O'Leary to Toon ??

beer enigma

http://skysports.planetfootball.com/list.asp?hlid=223490&CPID=8&CLID=&lid=2&title=Villa+play+down+O'Leary+link

Don't see what would be in it for him......

Big Ears

He would earn more money , and might be able to spend more money too .

Boro

He is just getting over the stigma of being labelled a 'cheque-book manager' at villa. Surprisingly (because i didnt actually rate him at all at leeds), he has done a very good job there. I dont think it would be in his best interests to move away from the club at the moment.

Besides VILLA PLAY DOWN O'LEARY LINK

V1llianous

I don't think O'Leary will go. It seems every manager in the league bar Wenger & Ferguson have been linked with the job. I'm keeping my fingers crossed and my mobile on - I fancy my chances now !

I know working with the enigmatic "Mr" Ellis is enough to have you writing your own P45 but he is establishing a good team on peanuts and seems to enjoy the job.


Up the Villa !

beer enigma

I think Freddie Shephard would be as bad to work for as Ellis....

Out of the frying pan springs to mind

henbane

O'Leary is smart enough (never thought I'd hear myself say those words) to know that the Newcastle job is not a good one to take with Shearer still at the club.

Any manager who goes needs to be given a guarantee he can drop or get rid of Shearer when he wants. If you start him every game, he will be after a coaching role and then the manager's job himself in a couple of years time. If he's dropped he'll be talking to the press and unsettling other players.

beer enigma

henbane wrote:

O'Leary is smart enough (never thought I'd hear myself say those words) to know that the Newcastle job is not a good one to take with Shearer still at the club.

Lol - we all heard ya ! :eek:

It's certainly dangerous territory to manage a club with such a 'powerful' player on the books

TwoShedsJackson

Although on one level O'Leary seems like a bit of a gob****e to me, he'd still be better than Houllier or Venables :rolleyes: If he's offered it I'd say he'd take it.

What about David Moyes? Now that Rooney's been sold there's no real reason to stay at Everton..

egan007

Boro wrote:

because i didnt actually rate him at all at leeds

He got to the CL Semi final!!!
with a team that are now penny less and in Div1!

RuggieBear

O'leary would be a fool to go to Newcastle....basically a similar team to villa but with much greater fan expectations. I support Villa and i'd rather see them challenging for a UEFA cup spot than bankrupting themselves going for the Champions League. The Toon Army have delusions of grandeur if they think that they can properly compete with the Gooners, Chelski or Man U at the moment...

Big Ears

pekelly wrote:

O'leary would be a fool to go to Newcastle....basically a similar team to villa but with much greater fan expectations. I support Villa and i'd rather see them challenging for a UEFA cup spot than bankrupting themselves going for the Champions League. The Toon Army have delusions of grandeur if they think that they can properly compete with the Gooners, Chelski or Man U at the moment...

Similar in the way up until this year they have been playing Champions League football for 3 years in a row ?

Boro

He got to the CL Semi final!!!
with a team that are now penny less and in Div1!

And why are they now penniless and in Div1? They overspent! O'Leary had a rep for flashing the cash whenever he felt like it.

His 'babies' were already at the club when he got there and must of the youth team/coaching structures were in place from George Graham. IMO all he did there was take grahams work and change the tactics slightly from being less dour and defenive to something more open. Maybe his strengths lie in man management, but i definitely never used to rate him on coaching and tactics.

This is all my opinion of course, and as i said earlier - that opinion is changing slightly. I have always regarded him as a lucky manager, maybe that is his best trait?

RuggieBear

Big Ears wrote:

Similar in the way up until this year they have been playing Champions League football for 3 years in a row ?

I'll concede that....

AngelofFire

O`Leary has a five year plan in place at villa he has even put away £4 million of the money he was given this season to spend for next season, unless of course he is able to snatch beattie come january.He`s doing a great job at villa, we have had a good start to the season. Angel is on his way back and creative midfielder Berson should be introduced withing the next couple of weeks.Bruce Langham and Doug Ellis will not entertain any bids from newcastle.

DapperGent

Boro wrote:

His 'babies' were already at the club when he got there and must of the youth team/coaching structures were in place from George Graham. IMO all he did there was take grahams work and change the tactics slightly from being less dour and defenive to something more open.

