UEFA Cup. 

Yeh, they definitely have mixed feelings. That was a ridiculous decision really. Saw the lights of the Top 4..