brummie

I know that RTG place is full of excitable 10 year olds, but I can not believe anyone is sufficiently retarded and bereft of football knowledge not to think about the fact that it was O'Neill who sold Cahill at Villa (to his shame) and replaced him with Zat Knight, as - and this is well known in Villa circles - Cahill likes to play it out of defence, whereas Martin likes a "row Z" defender. He is not going to go back and buy him again now, and even if he tried, Cahill would not consider playing for MON again for a nanosecond, and certainly not moving to Sunderland.

If Martin is going to be buying a striker for them, it'll be someone very disappointing for them. Heskey. Harewood. His record is not great. He only got Carew because Houllier offered him for Baros. In January, they'll go for at least two of Heskey, Petrov, Cuellar, with Cuellar being the favourite. He'll probably go for Aiden McGeady at some point soon, as well.

If you have to live away from home Milan's a bit nicer than Manchester. Surely homesick is homesick, I doubt he will have had the least luxurious life in Manchester either He'll save about 3 or 4 hours on his flight home won't he? He's just finding his way home, lucrative contract after lucrative contract. A wealthy form of hitchhiking or some such. Ha ha Not a big geography fan, i assume?

He's been suspended for drink driving, the silly boy. He started on Saturday, but it's pointless playing passing midfielders if all he gets us to do is defend.

There's no place for passing ability in a McLeish midfield.

Stats today show that Darren Bent has had fewer touches of the ball than any other striker this season. Gabby is also right up there. It is just too horrible for words. I have never had to sit through dross like this. The bloke is utterly, utterly fucking hopeless. When he took over, a lot of us said "can't believe they've appointed him, but so long as he doesn't get us playing like Blues, I'll give him a chance". Now he has got us playing exactly like Blues.

McLeish is an absolute disgrace like, I've watched your last 3 games and been appalled every time. I went to Spurs and the Man United game, and left both thinking I never wanted to see another match again. Indefensible garbage.

Honestly, it is fucking shameful. Spurs away was the low point, but Man United wasn't much better. Against what is the worst Man U side i have seen for a very long time, we were shockingly unambitious. Round where we sit (the expensive, hardly revolutionary seats), people were just absolutely losing it over the style of play. It's horrible, horrible sub Stoke stuff.

Don't worry, Lerner is rapidly turning us into Everton. I'm so utterly gutted about football nowadays. I hate it. I hate what we're being turned into. I'm a rational enough bloke, and have seen some really disastrous managers at our place - Billy McNeill who relegated us AND Man City in the same season, Graham Turner who destroyed the remnants of a European Cup winning side, Jo Venglos who was 10 years too early for English football, the horrible shitbag O'Leary - but this current bloke is the only one who has made me feel like I never want to go to one of our games again. It's so utterly, utterly terrible. If you asked most Villa fans, they'd use the word "embarassing"

Oliver Holt is the most revolting of all MON fanatics in the media. "drip feed of criticism" my fucking arse. He's not even signed his contract, and already I'm getting wound up. I think I shall retire to bed.

He's a good man manager of player he likes. With us too often he'd sign players, then soon after decide he didn't rate them, and treat them like they didn't exist.

We never sang Daydream Believer at Bruce, but it always used to tickle me that whenever we played them at our place, every single time he stood up from the bench, there'd be a chorus of "Sit down Potato Head"

Dave makes a good point (can't be arsed to go back a page to quote it). He's a good manager who gets good results. There's no getting away from that. They haven't appointed Avram Grant. On the flip side, that stuff from the bloke in Leicester is so spot on, i almost nodded my head clean off my shouders. He's very far from being any type of messiah. He'll get them to 8th to 10th, I reckon, which for Sunderland is quite the achievement. Actual fact does not bear comparison to some of the media fawning. Henry Winter the other day described him as "a stellar manager". Not wanting to sound snooty, but if he's that, having been out of work for over a year, why on earth is he about to take over at Sunderland? My advice to you lot is to marvel at the forthcoming press fawning, because it is going to make you vomit. It made me vomit even when he was with us, the suggestion being that we were Martin O'Neill's Aston Villa, that we were lucky to have him, and that should overrule any complaints we might have about the awful football or the profligate wasting of money. Had I known we'd still be getting it today (and we are), I would have opted never to have had him here at the first place. I have personally never had a problem with Sunderland. Sure, RTG is the mongiest place I've ever seen on the internet, but on the flip side, my best mate at uni was a mackem, i watched them with him a lot in the third division. Now MON is going there, however, and thnking back to how he shat on us gigantically, and wanting to see how his press fan club would react to it, I wish them absolutely nothing but ill.

The reason he built up such a massive wage bill - or one of them - was that our entire scouting network consisted of one man, Ian Storey-Moore. Genuinely, zero scouting network. When he came, he was supposed to set all that up, but didn't bother. So what he'd do would be to shop in the UK, players he knew, and usually wait till the last minute, insuring we got raped on transfer fee and wages. It really was lazy and dereliction of duty. There's a piece by Pat Murphy which really is a perfect example of how the media will ignore all this, though. It's infuriating.

He loves two really big men at the back, in the middle. None of that ball playing centre half nonsense (which is why he got rid of Cahill and replaced him with Zat Knight), he's very much of the belief that centre halves should put it in row Z. Which is something which fills me with optimism and hope, as there's nothing I'd like to see more than MON come in for the ginger leg swinger, James Collins.

No he won't. Not in a meaningful way, and if you wonder what Bruce was trying to do with their squad, take a look at the pig's ear he made of our squad - 35 year olds on 40k a week, buying two entire defences in consecutive seasons, buying players he then never uses, thinking wage bills are something that don't matter. He's a better manager than Bruce, but he's in no way some kind of planning genius, far from it.

