Liverpool FC Forum

[stmichael]

so i get home last night and hear that martin o'neill has returned to football to manage the poisoned challice that is aston villa and it got me thinking about the guy in general.

opinion seems to be split on this guy. whilst he's been criticised for his somewhat one dimensional style at times, nobody can really argue with his results. he took wycombe into the football league, he won two cups and had 3 top 10 premiership finishes with unfashionable leicester. and whatever you say about scotland being a two horse race every year, the season he went to celtic, they had just finished 20 points behind rangers the previous season and were light years behind. he won the title back in his first season and then went on to win several more trophies and take celtic to the UEFA cup final.

i relate this to liverpool, because i'm sure many of the elder statesman of this forum will remember two years ago at this time, after houllier had been sacked and before anybody really had heard of rafael benitez. many people on here were advocating martin o'neill as being our new manager at the time. others (notably owzat if i remember rightly) didn't think he was up to the job.

now i have to be honest that i'm not a fan of the football that his teams play. as i said before i think he's very one dimensional in that he likes to sign beasts to play at the back and big men upfront. infact if he had arrived that summer i don't think heskey would have been sold as he liked him from his time at leicester. he also advocates playing 3 at the back on a frequent basis which is something that has never led to any success in england down the years.

as far as i see it, the guy's main strength is his motivation and man management skills (sounds like a certain portugese manager doesn't it?). i don't think he's that great tactically but if he can get an extra 10% out of all his players then that will reap success in itself. i know benitez came in and won us the european cup but in all fairness we were domestically dire in that first season. obviously we came on leaps and bounds last season and the style of football improved tenfold. however it's just interesting looking back in hidsight at what could have been. so.....

a) do you rate martin o'neill as a manager? what are his main strengths and weaknesses in your eyes?

b) do you think that the guy is of the standard required to ever manage a top 4 premiership club? or do you think that a club like villa is about his level in that it is a potential sleeping giant that has underachieved and needs picking up?

c) had martin o'neill taken over liverpool as many predicted before rafa came, would you have been happy at the time and where would the club be now in terms of progress?

[66-1120597113]

Nice Post!!

a)Personally i do rate him as a manager yes!
His main strengths are his man managment.The players will respect him totally,he commands that.He is shrewd in the transfer market also.
He injects passion and a will to win into everyone around him and drags every ounce of effort from every single player!

b)This is his big test and time will tell!Lets face it Villa are not a poor team but they are also far from great!The word mediocre just about sums them up.One things for sure they will be a far better team than they have lately when O'Neil gets things running his way.I expect them to loose fewer games now,win more but draw quite a lot and be tough to beat at home!
Its hard to say if O'Neil is of the calibre to manage a top club but one thing is obvious.Everytime he leaves a club he goes only upwards to a bigger one in a bigger league....he only travels one way up athe ladder!!
Saying that maybe the end of his career will be managing N Ireland and he will end on the bottom rung.

c)Id have been happy at the time.In saying that im more than pleased with The C/L and the FA cup.Also delighted with our progress in the EPL.
Could O'Neil have done better??? I dunno and cant answer that!

Good luck to him at Villa,it will be interesting to watch what hes made of and see how the club does now!!
One things for sure,if i was a Villa fan id have a huge smile on my face today!!

[coddy]

(a) No, not highly rated, McGleish's statistics at Rangers have already surpassed O'neill's percentages. I rate him as a half decent manager but not a great one.

(b) well, lets put this into perspective, nobody is expecting Villa to be a top 4 club next season, anywhere in the top half will be an excellent season for them. I'd say O'Neill could do better (Spurs or Bolton for example). But ive heard he likes a challenge so good luck to him.

© No, i didnt want him in. No, i dont think he could do any better.

In Rafa We Trust

[66-1120597113]

(a) No, not highly rated, McGleish's statistics at Rangers have already surpassed O'neill's percentages. I rate him as a half decent manager but not a great one.

(b) well, lets put this into perspective, nobody is expecting Villa to be a top 4 club next season, anywhere in the top half will be an excellent season for them. I'd say O'Neill could do better (Spurs or Bolton for example). But ive heard he likes a challenge so good luck to him.

© No, i didnt want him in. No, i dont think he could do any better.

In Rafa We Trust

Not highly rated???

Hes been successful at every club hes managed!

[66-1112520797]

but one thing is obvious.Everytime he leaves a club he goes only upwards to a bigger one in a bigger league....he only travels one way up athe ladder!!

That bigger league bit covered your @rse, coz Villa aint a bigger club than Celtic. Onwwards and upwards ?

With the likely new funding this will make his job a whole lot easier but it is still make or break time for him IMO. If he works wonders, then yes he could possibly considered to be a very good manager. If not its carry on as you are Martin.

