I agree with Superkingdave, I think Martin O’Neill is an overrated manager.
His a very articulate and an inspiring individual but all the teams he has managed from Wycombe Wanderers to Celtic have played complete dreck. Big slow dinosaurs at the back and players such as John Hartson leading the line, very direct but push come to shove a very limited style of football. One, I care not to see at an international level.
All of O’Neill credentials can be summarised in one of first signings at Celtic, Neil Lennon for six million pounds. Which is an outrageous fee for a player so limited in his abilities. But he fitted the O’Neill bill, where flair and talent are not important. He was very ‘lucky’ that he arrived at Celtic with Glasgow Rangers going through all sorts of financial difficulties and the added bonus of a thirty million pound kitty and such un-O’Neill like players at the club, Ľubomír Moravčík and Henrik Larsson. How could one fail, in a two horse league?
That being said, I expect O’Neill to do a good job at the Villa. His got the money, which is impetrative to the man. He would never have took the job, if the money was not available. His a smart man, he knows the score and the various reasons he turned down jobs with ‘bigger clubs’ was the realistically threat of failure, something O’Neill can not comprehend but with this job if things do not work out, he can always use the trump card like at Norwich. Where he can just lament the situation the club was in before he arrived.
