brummie

Possibly, but I don't think so. Like Ferguson and all the best managers, O'Neill has a knack of keeping players on their toes. The challenge for any manager is sustaining the players' interest after the initial novelty has worn off, and keeping their motivation on a high. O'Neill gets under the players' skin and keeps them going. And when Fergie finally retires,MON won't be seen for dust as he hotfoots it to the Theatre of "cheese sandwich" Dreams-thats why he wouldn't sign Lerners offer of a long term deal. His contract is a total red herring. He had a one year rolling contract at Celtic as well. FWIW i don't think he'll ever be Man United manager, that doesn't strike me as the sort of organisation that would be prepared to give MON the total control he obviously demands in his jobs (and is probably the same reason he didn't wind up at Newcastle). I also strongly suspect United will appoint either from within or a previous player. The one job I might worry about MON leaving for is the England one. Any anyway, we're enjoying having him far too much right now to give even a second though to the possibility of him leaving at some point.

I've thought for a while you've got the best keeper in the League, and after watching that today, I now know you have. He was absolutely fucking awesome.

3 million? You're having a laugh. He is English and an international, they'll demand at least 10 million for him. Not that he's worth it. His international record looks impressive at first glance, until you see who he scored his goals against. His Liverpool record is average at best, and anyone who pays that sort of money for him is mad. At our place there is a "we should never have sold him" faction, he will always be one of those players who divides opinion, but in mine, he's nowt special.

Surely not Boro! Frankly, we're lucky we're not in the Championship this season after last year's badness. The last 5 years have been entirely forgettable.

Vastly superior points tally? 15 more? Hmmm. And i did point out in the original post that you had one season less than us to base your results on. Although by the looks of it, we'll make up those 15 pts by the end of this season ;-) (I'm joking, don't bite) The point i was making was not that one is better than the other, it was that we're effectively two clubs in the same second level of clubs, with similar expectations, and with similar failure to reach them. Spurs are there, too, as are Everton. And now, given the massive gap between the top and the second level of clubs, I don't think that is ever going to change, sadly. In fact, if it does change, i think the only way it will be is if Liverpool drop out of it.

lol, u say 5/9... we say 4/5 or 9/14 Aren't statistics great? ;-)

He would have, as well. You should have seen how dreadfully shit we were last season to fully appreciate what he has done. The only other "touchable" (ie not Wenger, Ferguson, Mourinho or Benitez) manager with that kind of motivational ability is Sam Allardyce, I reckon. He'd be my choice as Toon boss.

As often quoted here, we've finished above Newcastle 5 out of the last 9 seasons, and that's without spending any real money and with the worst chairman in the world. Since the Prem started you are the 5th best team, we are the 6th (yes, I know you had one season less there, but there's still not a very big gap). As far as European football goes, as someone pointed out in this very thread, not only are we used to it, we've actually won something there too, although you have had more of it recently, of course. Just to illustrate this point, here are the records for the last 10 years. 2006 - NU 7th AV 16th newcastle highest 2005 - NU 14th AV 10th villa highest 2004 - NU 6th AV 7th newcastle highest 2003 - NU 3rd AV 16th newcastle highest 2002 - NU 4th AV 8th newcastle highest 2001 - NU 11th AV 8th villa highest 2000 - NU 11th AV 6th villa highest 1999 - NU 13th AV 6th villa highest 1998 - NU 13th AV 7th villa highest 1997 - NU 2nd AV 5th newcastle highest 5 times you finished higher, 5 times we did. I'd say that's a pretty evenly balanced record of mediocrity on both sides, don't make out comparing you to Villa is like comparing you to Boro, it is a totally different comparison. Difference is, when we've been higher, we've been a lot higher. When you've been higher, more often than not we've both been mid-table. That's fair comment, although still debatable. I can see one occasion when you were higher and we were both in the top 5 and two where we were top 6 (ie European place) and you were mid table. As stated, the premiership stats show you as the 5th and us as the 6th most successful clubs in that time. The total number of places difference between you and us in season whcih you finished higher is 32, the other way around it is 25. Better in your favour, but not hugely. Plus, we've finished as high as you ever have in the Prem (ie 2nd) and we've won two league cups in that time, too, whereas Newcastle haven't won anything (although to be fair, how you managed to avoid silverware in your best spell is beyond me, and imho extremely unlucky) The point I'm trying to make is that expectations at both clubs are not massively dissimilar and both clubs have been largely mediocre and underperformed for too long. To read some of the comments above, you'd think you were comparing Newcastle with Portsmouth or something.