[account deleted by request]

A/ I think he his a good manager who can inspire and motivate players, builds good hard working teams with good team spirit. To be fair to him he has never had the money to build a team that plays good football. I was very surprised that he took the Villa job(Maybe that says something about his ambitions)
He will steady Villa's sinking ship and is just the type of manager that Ellis/new owner would wish for.

B/ Bit harder to answer this one! I expected him to be in the que for the Manc job otherwise the only way he would get in the top 4 would be to build a team that takes him there. Maybe his mouth has cost him a few chances with top clubs.(He does tend to say what he thinks!) He has the ability but whether he will ever get the money to prove it at Villa is doubtful.

c/ I would have been delighted at the time. Realistically I think we would be trophyless and still searching for a replacement for Gerrard (who would have gone). No Alonso, no Momo, no Garcia, no Reina, things would certainly be different! We would have probably signed Ashton(maybe not if Heskey had stayed) and Upson. I think we would be expecting another season of rebuilding and hoping for a top 4 finish instead of hoping for top two with a prayer of first.

Great signing for Villa they must be pleased. Strange signing for O'Neil unless he knows Ellis is definately going. Villa dont have a very good record with managers.

[66-1112520797]

Sorry, just realised MoD this has sweet FA to do with Liverpool, so could you kindly remove it ?

After all your supposed to be setting the example 

[stmichael]

Sorry, just realised MoD this has sweet FA to do with Liverpool

yes it does. i've asked where we would be if he had taken over LFC.

[66-1112520797]

Sorry, just realised MoD this has sweet FA to do with Liverpool

yes it does. i've asked where we would be if he had taken over LFC.

A hypothetcal question, which in reality has sweet Fa to do with Liverpool.

Does it matter where we would be, Rafas manager and O'neil would be nowhere near where Rafa is.

[redmikey]

alot of people on here were calling for o'neil to get the job when GH left

personaly i think the bloke will get the best out his player but aston villa don't have any backing to buy better players or keep any of the one's they produce

A, YES HE IS A GOOD FOOTBALL MANAGER LOVED BY THE FANS AND PLAYERS WHERE EVER HE HAS BEEN, PASSIONATE, SHREWD,TACTICALLY APT

B MAN U WILL BE LOOKING FOR ANOTHER MANAGER SOON, AND IF O'NEIL CAN STABLIZE VILLA BACK TO A TOP 8 CLUB PUSHING FOR EUROPE I RECKON HE WILL GET A CHANCE THERE

C AT THE TIME HE WOULD HAVE BEEN A CASE OF BETTER THE DEVIL YOU KNOW AS VERY FEW PEOPLE KNEW MUCH ABOUT RAFA AND WERE NOT LOOKING FOWARD TO ANOTHER GH, BUT WE WOULD BE NO WHERE NEAR WHERE WE ARE NOW AND WE WOULD HAVE LOST SG AS HE WOULD HAVE SEEN THE BOARDS LIMITED VISION OF OUR FUTURE, BUT THEY DIDN'T HE DIDNT AND WE HAVE THE BEST IN CLUB FOOTBALL AT THE MOMENT AND THE ONLY PERSON CLOSE TO RAFA WOULD HAVE BEEN GUS HIDDIC

good thread BTW

[JC_81]

so i get home last night and hear that martin o'neill has returned to football to manage the poisoned challice that is aston villa and it got me thinking about the guy in general.

opinion seems to be split on this guy. whilst he's been criticised for his somewhat one dimensional style at times, nobody can really argue with his results. he took wycombe into the football league, he won two cups and had 3 top 10 premiership finishes with unfashionable leicester. and whatever you say about scotland being a two horse race every year, the season he went to celtic, they had just finished 20 points behind rangers the previous season and were light years behind. he won the title back in his first season and then went on to win several more trophies and take celtic to the UEFA cup final.

i relate this to liverpool, because i'm sure many of the elder statesman of this forum will remember two years ago at this time, after houllier had been sacked and before anybody really had heard of rafael benitez. many people on here were advocating martin o'neill as being our new manager at the time. others (notably owzat if i remember rightly) didn't think he was up to the job.

now i have to be honest that i'm not a fan of the football that his teams play. as i said before i think he's very one dimensional in that he likes to sign beasts to play at the back and big men upfront. infact if he had arrived that summer i don't think heskey would have been sold as he liked him from his time at leicester. he also advocates playing 3 at the back on a frequent basis which is something that has never led to any success in england down the years.

as far as i see it, the guy's main strength is his motivation and man management skills (sounds like a certain portugese manager doesn't it?). i don't think he's that great tactically but if he can get an extra 10% out of all his players then that will reap success in itself. i know benitez came in and won us the european cup but in all fairness we were domestically dire in that first season. obviously we came on leaps and bounds last season and the style of football improved tenfold. however it's just interesting looking back in hidsight at what could have been. so.....

a) do you rate martin o'neill as a manager? what are his main strengths and weaknesses in your eyes?

b) do you think that the guy is of the standard required to ever manage a top 4 premiership club? or do you think that a club like villa is about his level in that it is a potential sleeping giant that has underachieved and needs picking up?

c) had martin o'neill taken over liverpool as many predicted before rafa came, would you have been happy at the time and where would the club be now in terms of progress?