The youth team and the coaching structure were all a legacy of Howard Wilkinson rather than George Graham. I always thought it was pretty harsh of Wilkinson that he got the boot just as his crop of wonderkids was coming through. Not that harsh though cos he's a total prick.

I reckon O'Leary is a pretty good manager. He went a bit mad at leeds and brought in far too many players, the purchases of Fowler and Seth Johnson being particularily mind boggling, but I think the board have to shoulder most of the blame, especially with regard to the contracts they gave to their players. Those contracts never mind the borrowing for transfer fees were the real downfall.

O'Leary seems to have learnt from his mistakes and has become laudably sensible in his team, tactics and player purchases. He seems to be a genius at defensive coaching and makes sure his team is drilled to perfection for set pieces both defensive and attacking. He's calmed down and plays a 4-4-2 and has made sure he has decent players for every position and with everyone knowing thier job. He had a plan, stuck to it and made a good solid side while slashing a wage budget and having no cash, which should make him a good bet for any managerial vacancy around.

I never though I'd be saying that about O'Leary. I feel dirty.

KdjaCL

Liverpool have an excellent youth academy , Houllier didnt play them tho. Wilko set up the youths at leeds but O leary had the balls to play them.

O leary future ireland manager would like to see him at Villa for a while,

kdjac

Boro

DapperGent wrote:

I never though I'd be saying that about O'Leary. I feel dirty.

Know what you mean, but (unfortunately?) he is currently the most succesful irish manager (from ROI). Fair play to him.

Villain

He won't leave Villa, because with some careful planning and nurturing of our excellent youth players along with an odd purchase Villa can become a better side than Newcastle.

dirkey_wynne

DapperGent wrote:

The youth team and the coaching structure were all a legacy of Howard Wilkinson rather than George Graham. I always thought it was pretty harsh of Wilkinson that he got the boot just as his crop of wonderkids was coming through. Not that harsh though cos he's a total prick.

I reckon O'Leary is a pretty good manager. He went a bit mad at leeds and brought in far too many players, the purchases of Fowler and Seth Johnson being particularily mind boggling, but I think the board have to shoulder most of the blame, especially with regard to the contracts they gave to their players. Those contracts never mind the borrowing for transfer fees were the real downfall.

O'Leary seems to have learnt from his mistakes and has become laudably sensible in his team, tactics and player purchases. He seems to be a genius at defensive coaching and makes sure his team is drilled to perfection for set pieces both defensive and attacking. He's calmed down and plays a 4-4-2 and has made sure he has decent players for every position and with everyone knowing thier job. He had a plan, stuck to it and made a good solid side while slashing a wage budget and having no cash, which should make him a good bet for any managerial vacancy around.

I never though I'd be saying that about O'Leary. I feel dirty.

I don't think it's totally fair to blame the board. Imho it's O'Leary who is more at fault. All his board did was back him - that was their mistake. He would have gone to them, telling them which players he wanted. They'd have asked if he really thought these players would improve them. He'd have given them a guarantee. So they backed him. Which is great to see imho. Look at Lowe! Appoints a manager and then sacks him barely 5 minutes later. Ridiculous carry on.

So to be honest, I think O'Leary should shoulder the blame. As has been stated the youngsters were already there, and all he did was put them in the team. He showed guts doing that. But he basically bankrupted the club by signing all those players and not getting the team into the CL.

Read an interesting article a while back. Can't remember the source. But it basically stated is that this was the difference between O'Leary, and a top class manager like, don't laugh, George Graham. The reason Graham didn't put those players in the side earlier is that he knew they weren't quite ready to play first team football in the long term. And I think he was proved right when you look at all the problems that O'Leary went on to have with that crop. The difference is O'Leary went splashing the cash to try and instantly gain reward, whereas Graham was looking to build a stable club, who could improve season after season until regularly competing at the highest level - when the time was right. Look what happened O'Leary's way? We'll never know, but I seriously doubt Leeds would be in the plight they are now if Graham had stayed in charge.

Generally the more successful managers do it this way. Look at Wenger. Ferguson. The great Liverpool teams of old. All built on stability, with slight tinkering every season. Not coming in and going for instant gain.

But I honestly feel he has improved big time with Villa. I think he learned from his experiences there, and is now not so gung ho. I think he's really learned from his mistakes (once again never thought I'd say this) and managing at a club with Mr Tight as the chairman is bound to improve him. I think he's doing an extremely good job there, and we'll see how long it lasts.