As often quoted here, we've finished above Newcastle 5 out of the last 9 seasons, and that's without spending any real money and with the worst chairman in the world. Since the Prem started you are the 5th best team, we are the 6th (yes, I know you had one season less there, but there's still not a very big gap). As far as European football goes, as someone pointed out in this very thread, not only are we used to it, we've actually won something there too, although you have had more of it recently, of course. Just to illustrate this point, here are the records for the last 10 years. 2006 - NU 7th AV 16th newcastle highest 2005 - NU 14th AV 10th villa highest 2004 - NU 6th AV 7th newcastle highest 2003 - NU 3rd AV 16th newcastle highest 2002 - NU 4th AV 8th newcastle highest 2001 - NU 11th AV 8th villa highest 2000 - NU 11th AV 6th villa highest 1999 - NU 13th AV 6th villa highest 1998 - NU 13th AV 7th villa highest 1997 - NU 2nd AV 5th newcastle highest 5 times you finished higher, 5 times we did. I'd say that's a pretty evenly balanced record of mediocrity on both sides, don't make out comparing you to Villa is like comparing you to Boro, it is a totally different comparison.

No it doesn't. He is on a one year rolling contract, which is the way he has always operated.

I don't want to sound aggressive, but what arrogant nonsense. You think expectations at a club like Villa are any lower than they are at Newcastle? There's a second tranche of clubs in England with similar expectation levels, and that includes both Villa and Newcastle.

the villa fans i know, have high ambitions just like us, i know quite a lot of villa fans and i don't know any who would be happy with 12th tbh they all want to be playing in europe etc like us, but tbf they've done something in europe we've done f**k all i don't blame him what so ever for going to villa, i mean the newcastle job is almost as hard as the england job, and if i was a nuetral manager i would have probably gone to villa with everything they having going for them at the moment, We wouldn't be happy with 12th normally, but given the fact that MON was appointed less than 2 weeks before the start of the season, had no money to spend as the takeover didnt go through in time, and had to work with what we *thought* was a shit squad under O'Leary, we'd have taken a top half finish for this season. For what its worth, I think a lot of the reasons MON came to us is that he is a Midlands football man. He won the European Cup twice with Forest then shortly after we won the league and the European Cup. This was a time when Midlands football was on a high. He knows about our history, he knows we've only won worthless cack like League Cups since then, he knows we've got higher expectations than that. One thing we could see straight away was that he understood the club, understood the frustrations of the fans, and understood what we were looking for. I also think the argument that he wouldnt want to work for FS has a certain amount of truth. He took the Villa job when Ellis was still in charge, but everyone knew Lerner's takeover was on the way. There were three other consortia in the running at the time, and they'd all said that whatever happened, they supported the appointment of MON. Interesting that before he was appointed, MON actually met several times with Lerner. He knew what sort of regime was coming to the club, what sort of money would be involved, and that the board would devolve everything on the football side to him. Could you ever see FS being happy with that? He's an astute judge of character, O'Neill, and he seems to have judged this board right. They've made all the right noises, simple stuff like open training sessions at VP, free travel to Chelsea, recognising the EC winning side around Villa Park rather than pretending it never happened like Ellis did. We even get board members posting on the three main Villa message boards. That's how quickly the atmosphere around the club has changed, and goes a long way towards explaining why MON took the job.

I noticed that, too. I think that mentally, Milner IS still at Villa (I'm messing about, not taking the piss) (although, I've possibly got a point)

The Everton fans would love it if you took Beattie off them, he just has not produced. He looked clueless against us at the weekend. Incidentally, good point whoever mentioned the example of Chris Sutton, he is looking like an absolutely quality stop-gap signing. Hartson is fat and not doing it at West Brom. Someone mentioned Kevin Phillips. He'd be another one worth considering. Although, would the former mackem thing be an issue? he's got the right attitude in terms of being a true "pro".

Possibly not by then, but at some point, yes. I don't subscribe to this "too big to go down" line which is rubbish, but I genuinely do not think you will go down.

