Soccer Portal

After months of rumours and speculation, the exit of Martin O’Neill as Aston Villa manager is not the main surprise, but the fact that we are just days away from the start of the new season.  Has there ever been a more ill-timed resignation/sacking?

It had been a bad start to the new millennium for Villa fans, with Graham Taylor and David O’Leary both struggling for the majority of their reigns.  Of course, supporters will say that Doug Ellis was the main problem, as he refused to invest big money in the squad.  Things changed in 2006, as Ellis was ushered out just as O’Neill was welcomed by the new owner Randy Lerner.  Since then, it’s been pretty steady for the Midlanders.

And that, according to the fans, is the problem.  Yes, results and league positions have stopped fluctuating since 2006, but fans expect improvement every season, and three sixth place finishes in a row is not progress.  This might have been tolerated if O’Neill had delivered a trophy, and while they came close in the League Cup, playing a weakened team in the Europa League turned many fans against him.

It could be said that O’Neill is right to walk out, because while fans want a top four place, he simply does not have the resources to provide it.  Added to this is the annual transfer saga involving a player who wants to move – Gareth Barry last summer and James Milner this year, and talk of Ashley Young leaving too, and this may have been the straw that broke the camel’s back.  And now with Liverpool reloading, Manchester City ready to move upwards, and Everton possibly being injury free, the only way was backwards.

There have been strained relations with Lerner, but with O’Neill still in charge this late in the summer, it seemed that they were able to co-exist.  That this isn’t the case has left Villa in a desperate position, with managers who were jobless before now signed up to clubs.  As for O’Neill, he will be mentioned as a candidate once any manager’s job is in question.  He almost certainly would have become Liverpool manager if he had resigned earlier, but maybe he thought he could work out the problems he had with Lerner.  That has proven to not be the case.  O’Neill has jumped before he was pushed, before Villa fall out of the top six, and now they have lost the only man who could have possibly kept them there.  It is likely that Lerner and the fans will regret this parting in the years to come.