DapperGent

dirkey_wynne wrote:

I don't think it's totally fair to blame the board. Imho it's O'Leary who is more at fault. All his board did was back him - that was their mistake. He would have gone to them, telling them which players he wanted. They'd have asked if he really thought these players would improve them. He'd have given them a guarantee. So they backed him. Which is great to see imho.

The problems at leeds are and were gross fiscal mismanagement. Last I looked club finance isn't the team manager's fucking job. The scenario at Leeds was O'Leary notified the chairman who he wanted and the chairman went and agreed fees for them and negotiated contracts with them. O'Leary got greedy, he certainly didn't need four top class strikers in Smith, Viduka, Keane and Fowler all earning nuts money but he asked for them and the chairman reckoned they could afford them. The chairman and board not O'Leary put leeds in a situation where they had to qualify for the champions league every season just to break even. They made the utterly egregious error of thinking that if they got in financial trouble they could sell Viduka and Kewell in the morning for £20m a piece. Even if football finances hadn't collectively gone south, nobody was going to pay premium prices to a club in financial difficulty. O'Leary didn't need the size of squad he put together particularily with the good yoth squad he had, he could have had a youth player as 4th striker, 4th central midfielder and as backup wingers, and full backs. The players were their aswell in people like Johnson, Richardson, Kilgallon, Singh etc. not top class players but good enough to play 4-5 games a season. But to say he has to take most of the blame is farcical, fiscal decisions are a football clubs board's responsibility, Leeds board got it horribly horribly wrong. To laud a board for "backing their manager" into a financial black hole and then blaming the one person involved whose area of responsibility wasn't the books shows a fundamental misunderstanding of how football clubs are run.

But he basically bankrupted the club by signing all those players and not getting the team into the CL.

You don't think the stupidity was on the boards part by putting themselves in a situtation of Champions League or bust? Especially in an activiity as volatile as football? What would it have been the next season Champion's League semi-finals or bust?

O'Leary bought too many players but I honestly think he only had two bad buys in football terms - Fowler and Seth Johnson.

evilhomer

of course the reason he hasn't spent any money could be that the aforementioned "mr tight" won't give him the money for just any player. he want's value for money

O'Leary is a great manager in my opinion, and has a good squad there now.
good luck to him i say

dirkey_wynne

DapperGent wrote:

The problems at leeds are and were gross fiscal mismanagement. Last I looked club finance isn't the team manager's fucking job. The scenario at Leeds was O'Leary notified the chairman who he wanted and the chairman went and agreed fees for them and negotiated contracts with them. O'Leary got greedy, he certainly didn't need four top class strikers in Smith, Viduka, Keane and Fowler all earning nuts money but he asked for them and the chairman reckoned they could afford them. The chairman and board not O'Leary put leeds in a situation where they had to qualify for the champions league every season just to break even. They made the utterly egregious error of thinking that if they got in financial trouble they could sell Viduka and Kewell in the morning for £20m a piece. Even if football finances hadn't collectively gone south, nobody was going to pay premium prices to a club in financial difficulty. O'Leary didn't need the size of squad he put together particularily with the good yoth squad he had, he could have had a youth player as 4th striker, 4th central midfielder and as backup wingers, and full backs. The players were their aswell in people like Johnson, Richardson, Kilgallon, Singh etc. not top class players but good enough to play 4-5 games a season. But to say he has to take most of the blame is farcical, fiscal decisions are a football clubs board's responsibility, Leeds board got it horribly horribly wrong. To laud a board for "backing their manager" into a financial black hole and then blaming the one person involved whose area of responsibility wasn't the books shows a fundamental misunderstanding of how football clubs are run.

You don't think the stupidity was on the boards part by putting themselves in a situtation of Champions League or bust? Especially in an activiity as volatile as football? What would it have been the next season Champion's League semi-finals or bust?

O'Leary bought too many players but I honestly think he only had two bad buys in football terms - Fowler and Seth Johnson.

Ok, the board did play a significant part. I agree, the deals they arranged were ridiculously OTT. But don't think for a second they wouldn't check with the manager as to what a players worth should be. I stick to my guns here, O'Leary told them he wanted these players. He would have given them a list, with certain players essential. Of course they would have asked him how much to go for, for these players. I think Robbie Keane goes into the bad buys section. Definitely.

dirkey_wynne

DapperGent wrote:

To laud a board for "backing their manager" into a financial black hole and then blaming the one person involved whose area of responsibility wasn't the books shows a fundamental misunderstanding of how football clubs are run.

