mon is a monster in a positive way said

Let me guess, you’re a Newcastle fan.

You trying to get page hits to up the advertising revenue with this rubbish. Lerner wouldn’t back him to crack the top four so he walked. Look at where Villa are now having cashed in on O’Neils gems.

How can anyone say he’s a mid table manager after the 6th place finishes he got with Villa. There opinion is without substance. Villa have under achieved since he left & don’t seem to be doin very well this term either. He couldn’t achieve better at Villa due to his best players bein sold from under him. As for transfer costs you have to pay the wages n transfer fee’s in football these days n if your at a club that needs to pay a little extra to attract the players then thats what you have to do. Its not necessarily a manager thing but more of a club location thing, hence the Dempsey saga, he turned down Villa n Sunderland, Liverpool wouldn’t pay the fee so that was dead in the water but with Spurs they paid the fee (prob offered him the wages) plus, as seen last season they have potential n finished up there with the best of them.

this write up is utter bollocks and yous no it is,yous should be embarressed to print such garbage

Jason Burt states that O’neill “pays an awful lot of money in wages.” I wonder if Mr Burt can name any so called “top manager” that doesn’t? Quite simply O’neill can not compete with the transfer spending of the likes of Ferguson, Macini & others.Put into perspective, if O’neill can achieve top six finishes with a club like Villa he is a top manager. Hopefully he can achieve the same success at sunderland.

What have you journalists ever done in your life….you are writing columns for a very low website that no one has heard of…John Cross & Jason Burt…have a look in the mirror and ask yourself why you have wasted your life!!

Pretty silly comments really. If Sunderland are a mid-table side after spending a lot of money on Johnson and Fletcher then where would Sunderland be without them? Batlling for relegation. The problem is with authors/journalists like these is that they are jealous of Sunderland’s potential. Fulham have spent large sums of money on players/wages, as too have West Ham. Surely they are in a far more precarious and dangerous position than a club like Sunderland. Adam Johnson and Steven Fletcher are both still relatively young. They have another 7 years ahead of them at the top flight if all goes well. Two great buys, without toally breaking the bank. Who else could Sunderland have been realistically able to attract? Very poor article in my opinion.

God help us this article is absolute garbage, Martin O neill has sold a load of players to finance the deals for fletch and Jonno, ,most clubs in the league can only hope for top eight at best due to the funding disparity between the top teams and the rest, Cloughie did alright developing players most of them british as well, Martin is a football man through and through and will be ok tactially astute and is loyal to players who work for him, give me a room full of people like martin over the likes of that buffoon who spurs have took on.

What an absolute load of drivel. Crawl under the stones that you have come from and comment on teams that have spent money on foreign imports who are not proven in the English game. MON has forgotten more than you lot will ever know about football.

General consensus is that this article is a load of bollocks. And I’d have to agree.

However, when you look at the premier league now, the days of talking about the big 4 have changed. Even the likes of Arsenal, Spurs & Liverpool are struggling to break/stay in the elite places. This naturally pushes everyone else down the pecking order, Sunderland included. So, when we talk about being a mid table team things aren’t as bad as they sound… it’s actually quite respectable. The real battle is staying away from the relegation dog fight as the bottom of the league battle is just as intense.

A couple of no – mark Newcastle loving journos. Get over yerselves

To Messrs Burt & Cross, I rather like the idea of a man who prefers to sign British players. With more like him we would have a stronger English team. As for the quality of the rest of the team it includes 7 current internationals – not bad for a “mid-table” team. But then an article which can be described as “Mid-table journalism” at best, would not bother to recognize that.

Must agree with the consensus, this is not worthy of publishing. The best I could say is that, grammatically, it passes muster.

Definitely think these journalists need to lay off MON he did the business @ Villa with consecutive 6th place finishes n theres no reason he can’t replicate his success @ sunderland especially with the backing of Ellis Short. Cum’ on the makems lets prove these journo’s wrong

So buying British players to play in the British game is a lack of imagination?
This article is so stupid. He’s a “mid-table” manager because that’s the level of funding available to him. It’s no coincidence the teams winning are the ones spending shedloads of money.Give him the job at Man City/United or Chelsea (and the money they spend) and he’d win the league, or go damn close.

What a load of cods wallop,just as well because these comments only deserve to be read whilst your opening your fish & chips wrapped up with the papers these clowns write for…

What a junk article. Martin O’Neil is a manager who lifts teams above their expected status. He kept Leicester in the Premier League and when he left they dropped.
He has Villa battling into the top 5 or 6, and made them a popular second choice team. Now he will lift Sunderland, at one point last team he had Sunderland top in current form. They took 4 points and nearly 6 from Man City who bought the Premier League title in every way.

Jason Burt and John Cross have just said what a large number of us Villa fans were saying about MON for years. Yes, he is a good manager, but not as good as either himself or his sycophantic mates think he is.

When he arrived at Villa, it was just what we needed and the first two years were great. But we were soon questioning his lack of tactics and squad rotation – not to mention busting a gut to get into Europe, rushing the players back early for pre-season to go through the Intertoto cup, only to then treat it with contempt by sending a weak side to Moscow – don’t forget after that debacle we only won two of the last eleven games because the players were demotivated/burnt out.

As for Randy Lerner not backing him to break the big four, well we spent nearly £200 Million while MON was with us, plus we paid out ridiculous salaries for players who were then sat on the bench getting splinters – can you blame Lerner for not wanting him to throw more money round in a such a reckless and negligent manner – and no I’m not defending Lerner as he was guilty of letting him do what he want. Thankfully, he stopped it before MON could bankrupt us.

Its the players that shame sunderland not martin o neill

poor poor poor sunderland fans, yes martin lifted villa to 6th but at the same time spent more money in transfers and wages than any other villa manager. the wage bill was the 6th highest in the prem so 6th place was the least you could expect. twice he had villa in the top 4 at xmas only for the team to unraval in the second half of the season and he had no idea how to stop the slide. His signings were either great or poor, habybe baye was signed on a 40k a week contract, maloney signed from celtic then sold back to them at a loss when he floped. Moustapha Salifou rarley used, Zat Knight Marlon Harewood and Wayne Routledge, a watste of 9.5million in one season, not to mention that gary cahill was allowd to leave because o’neill played kight ahead of him, curtis davis 10 mil flop, 5.5 mil on the barley used sidwell, 4mil on nicky shorey, and the joke that is heskey for 3.5mil with a return of 9 goals in 4 seasons and 92 games. All of them on big wages that has crippeld the club and forced them to sell, if even half the players listed hadnt been signed then the could have been used to keep downing or milner. the created a mess than walked out a week before the season and claims to be the best manager villa have had. fact is ron atkinson got villa to second and little got them to forth, both also won the league cup (atkinson against man u) and had a better win rate than o’neill. sunderland beware!