Martin O Neill

Coming to this story a bit late obviously.


O Neill's resignation at Aston Villa this week has frankly been timed very well: the chances of Villa finishing in a top six place are frankly low, and with Randy Lerner seeming to realise that circumstances do not look especially promising for Villa managing to progress again and reach the Champions League, he has probably made the right decision to leave the club now. He won't get as much money to spend as he has had in the past, frankly the team doesn't look as good as it should for the amount of money spent on it, and the fact that Luke Young refused a move to Liverpool on financial grounds suggests that the wage bill at Villa is all over the place.


It's not to say that O Neill hasn't done a good job at Villa Park; three sixth place finishes (if that's what they've had, I forget; were they not fifth in '08-'09) represents a solid achievement. But the overriding sense will be that Villa's real chance to break into the Champions League came and went in the latter half of the 2008-9 season; well placed ahead of Arsenal midway through the season (one in which Arsenal were largely terrible throughout), Villa's lack of squad depth and O Neill's reluctance to rotate selection meant that they tired and fell away. Last season there was another top four place available with the implosion of Benitez' Liverpool; Spurs and City were both better placed to take advantage of this than Villa, who again tired in the last four months of the season. As City spend more and Liverpool look to at least stabilise, and Spurs may benefit from CL experience and more importantly cash, it seems as if the only way is down for Villa.


O Neill basically seems to have reached an interesting point in his career. It would be churlish to downplay his performance at either Leicester or Celtic, given that he established Leicester as a premiership club after a lengthy period in the second tier, and won two League Cups (then, as now, a reasonable achievement). Celtic were at their lowest point for some time when he took over there, and three league titles and the run to the UEFA Cup final was a fine achievement, although O Neill didn't win a title without Henrik Larsson, and Gordon Strachan arguably equalled his achievements with three championships in four years and two visits to the Champions League knock-out stages. His work at Villa has been probably no less than expected, given the outlay of money and O Neill's reputation, but three successive sixth place finishes was a solid achievement, and in all Martin O Neill can comfortably be described as one of the best British managers of the last twenty years.


On the other hand, O Neill is now surely not going to get the big job that his career often seemed to be leading up to. He just seems to have been passed by; when Celtic met Porto in the 2003 UEFA Cup Final, you would probably have said that if one of the managers on show had gone on to be the next manager of Manchester United, it will be O Neill. Prior to 2004, perhaps O Neill would have been the most likely candidate to succeed Ferguson. I was certainly surprised that year that he didn't come close to getting the job at Liverpool after Houllier left. I guess at the end of the day, O Neill is not quite at the level to get one of the big clubs. In the end, I suppose, we will remember O Neill as a collecter of lesser trophies, and a qualifier for the UEFA Cup, not as a top four manager. It seems sad that he will never get a chance to prove that wrong, but there you go.

Apologies for the fact that this piece is shit, by the way.