The trouble is Marcus seems as goal shy as our lot. We might as well go for Jason Euell. I doubt Charlton'll let Darren Bent go full stop, although if they did it would improve their chances of getting relegated, which benefits us. It'd take a big pile of cash, but I think given our current predicament it'd well spent. Like Darren Bent would leave Charlton to come here, if we are still close to the bottom come Jan then forget it, he may leave Charlton but it wont be to come here. True but we can offer him rolls royce wages :winking: Aye we can but I think if he was after massive wages he would not be at Charlton now. Charlton are very unlikely to let him go, given that they are in a relegation scrap, and certainly not to Newcastle, who (at the moment, but probably not in January) who are amongst the teams scrapping with them. It is hard to do anything in the January window, struggling teams need to hold on to their best players, teams doing well want to keep on doing well.

Bad move, I think. Given that he's replaced a manager who was there for over a decade, 12 games is nowhere near enough time, it is going to take much longer than that to get the playing side going his way rather than Curbishley's. They'll come to regret that.

In any Shepherd - Ellis comparison, you've also got to consider that in 1968 when he first became chairman, Ellis saved the club from near certain oblivion, when it was a relic still living in the 1930s, teetering on the verge of bankruptcy, and dragged it screaming and kicking into modern football. Too late to stop the slide to the Third division, but in that 68-75 period, we got to Wembley twice, and won the league cup. Ellis also made the best managerial appointment the club has ever made in appointing Ron Saunders, and strictly speaking, made the appointment of MON, who could turn out to be an even better appointment. You're right about the European Champions to relegation in five years, that was unforgiveable and I suspect driven by personal spite, I doubt any other chairman, no matter how bad, would manage that.

Good point, I had forgotten about the Everton new stadium thing. However, aren't Liverpool hugely in debt and also having to find the new stadium money (obv, a much better brand than Everton, though)? Villa Park's oldest stand (where we put away fans) was built in 77 and is getting rebuilt soon, the rest of the ground has been rebuilt since the late 80s, early 90s anyway (including the butchery of the beautiful old Trinity Road stand, one of Doug's worst crimes). What is frightening is just how wealthy "rich" investors in football need to be these days. Are any of the people mentioned at the top of this thread actually rich enough?

i don't think lerner at villa is a massive villa fan and buisness wise we are better prospects than them.wonder why he bothered? .as talks go on in brussels about the future of selling the premier league on tv,the more likely a takeover or a fat fred led buy out.buisness wise in england we are the best option outside arsenal,chelsea,liverpool,man utd. I don't want to get into a "my dad is bigger than yours" argument, but stuff like "business wise we are better prospects than them" is easy to say, yet actual events don't seem to back it up. He got Villa cheaply, from a man who was in a hurry to sell as he's clearly going to be involved in the serious business of dying rather soon, with an agreement clearly in place to appoint the best available manager in the country, with the club having minimal amounts of debt and having been - and it near kills me to say this - run financially sensibly over a long period. a club with a history which is matched by few other clubs, with enormous potential which has gone untapped for decades now, with assets in terms of a squad of players which is actually much better than many people thought, and clearly underperformed massively last year . All this for 64 million pounds, which is peanuts. Currently, his investment (into which he has thus far been able to invest zero in terms of player acquisitions) is 4th in the Premiership. From a business point of view, I'd say that looks like a pretty good investment. Good business isn't just about what you get in terms of turnover, it is far, far more complex than that. As for the "best option outside ..." point, I'd disagree with that. What about Everton, for a start? Available at around 40 million, so they reckon. Not too much wrong with the playing side of things there, and that's 40 percent of what Newcastle would cost.

If Arsenal play well on saturday i fear a 5-0 or 6-0 defeat I honestly do blueno.gif When they're on-song, they play far and away the best football in the league, and can be truly frightening. I'd much rather they win the league than Chelsea, purely for the football style. They've also just gone into 3rd. Bollocks.

Upson is a real quality player, who is sadly wasted playing at that vile club.

Spot on. He's 20 years old, people forget this.

Ha ha ha, as if. You can have Aaron Hughes back, though, and we won't want anything in return. I think MON will actually have bigger fish to fry than Milner in January, though, now the financial options are somewhat more positive.

I can only think the problem with Milner is a knock-on effect of the low confidence in the team as a whole. That or the effect of the transfer deadline day badness. He was absolutely excellent for us last season, our best player by a mile, he's young and highly promising and will only get better. Duff is a quality player, too. These aren't players who have suddenly got shit, they're players who are playing badly and not being motivated by the manager to do any better. Getting shot of the players isn't the answer (much as I'd like Milner back), getting shot of the manager is.