Interesting post St. Mike

a)  Yes I do rate O'Neill as a good manager.  I think he's better than any of the English born managers around right now, although that's partly because there is a real dearth of managerial talent in England just now.  What you say about his style is true, he has a formula that he stuck to at Leicester and then Celtic which was to build a team full of 6-foot plus players and simply bully teams rather than play good football.  His Leicester team were long ball merchants and despite winning week-in, week-out with Celtic, they were also long merchants, although not to the same extent.  Although he got Celtic to the UEFA cup final, in reality it was more like Larsson got Celtic there.  That was a freak season and I think O'Neill's tactics were normally found out in European competition.  His motivational skills must be superb, which is obviously his strength and he knows exactly the players to buy who will fit into his preferred system.

3 at the back is interesting, he always played it until his last season at Celtic when he scrapped it and went 4-4-2.  I don't think he's a strictly 3-at-the-back-man and I'm not convinced he'll play that way at Villa.

b)  While O'Neill's tactics work for smaller clubs like Leicester in taking them into the top 10 in the league and in winning the SPL with Celtic, I believe the same tactics can also be a hindrance.  His one dimensional style is not good enough to compete at the very top end of football - ie competitions like the Premiership and CL.  I don't think O'Neill is suited to a top 4 prem club.

c)  O'Neill wouldn't have been my first choice back then, but we certainly could have done worse at the time.  He certainly would have steadied the ship and instilled some team morale after morale had all but been destroyed under Houllier.  We'd also have done better in the league than under Benitez in his first season, but in the long term I don't think O'Neill would have been capable of taking us as far as Benitez is.

[Ace Ventura]

This is a very interesting thread because if i am honest O'Neill was a person that i thought could be a good candidate for the LFC job.
I like the fella as a manager and tbh hope Villa have money to back him, after the time he has been through...he deserves it.

[el_stinger]

I think yes, what about you

[RUSHIE#9]

a) do you rate martin o'neill as a manager? what are his main strengths and weaknesses in your eyes?

b) do you think that the guy is of the standard required to ever manage a top 4 premiership club? or do you think that a club like villa is about his level in that it is a potential sleeping giant that has underachieved and needs picking up?

c) had martin o'neill taken over liverpool as many predicted before rafa came, would you have been happy at the time and where would the club be now in terms of progress?

A): I think O'Niell is a good manager but to be honest I don't rate him as a top four manager - YET. If he can prove he has what it takes to manage a big premiership club (i.e. A club with a lot of top flight success in it's history) like Villa and manage to rebuild it into a top 8 side then who knows. His top attributes for me are man management but I just haven't really watched his teams closely enough to see whether he has the nouse to adjust his tactics accordingly when required.
His weakness in my eyes comes from not having managed really big name players, does he have the ability to know when to handle the ego's properly or is he going to let his own 'personality' clash with the big names?

B): Strangely enough I don't believe he could currently hack it as a 'top 4' manager but i did believe that he was one of the best candidates for the england job ahead of McLaren - go figure  . At club level i just see him as being the kind of manager you'll find at the likes of 'spurs, Barcodes or 'boro. If he managed to pull off a surprise a get one of these teams into the champs. league then maybe the mancs would take a chance on him to replace old whisky lips but only as a last resort.

C): Hand on my heart - at the time I remember seeing the 4 main candidates pictured on the front of the echo (o'neill, rafa, maureenho & curbishly - i think) and straight away i said to me old fella that i wanted rafa benitez based on what he'd done at valencia. I'd probably have taken o'neill ahead of curbishley because of the two o'neill probably had the better pedigree. As for the state of the club now had he taken over i don't think we'd have been much better off than when houllier left. In fact i think we may have slipped even further back as gerrard probably would've left by now, we wouldn't have signed the players we have and the fruit of our labours probably wouldn't amount to much more than a carling cup and regular UEFA cup qualification.

[66-1120597113]

Just a thought?
If O'Neil did not think there was money coming his way why would he have taken the job?
I really feel a big shake up hitting the Midlands.......soon.
Dont underestimate what Martin can do.

Its one thing to be a good manager at UTD,Us or Chelsea,but being put in charge of a club with limited talent and funds is a whole new ballgame.

The limited talent bit can in my eyes explain the route one football.....Just fu.cking score lads...come on you can do it!!.....Hoof ,the ball gets kicked right up the park and some fecker heads it in!
Leicester get promoted,after promotion they do good in EPL!!

What im tryin to say is,if M/O can do what he did at other clubs with no money and succeed,what can he do at a club in a big league?

A Villa def top 10 for me,put your house on it at the bookies!
Maybe even Uefa cup