I can't believe anyone chooses to watch Stoke City play on telly unless they're playing their own team.

Just to make this clear. If he gets that job, you as Newcastle fans, can prepare for a few years of deeply, deeply irritating press coverage. You've lost the media battle right now.

I'd like to know what he's basing this on. Same here. I guess he's basing it entirely on Martin O'Neill being the mackems' manager. I like Stan, but he's a fully paid up member of the MON arse licking club. The president of which is Henry Winter. Vice President, Patrick Barclay. Oh. I just thought of something that affects you lot. MON is the most bewilderingly popular manager going amongst the non-tabloid press. Unfortunately for you, that means you can expect an awful lot of the above (although usually not quite so in yer face). For Sunderland fans, they can expect years of the press implying they're extremely lucky to have him as their manager, and for said press to belittle the club.

On the bright side, I wouldnt be at all surprised - not for a second - if he tries to sign Emile Heskey in January. I also suspect he might try for Petrov, who I'd like to keep as a back up but can barely manage 60 minutes these days. His signings are unbelievably predictable. In fact, right now, I'll tell you that he will sign at least two of these players within one year at Sunderland. Emile Heskey Aiden McGeady Kevin Doyle Stiliyan Petrov

I don't think he's even a coach so there is no argument there, Pardew is a better coach, but overall, O'Neill is a better manager you have to say based on his CV if anything. Pardew has the potential to go onto better things mind. I get the impression O'Niell needs the right set up and right people around him to succeed whereas Pardew could probably succeed or rather do a decent enough job off his own steam based on his hard work, willingness to learn and of course his tactical ability which has probably impressed me most since he become our manager. I also get the impression with Pardew that he is willing to throw whatever he knows or has learned out of the window for something else if it made him a better manager or brought him better results, the likes of O'Niell are too stubborn, too set in their ways. Pardew is a new breed of manager or coach, O'Neill is old school if you like. Personally I'm no fan of stubborn, old school managers and prefer the European style set-up where the staff and infrastructure stays the same and the coach is just that - a coach. I think there is a stigma around that kind of set-up in this country but I honestly think for mid-range clubs (ourselves, Everton, Villa, mackems etc) it is the best way forward. As much as I can highlight O'Neill's faults it's true that you really can't argue with his record on paper, I just don't think he's the right option for a club trying to close the gap with the top 6. You can't argue with it on paper, that's true, but if you look at his managerial record, it in no way tallies with his reputation. All he's won in England are two league cups 15 years ago. He did well in Scotland, but McLeish did as well, in a two horse race. Three sixth place finishes for a club which has for a long while been more or less a 6th-8th place club, after spending a fortune, is good, but not amazing. Like I say, he's a good manager in many ways, but football is changing, and the main reason Villa never pushed on from sixth is because the areas where you really need nous to make up the gap - tactics and transfers - are his two gigantic weak points. For me one of the most disappointing things when we appointed McLeish (and there were a few, in fairness) was that he's a real old school British manager. That's not forward thinking whatsoever, and I don't really see how appointing MON, who is the very same, is going to help Sunderland to any massive degree. He'll get them top half, but no further.

O'Neill's input at training was next to zero. He'd turn up on Tuesday and occasionally Thursday and leave training to Walford and Robertson, or "Bibs and Cones" as the players nicknamed them.

He did. Lerner took over the club, found MON the manager in waiting, and appointed him, leaving him in total control - and Lerner's biggest failing so far was to trust MON so utterly and totally. As soon as that stopped - the minute he was asked to work on the wage bill - he was out of here like a rat up a drainpipe. He'll do better at Sunderland than Bruce did, but if there's not big - really big - money available, it will end in tears. Incidentally, this isn't just a Villa thing, he left Celtic with an English Premier League wage bill in the SPL. Even the most pro MON Celtic fans would raise an eyebrow at paying Bobo Balde 40k a week. There are lots of good things about O'Neill, too, to be entirely honest, but his legacy for us has been walking out on us five days before the start of the season, and leaving us with a crippling wage bill.

You've got to remember we are talking about Sunderland here. Sunderland who a 16th in the table, who've rarely been in the top since their return to the top flight. All the points that Brummie has made and all the other Villa fans are valid and if he was managing a club that is looking to push on, should draw warning flags. But he's not it's Sunderland, success to them should be mid table. Even if he's not given a penny to spend he'll improve that crock of crap, he's done that on small budgets at places other than Villa. Villa do and should have way bigger expectations to Sunderland, despite what some of their retarded fans think really repeating the 10th place finish they had last year should be regarded as a success. O'neill will deliver that, I can't see them heading for the championship under him which was the direction they were travelling. That's a good point. He won't get them relegated, not a prayer (although it'd be delicious if he did).

Hardly gonna finish 6th with current top 6 clubs though are they? It would takefairly sizeable investment for them to get to 7th or 8th. You wouldn't take it if it left the club financially crippled and having to appoint the likes of Alex McLeish to trim the wage bill, though. Also, getting into the top six now is entirely different to doing so in 2007. It takes a shit load more money, for starters, as in that time Man City have bought themselves a guaranteed berth in there. Tottenham seem to have made on of them theirs, too. Basically, you're now looking at Man U, Liverpool, Chelsea, Arsenal, Spurs, Man City in six places at the top, and breaking that cartel is going to take an awful lot more money than MON spent with us. He's not going to get that much at Sunderland, not a prayer. Aye, that's basically what I'm saying. The fact we've managed to break it for even a few months in a season is remarkable in itself. True, you've done very well, but being in the top six now is one thing, being there at the end of the season when tired players at better equipped clubs are easily replaced is a different thing, though. He'll do a better job than Bruce at Sunderland, but it's not a very forward thinking appointment, to be honest.