Aston Villa News 24/7Writer: Jake Findlay 
Date:Saturday June 7 2008
Time: 11:10AM
UK time is: 17:01:20
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Season 3 - Potentially The Season Of Death?
This is a massive season, so many Villa managers have fallen apart at this stage of their careers after promising starts. Year three seems to define a manager’s career. Will Martin O'Neill sort it out or will it be the standard Villa story when it starts going horribly wrong after a decent start to a manager’s career?
Some of the managers I will list actually achieved far greater success than MON has to date. We used to win trophies back in the day!
Big Ron - should never have been sacked but year three saw a drop in performances and an over reliance on a small squad - sound familiar? He had achieved a league cup win and a second place premiership finish in his first couple of years. Eventually SACKED.
Brian Little - lost it in year 3 - the signing of Collymore proved to be a disaster and smashed the excellent spirit established. In his first full season Little won the league cup, finished 4th in the premiership and got to the semis of the FA Cup. God how did it all go wrong so quickly? RESIGNED.
John Gregory - Seemed to be heading for success when it all started turning sour in the third and fourth years. Boring football but effective results. Final of the FA cup was a great treat till the match started. RESIGNED/SACKED.
David O’Leary - promising first year, average second year, disastrous third season. Nuff said. SACKED.
As we all know it’s down to the spending this summer. The inevitable loss of Barry makes MON's job even harder and gives him the seemingly impossible task of needing to sign even more players!
I want to believe this is a new start and I had faith when the season ended. However looking at it more clinically now we actually ended quite badly and I think we have got a huge task ahead. I am starting to doubt we have got the ability to sign the players required. I hate the transfer window as it always makes me negative. We need to sign players asap to help us keep the faith and remove the spectre of the three year curse.
I still want to remain in the fairy glen {the positive posters as labelled by another poster in the Vital Forum JF}. I have been there solidly and without compromise. Why am I feeling so negative? HELP!!!
Jake Findlay
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Your Comments
must admit I thought about this a few months ago. I just hope Randy stick by MON if we have an 'iffy' season. We need to do what Everton did with Moyes when they had that one bad season. Stick by MON even if we finished 17th. It might actually be the catalyst for MON buying some major players for all we know. Now i'm getting ahead of myself but it's just a thought :)
industrial_musical
must admit I thought about this a few months ago. I just hope Randy stick by MON if we have an 'iffy' season. We need to do what Everton did with Moyes when they had that one bad season. Stick by MON even if we finished 17th. It might actually be the catalyst for MON buying some major players for all we know. Now i'm getting ahead of myself but it's just a thought :)
industrial_musical
The Hopefully having so many Villans in the England squad and especially having GB captain (even if only for a half) should make other potential Villa players take note. This has got to be the place to be. Just worried that there are too many mercenaries these days who follow the pound and would rather sit on a bench earning a fortune than fighting for a place. Wenger has the same problem and any true football player has got to see them as the best around to play for even if they aren't on £1000000 per week they are still earning more in a year than most fans will earn in a lifetime.
Villan444
The Hopefully having so many Villans in the England squad and especially having GB captain (even if only for a half) should make other potential Villa players take note. This has got to be the place to be. Just worried that there are too many mercenaries these days who follow the pound and would rather sit on a bench earning a fortune than fighting for a place. Wenger has the same problem and any true football player has got to see them as the best around to play for even if they aren't on £1000000 per week they are still earning more in a year than most fans will earn in a lifetime.
Villan444
The man drives me nuts! signings such as routledge and salifou are simply not what we expect! And they are surley no longer needed if we have millions of pounds to spend we should be after GOOD players! (modric ,, giovani dos santos) rrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr
villavillavilla
The man drives me nuts! signings such as routledge and salifou are simply not what we expect! And they are surley no longer needed if we have millions of pounds to spend we should be after GOOD players! (modric ,, giovani dos santos) rrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr
villavillavilla
lighten up! let the good times roll
ric112
lighten up! let the good times roll
ric112
villavillavilla all you do is moan. We're missing out on targets because they want stupid money a week and can get it somwhere else. I'm afraid greed is a big factor in football and unless we're willing to smash our wage cap we'll continue to miss out. Why do you think Jermaine Defoe signed for Portsmouth, cause he's on 90 a week. Have faith Martin will sort it.