Oh, and no offence Dapper but please don't patronise me. To think that a manager has no say, when informing a board of a player who he thinks they should buy, of the value he places upon that player "shows a fundamental misunderstanding of how football clubs are run."

Villain

dirkey_wynne wrote:

Read an interesting article a while back. Can't remember the source. But it basically stated is that this was the difference between O'Leary, and a top class manager like, don't laugh, George Graham. The reason Graham didn't put those players in the side earlier is that he knew they weren't quite ready to play first team football in the long term. And I think he was proved right when you look at all the problems that O'Leary went on to have with that crop. The difference is O'Leary went splashing the cash to try and instantly gain reward, whereas Graham was looking to build a stable club, who could improve season after season until regularly competing at the highest level - when the time was right.

Just a small point but George Graham has been working for Sky Sports for the last few years while David O'Leary has been a manager in the Premiership for the last 6 years and HAS NEVER FINISHED OUTSIDE THE TOP 6.

The main problem at Leeds was the players contracts i.e their massive wages and I'm pretty sure O'Leary didn't do the contract deals.

dirkey_wynne

irish1 wrote:

Just a small point but George Graham has been working for Sky Sports for the last few years while David O'Leary has been a manager in the Premiership for the last 6 years and HAS NEVER FINISHED OUTSIDE THE TOP 6.

The main problem at Leeds was the players contracts i.e their massive wages and I'm pretty sure O'Leary didn't do the contract deals.

It's just my opinion, but I don't think he was successful in that job, not relative to the money he spent.

Villain

Reaching the semi finals of the Champions League and never finishing outside of the top 6 in 5 seasons!! I don't think too many managers would have done that with Leeds.

dirkey_wynne

irish1 wrote:

Reaching the semi finals of the Champions League and never finishing outside of the top 6 in 5 seasons!! I don't think too many managers would have done that with Leeds.

To be honest I think, again, given that amount of money plenty would have. He inherited a well run club (on the footballing side) from George Graham, with plenty of talented players bursting through. The timing was perfect for someone to come in, be given some money and build further. I think he tried too much too soon. He went out and strengthened areas of the field that he didn't need to - attack and defence (Duberry anyone??) and left a decidedly dodgy midfield virtually untouched. He wanted trophies tomorrow. He didn't want to gradually build a club capable of competing at the top for many years. This is how teams do it. Look back over the years. Any club that has been considered dominant - Utd, Arsenal, Liverpool etc, over many years has been built gradually over many years. Teams that try it all quickly - Blackburn etc - may win a title but will fade away once again. To justify his outlay in my opinion, he really needed to be winning trophies and making the CL consistently. Yes, the board was definitely at fault sanctioning all of his signings, but they had put faith in their manager and decided to go the whole hog and give him the backing he asked for.

DapperGent

dirkey_wynne wrote:

Oh, and no offence Dapper but please don't patronise me. To think that a manager has no say, when informing a board of a player who he thinks they should buy, of the value he places upon that player "shows a fundamental misunderstanding of how football clubs are run."

Of course he does but there is a huge difference between a player being worth £Xm and a club being able to afford £Xm along with the attendant salary of £Y,000 per week for the next five years. I thought Rio Ferdinand wasn't worth £18m as it turns out he was. Robbie Keane, Fowler and Seth Johnson certainly weren't worth £12m, £11m and £9m respectively - though at least they had a need for a third striker when they bought Keane. So O'Leary does have to shoulder some blame for not saying "£9m for Seth Fucking Johnson! You must be joking!".

But you could easily say the same for Wiltord, Veron, Ferdinand to Man U etc. the difference being than those deals didn't b0rk the buying club, because the buying club could afford them. The problem at Leeds wasn't buying bad players for too much money, it was buying players (good or bad) when Leeds had no money, and as I said before that's the boards fault not O'Learys.

wynters

O'Leary is going nowhere.

When Wenger signs his new contract with Arsenal, it'll be his last. So in 3 or 4 years time, the Arsenal managers job will become vacant. The overwhelming choice for his replacement amoungst Arsenal fans is O'Leary - a man who played at the club for almost 20 years. O'Leary knows this, and the vast majority of Villa fans do too and would never begrudge him that move. Arsenal - who at that stage will be playing their home games at the new 66,000 capacity Ashburton Grove stadium - will have the financial clout to be serious contenders for the Champions League year in, year out.... that's the job O'Leary is waiting for.

