But when you look at Seville, and the two league titles that were lost be the narrowest of margin, the facts don't judge O'Neill well
I am also pretty confident that O'Leary best results were at the start of his time there, with a not bad team Graham Taylor put together. O'Neills best results are coming now that he is getting away from the side O'Leary "built" and getting shot of clowns like Djemba-Djemba and Baros brought in by O'Leary for silly money
Absolute rubbish, you look at the Leeds team George Graham played in his last game and the one O'Leary was putting out 12/18 months later and they're unrecognisable. And he did his best work before the spending got out of hand in any case for those who say he's a cheque book manager, he got Leeds to 4th then 3rd on a small spend in comparison to other teams at the top end at that stage.
As for his record at Villa, who said Graham Taylor had left him with not a bad team?? Villa barely avoided relegation before he took over and he had that squad challenging for a CL place the last day of the following season! Get real!
O'Leary may be a tw@t of the highest order and wouldn't be my choice but the amount of revisionism regarding his managerial career is laughable. He certainly be better then the likes of Souness, Atkinson, Venables et al....
Stan was so bad that when DO'L gets the job he's going to look like a world beater. I wouldn't be thrilled with him getting the job, but I wouldn't lose any sleep; he's not a bad coach. The going-ons at Leeds when he was there play a big part in what happened there, and when was there a good a Villa side last?
"No regrets, none at all. My only regret is that we went out on penalties. That's my only regret. But no, no regrets." -Mick McCarthy
I think 1981 when they won the League
" I wish to God that someone would be able to block out the voices in my head for five minutes, the voices that scream, over and over again: "Why do they come to me to die?"
I made this point previously. O'Leary did well at both Leeds and Villa with the squads that were there before he was given money to spend. As an international manager he would have to work with the players he has. Like D69, I wouldn't be overjoyed but I don't think he would be the worst choice.
For most of the time O’Leary was at Leeds, he was successful. Didn’t set the world alight at Villa, but then again, Martin O’Neill (who is broadly considered to be one of the best managers around) hasn’t either.
When he was at Leeds, O’Leary’s main problem was his mouth. I remember one time he stated that there was no place in top class football for a player like Stephen McPhail, who at the time was considered to be one of the most promising young players around. This may or may not have been be true (I watched Cardiff last week on Sky and McPhail still looked a useful player – and would be worth a squad place for Ireland) but actually saying it benefited no one except the papers, O’Leary’s ego and any club interested in buying the lad.
In fairness to O’Leary, when he was at Villa, he didn’t court the media as much. I think (wishfully perhaps) he may have learned from his previous mistakes.
A lot of people here put O’Leary’s success at Leeds down to the squad he had. Most of that squad have gone to other clubs and very few have been real successes. Players like Bowyer, Smith, Viduka, Kewell, Milner and even Danny Mills were considered to be top class at Leeds. How many would be considered top class now.
It appears O’Leary started to lose the dressing room at Leeds around the time of the Bowyer/Woodgate trial and that book he published didn't help either. Up to then, he was a success.
I think O’Leary could be a good manager for Ireland if he can just keep his mouth shut and realise that expressing his opinion is not always the best idea. He would need to build bridges with Robbie though – by all accounts they are not the best of mates. He would probably need to keep him as captain to keep him on side which, in my opinion, is not ideal.
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Well he was right about McPhail!
I
I think that is about a 90% NO vote thus far. He's outta here.............next !
Yeah a Poll here would be good just to confirm it. Nothing like a stat for the Star to grab a hold of.
In Trap we trust
Swordsman , maybe this is the kick in the town halls that cartwheel keane has deserved ! i.e Dol turning up as our new manager,as you mentioned Keane was not first choice under him at Leeds and the first thing that any new man should do is to strip this Clown of the captaincy and leave him to on the bench !maybe then he will get his ...e in gear !Dol and Brian Kidd ,with some input from Chippy!if Bill has nothing against that!So the knobs in merrion sq should just stop this charade and put the new man in charge for the Welsh game ,after all our next competitive game will be September next year !
That's up to mods I guess.
ps. On The Ball poll on NEwstalk last night Zero votes for O'Leary, Mourhino was tops but that's just ridiculous.
Should do the same with all of the top candidates and see if we get majority agreement on one man, or a team.
Foppe De Haan for me, but I doubt many will agree with that, after all, he never scored for Ireland
Jack Charlton never scored for Ireland either and he got us to two World Cups and a European Championship. Scoring for Ireland should be a bar on becoming manager in future, which should prevent Robbie Keane ever getting the management gig
Coppell Jol, Jewell or Souness please.
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Remember, at Leeds, Keane was competing with Viduka and Smith. We don't have players of that quality.
I'm not convinced by Doyle - watching him in the last couple of games he looked clueless. I hope I'm proved wrong and that he's just lacking confidence at the moment.
Who else is there?
For that reason, dropping him to the bench would be madness. As frustrating as Keane can be, we still need him.
And it would not help build bridges between DOL and RK.
If there is one thing we should have learnt from recent experience is that it does not help where a manager and one of his top players don't get on.
Sorry for going off point a bit here but I can understand why RK would not be fond of DOL. O'Leary never gave him a fair chance when he was at Leeds.
One time, Leeds were playing Man U at Old Trafford and Robbie had a stormer. Leeds got a free just outside the Man U box. Robbie took it and put it into the top corner. For some inexplicable reason, the ref made Leeds take the kick again which caused some controversy. Later in the game, Beckham caught Keane with a bad tackle. Keane reacted and pushed Beckham to the ground for which he got a yellow card. He was lucky , it could have been red - another controversy.
In the post match interview, the first thing O'Leary said was that he had just told Keane that he was very lucky to stay on the pitch.
Could you imagine Ferguson, Wenger, Mourinho or any other top manager coming out and saying that. The first thing they would have talked about was the free kick. If they were asked about the incident with Beckham, they would have mentioned the tackle and blamed the opposing player. They would have defended their player to the hilt.
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I actually kind of admired him for calling a spade a spade that way. He was at least consistent. He also said of a then 20 year old Alan Smith that it was absolutely disgraceful that he'd clocked up seven sendings off at that stage of his professional career. But he wasn't just putting him down, nor Robbie either, he was saying he expected and demanded better from them.
" I wish to God that someone would be able to block out the voices in my head for five minutes, the voices that scream, over and over again: "Why do they come to me to die?"
yeah but no manager should ever mention that stuff in public. you criticise your players in private and back them up in public. one team approach. i don't think do'l signs up to all that though, and is always fuking moaning, blaming players, weather, the ref etc etc. at least stan had the decency to publicly share responsibility and admit management was not up to scratch. I don't DOL has ever done that. ever. I know i for one couldn't listen to that ****.
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