r1chie_r1ch
villavillavilla all you do is moan. We're missing out on targets because they want stupid money a week and can get it somwhere else. I'm afraid greed is a big factor in football and unless we're willing to smash our wage cap we'll continue to miss out. Why do you think Jermaine Defoe signed for Portsmouth, cause he's on 90 a week. Have faith Martin will sort it.
r1chie_r1ch
I have to admit, he's not giving me the buzz. Spurs have signed Dos Santos. I'm nervously watching the news.
evoflash
I have to admit, he's not giving me the buzz. Spurs have signed Dos Santos. I'm nervously watching the news.
evoflash
Are you the same Jake Findlay that used to play in goal for us in the 70's??? :)
gmvillan
Are you the same Jake Findlay that used to play in goal for us in the 70's??? :)
gmvillan
VillaVillaVilla I see what your saying but spending 10's of millions on a player is not MON's style and he has a proven record of buying players nobody wants for a small price and making them a great player for the team, leave Wayne and Mustapha alone untill they get a chance, I think a lot of ground work is done we just need to give the players a chance, Shaun I feel could be great if he got a run in the team as could Wayne, Davis looked like a great signing before his injury, plus look at the teams that spend big like man city, spurs are we doing worse than them? I dont think so, I trust MON.
Tallaght Villan
VillaVillaVilla I see what your saying but spending 10's of millions on a player is not MON's style and he has a proven record of buying players nobody wants for a small price and making them a great player for the team, leave Wayne and Mustapha alone untill they get a chance, I think a lot of ground work is done we just need to give the players a chance, Shaun I feel could be great if he got a run in the team as could Wayne, Davis looked like a great signing before his injury, plus look at the teams that spend big like man city, spurs are we doing worse than them? I dont think so, I trust MON.
Tallaght Villan
Moyes's third season we ended up 17th, failing to even amass the 40 points mark... Season after we finished 4th. you just have to stick with them, changing the manager means starting all over again, and then putting back chances of success by another 2-3 years. When you sack a manager, you also run the risk of a max exodus of players. Moyes is now the 3rd longest serving manager in the league, and i wouldn't swap him for anyone. We lost 3 games 4-1 at home one year, who could forget the 5-1 debacle in Bucharest. Your never going to win 50 games a season, even the teams with unlimited funds don't. A Barsnley can still beat a Chelsea, that's what makes football fun. you can't be fickle or you lose sight of what is important.
EvertonMike
Moyes's third season we ended up 17th, failing to even amass the 40 points mark... Season after we finished 4th. you just have to stick with them, changing the manager means starting all over again, and then putting back chances of success by another 2-3 years. When you sack a manager, you also run the risk of a max exodus of players. Moyes is now the 3rd longest serving manager in the league, and i wouldn't swap him for anyone. We lost 3 games 4-1 at home one year, who could forget the 5-1 debacle in Bucharest. Your never going to win 50 games a season, even the teams with unlimited funds don't. A Barsnley can still beat a Chelsea, that's what makes football fun. you can't be fickle or you lose sight of what is important.
EvertonMike
Bloody Hell! Sage words from EvertonMike and I agree with them all. Who'd have thought it, eh? A philosopher from Scouseland; does that entitle you to put an ermine collar on your shell suit?
AllanW
Bloody Hell! Sage words from EvertonMike and I agree with them all. Who'd have thought it, eh? A philosopher from Scouseland; does that entitle you to put an ermine collar on your shell suit?
AllanW
I do strongly believe MON is in Swiss for a scouting mission as well as a pundit....
leelindsay
I do strongly believe MON is in Swiss for a scouting mission as well as a pundit....
leelindsay
Spot on EvertonMike,Doug Ellis was a huge factor in all 3 managers reign,no matter who the manager was the cracks could only be covered for so long hence the constant cycle of managers.When are we gonna let go of the past and stop looking for a crysis,we have an excellent board and manager,just come through our second season of steady progress and some cracking young players in the first team and yet to break through.We're on the up.
Pking
Spot on EvertonMike,Doug Ellis was a huge factor in all 3 managers reign,no matter who the manager was the cracks could only be covered for so long hence the constant cycle of managers.When are we gonna let go of the past and stop looking for a crysis,we have an excellent board and manager,just come through our second season of steady progress and some cracking young players in the first team and yet to break through.We're on the up.
Pking
Leelindsay - MON is in london with the BBC punditry team, he's not actually at the tournament in Austria and Switzerland.
The Usual Suspect
Leelindsay - MON is in london with the BBC punditry team, he's not actually at the tournament in Austria and Switzerland.
