Gary O'Neil

kirsikka said:
Howe was learning his trade against managers at the bottom of the league ladder. GON will have to do the same against some of the best in the world. Surely you can see the difference?
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AHH... The mystique built around football...any employment is best person at that point of time..football no different than ANY business
 
kirsikka said:
He wouldn't be my choice and I think it's a mistake. However, he'll get my full backing whilst he's in the job and will be delighted if he makes me eat my words.
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My thoughts exactly. I do think our Board have once again shown a staggering lack of creativity, foresight and ambition for a Premier League club, but that's not GON's fault and will clearly back him 100%.
 
Shaun Cooper must be absolutely buzzing, he only has to wait around six months until his turn now. Elphick will have to wait a little bit longer for his chance, poor guy. Blake will have a tough choice to make after that though between Fletch and Dorris the tea lady. I’d veer towards Dorris personally but it will be interesting to see who he decides to go for all the same.
 
New Forest Cherry said:
but we walked away, yes?
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Depends on the version of events you read. Some of the more credible journalists who broke the story we were in for Bielsa then reported it had broken down and we were appointing GON (so must have some knowledge) said he didn’t like the restraints he was told he was to work under. Same as apparently De Zerbi when we spoke to him in the summer. Same as Parker moaned about continually.

Those restraints being Richard Hughes popping along to the training pitch with your new signings of Jack Stephens and Joe Rothwell I’d assume…
 
Neil Dawson said:
Apparently not as people have to point this out at least six times a day. People will be along in a minute saying let’s bring in two free transfers from Salisbury for the rest of the season… it worked in league two for Eddie after all.
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Absolute nonsense.

Only one of those free transfers was from Salisbury, the other was from Weymouth ;-)
 
Neil Dawson said:
Depends on the version of events you read. Some of the more credible journalists who broke the story we were in for Bielsa then reported it had broken down and we were appointing GON (so must have some knowledge) said he didn’t like the restraints he was told he was to work under. Same as apparently De Zerbi when we spoke to him in the summer. Same as Parker moaned about continually.

Those restraints being Richard Hughes popping along to the training pitch with your new signings of Jack Stephens and Joe Rothwell I’d assume…
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I never saw anything about working under restraints to be fair, all I saw was that he and his back room team were demanding silly wages. Quite the opposite, reliable journalists seem to be saying we are about to splash the cash this window.

I don’t think Bielsa would have been the right appointment at all in fairness, so can understand why we were reluctant to break the bank for him and his team. What I cannot understand whatsoever, is how can you go from trying to recruit someone of that pedigree and then just end up with the (totally inexperienced) caretaker? Gary did a decent job but it is very evident that he is learning in the job, in the most brutal league in the world it seems crazy to entrust a 120m pound investment on somebody who is ‘learning as he goes.’ Nobody can convince me that there weren’t better options out there that we could have pursued. It makes me wonder whether the takeover has been denied by the PL, why else would a new billionaire investor go down this incredibly risky route?
 
Druss_the_Legend said:
I've got a feeling that, bear me out here, Neil might not be a fan of this appointment...
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To be clear, and I’ve said this a few times. The appointment would neither be my first choice but nor do i view it as a disaster. You’d have to be blind not to see that O’Neil has things going for him he clearly has a decent level of ability and the players seem to react well to him in the main. I think he can keep us up. I think we could have gone for better and should have but I’m not devastated.

it’s the style of the appointment that I’m not a fan of. They didn’t want him else he would have got the job earlier. People saying it had to wait for Foley also proved wrong… it never did, just needed to be given the nod by him. They have completely undermined a manager exactly as they have before by going on a wild goose chase, making it completely obvious you are second choice then giving a length of contract to rub it in. And it’s not like we haven’t done it twice before and got rid of both within 6 months….

Its amateur and it’s not a decent way to run a club.
 
Neil Dawson said:
To be clear, and I’ve said this a few times. The appointment would neither be my first choice but nor do i view it as a disaster. You’d have to be blind not to see that O’Neil has things going for him he clearly has a decent level of ability and the players seem to react well to him in the main. I think he can keep us up. I think we could have gone for better and should have but I’m not devastated.

it’s the style of the appointment that I’m not a fan of. They didn’t want him else he would have got the job earlier. People saying it had to wait for Foley also proved wrong… it never did, just needed to be given the nod by him. They have completely undermined a manager exactly as they have before by going on a wild goose chase, making it completely obvious you are second choice then giving a length of contract to rub it in. And it’s not like we haven’t done it twice before and got rid of both within 6 months….

Its amateur and it’s not a decent way to run a club.
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Would have been easy to appoint GON weeks ago but, quite rightly, afcb wanted to look at other options. GON is not undermined by only getting the job now as he wasn’t the stand-out choice.

After Eddie had so much power, seemed sensible to make the manager role a coaching role so, again, not unusual to limit a manager’s powers esp on signings.

is Hughes the right person? Well Eddie wanted him at Celtic and he isn’t a bad judge. Plus securing the likes of Neto, tavernier, fredericks and senesi suggests a balanced approach with decent European reach.

As for GON up against the best managers in the world, then sure lots of decent coaches but this league is seriously over rated. The key ingredient in a relegation battle is team spirit and GON appointment gives us that. Think the length of contract reflects GON strengths.
 
Neil Dawson said:
To be clear, and I’ve said this a few times. The appointment would neither be my first choice but nor do i view it as a disaster. You’d have to be blind not to see that O’Neil has things going for him he clearly has a decent level of ability and the players seem to react well to him in the main. I think he can keep us up. I think we could have gone for better and should have but I’m not devastated.

it’s the style of the appointment that I’m not a fan of. They didn’t want him else he would have got the job earlier. People saying it had to wait for Foley also proved wrong… it never did, just needed to be given the nod by him. They have completely undermined a manager exactly as they have before by going on a wild goose chase, making it completely obvious you are second choice then giving a length of contract to rub it in. And it’s not like we haven’t done it twice before and got rid of both within 6 months….

Its amateur and it’s not a decent way to run a club.
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Earlier?? Who would have employed him then and who does now is the question. Since his employers takeover is not rattiffied. That is my only concern
 
nd9cherry said:
Earlier?? Who would have employed him then and who does now is the question. Since his employers takeover is not rattiffied. That is my only concern
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You don’t need Foley… as has been proved… he can ratify it but doesn’t need to be in charge.
 
AFCBade said:
Would have been easy to appoint GON weeks ago but, quite rightly, afcb wanted to look at other options. GON is not undermined by only getting the job now as he wasn’t the stand-out choice.

After Eddie had so much power, seemed sensible to make the manager role a coaching role so, again, not unusual to limit a manager’s powers esp on signings.

is Hughes the right person? Well Eddie wanted him at Celtic and he isn’t a bad judge. Plus securing the likes of Neto, tavernier, fredericks and senesi suggests a balanced approach with decent European reach.

As for GON up against the best managers in the world, then sure lots of decent coaches but this league is seriously over rated. The key ingredient in a relegation battle is team spirit and GON appointment gives us that. Think the length of contract reflects GON strengths.
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The only reason people think he wanted Hughes at Celtic are the same newspapers that everyone refuses to believe on any matter that they don’t agree with. He didn’t want him.

Let’s look at facts. Eddie has worked again. Did that club have a director of football when he went in? No. Did they choose one? Yes. Was it Hughes? No.
 
I’ll be getting behind him, and I’ll be desperately hoping he proves his doubters wrong to become a successful AFCB manager, but I can’t help but thinking that GON wont be the manager in 12 months time and that we’ll instead be talking about whether his yet to be appointed assistant will make a good full time replacement…
 
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