Lets say Newcastle were interested, would O'Leary want to take over at Newcastle and start to prove himself again with the 'chequebook' albatross around his neck. O'Leary has a plum job at the moment. No-one in football can argue against the job he's done in such difficult circumstances, and his passage into the Arsenal job would not be blocked

Hitzfeld, Scolari (rumoured to be seriously interested in a return to club management) and Hector Cuper are just 3 of the men who've expressed an interest in the job according to Freddie Sheppard. Why would Newcastle pay compensation for O'Leary, or Steve Bruce for that matter - 2 managers who've won nothing remember - over a World Cup winner (Scolari), a Eurpean Cup winner (Hitzfeld), and a twice European Cup finalist (Cuper) each of whom they can pick up for nothing.

Ellis - despite his misgivings - is a shrewd operator. If, for arguments sake, Villa or O'Leary were to be approached and O'Leary was allowed to go, the Villa fans - 95% of whom are already hate Ellis, would end up baying for his' blood. O'Leary is widely regarded amoungst Villa fans as the best manager since Ron Saunders in the late '70s/early '80s who built the '82 European Cup winning side. It'd be suicide for an already under pressue Ellis to allow O'Leary to leave. That's even if O'Leary wanted to go!

.... so, as things stand, O'Leary to Newcastle ain't happenin

dirkey_wynne

DapperGent wrote:

Of course he does but there is a huge difference between a player being worth £Xm and a club being able to afford £Xm along with the attendant salary of £Y,000 per week for the next five years. I thought Rio Ferdinand wasn't worth £18m as it turns out he was. Robbie Keane, Fowler and Seth Johnson certainly weren't worth £12m, £11m and £9m respectively - though at least they had a need for a third striker when they bought Keane. So O'Leary does have to shoulder some blame for not saying "£9m for Seth Fucking Johnson! You must be joking!".

But you could easily say the same for Wiltord, Veron, Ferdinand to Man U etc. the difference being than those deals didn't b0rk the buying club, because the buying club could afford them. The problem at Leeds wasn't buying bad players for too much money, it was buying players (good or bad) when Leeds had no money, and as I said before that's the boards fault not O'Learys.

Hmm. Valid points! However, had Leeds made the CL every year, I think they would have been able to survive, even prosper. I'm fairly certain O'Leary knew he had to make CL every year just to survive in his job. And the fault of the board I think, was having it set up so the club had to get to the CL every year to survive!

wynters

With regards to the situation at Leeds, O'Leary was actively encouraged to buy players by the Leeds board, Ridsdale in particular.

I remember watching a BBC3 documentary on the financial state of the game. The programme makers used easy target Leeds as an example of how not to run a club. The programme makers revealed that when auditors were eventually called into Leeds, it was a complete farce. The club had over 90 company cars on it's books. 90!!! They revealed how everyone at the club other than the squad - from board directors to secretarys & groundsmen, etc had been given company cars, and not just any cars, they were all BMWs, Mercs, Saabs, Lexus etc.

They were acting big-time before they became big-time, in every department. So it wasn't just the purchase of players that caused them problems.

Big Nelly

wynters wrote:

With regards to the situation at Leeds, O'Leary was actively encouraged to buy players by the Leeds board, Ridsdale in particular.

I remember watching a BBC3 documentary on the financial state of the game. The programme makers used easy target Leeds as an example of how not to run a club. The programme makers revealed that when auditors were eventually called into Leeds, it was a complete farce. The club had over 90 company cars on it's books. 90!!! They revealed how everyone at the club other than the squad - from board directors to secretarys & groundsmen, etc had been given company cars, and not just any cars, they were all BMWs, Mercs, Saabs, Lexus etc.

They were acting big-time before they became big-time, in every department. So it wasn't just the purchase of players that caused them problems.

Didnt Ridsdale have a fish tank in his office that was costing a couple of grand every week to keep going! also the fish cost the club a fortune when he bought them! remember seeing that somewhere!!

RuggieBear

Yeah i heard that about the fish as well....I mean Jesus H Christ :rolleyes: Still i don't think any Chairman acted so well following the stabbings in Turkey.

Actually is that seth Jonhsson story true...could never find anything but third hand accounts of it.