The Usual Suspect
totally agree EvertonMike, as above that is what happened during Doug's reign and it never worked out well, if he'd got one man and stuck with him, who knows, but the 3 - 4 year cycle we went through cost the club dearly off loading the previous managers players and bringing in new ones. Wish we'd stuck with Ron, wish BL hadn't left, wish in many ways JG had felt more secure because if he had he might not have turned to the negative tactics! Even more so, wish GT first time hadn't left for England and I think in some ways he wishes the same. A big what if with his reign! Suppose if he'd not left for the England job he'd have had the same 'what if' for that job though!
The Fear
totally agree EvertonMike, as above that is what happened during Doug's reign and it never worked out well, if he'd got one man and stuck with him, who knows, but the 3 - 4 year cycle we went through cost the club dearly off loading the previous managers players and bringing in new ones. Wish we'd stuck with Ron, wish BL hadn't left, wish in many ways JG had felt more secure because if he had he might not have turned to the negative tactics! Even more so, wish GT first time hadn't left for England and I think in some ways he wishes the same. A big what if with his reign! Suppose if he'd not left for the England job he'd have had the same 'what if' for that job though!
The Fear
I think if times get hard next season we should all recite EvertonMike's comment several times. :)
industrial_musical
I think if times get hard next season we should all recite EvertonMike's comment several times. :)
industrial_musical
come on - this is too good to be true - is this the same Jake Findlay who used to be a goal keeper for my home town team Luton?
merlin
come on - this is too good to be true - is this the same Jake Findlay who used to be a goal keeper for my home town team Luton?
merlin
blah blah blah. come on, the last one only finished the other week and already you guys are talking about what if's.
myleftfoot
blah blah blah. come on, the last one only finished the other week and already you guys are talking about what if's.
myleftfoot
I am not THE Jake Findlay!!
jake findlay
I am not THE Jake Findlay!!
jake findlay
But isn't that exactly what Jake Findlay would say???
The Usual Suspect
But isn't that exactly what Jake Findlay would say???
The Usual Suspect
MON is a totally class manager. One of the elite out there but he needs cash to spend on the next level up. Also to keep Barry is crucial. He has to dig his heels in over Barry for the sake of the club & his reputation. The MON way is to buy young players a build a team. that takes time & the problem these days besides the media & fans short fuses is the players not waiting thinking they can get better. The wages cap needs to go. it's costing Arsenal dear right now. Star players need to see bucks as well as titles.
Sue
MON is a totally class manager. One of the elite out there but he needs cash to spend on the next level up. Also to keep Barry is crucial. He has to dig his heels in over Barry for the sake of the club & his reputation. The MON way is to buy young players a build a team. that takes time & the problem these days besides the media & fans short fuses is the players not waiting thinking they can get better. The wages cap needs to go. it's costing Arsenal dear right now. Star players need to see bucks as well as titles.
Sue
jake findlay - you've just broken my wifes heart - she used to fancy the real Jake Findlay!
merlin
jake findlay - you've just broken my wifes heart - she used to fancy the real Jake Findlay!
merlin
my opinion is fast becomming - if he cant sign the plaers, get a manager that can. the simple fact is, no players = no team. everyone around us is investing in their squads and we look to be doing feck all as usual.
Stig
excuse the typo.
Stig
my opinion is fast becomming - if he cant sign the plaers, get a manager that can. the simple fact is, no players = no team. everyone around us is investing in their squads and we look to be doing feck all as usual.
Stig
excuse the typo.
Stig
2 points - 1) Inevitible loss of Barry? Erm, sorry has Barry said he is leaving? No. Has MON accepted a bid? No. So can we stop believing what the papers say please? 2) Lets not forget all these managers where employees of Mr Ellis, things have changed, and I reckon MON will get more support than any of the managers mentioned above.
young_jonah
2 points - 1) Inevitible loss of Barry? Erm, sorry has Barry said he is leaving? No. Has MON accepted a bid? No. So can we stop believing what the papers say please? 2) Lets not forget all these managers where employees of Mr Ellis, things have changed, and I reckon MON will get more support than any of the managers mentioned above.
young_jonah
Panic not its early days has MON ever let us down before? OK so we have never always been happy but the man has enough about him to ensure Villa will be competing at the highest level.
col8
Panic not its early days has MON ever let us down before? OK so we have never always been happy but the man has enough about him to ensure Villa will be competing at the highest level.
col8
Get rid of Barry now or else this season will be a season of death for sure.
industrial_musical
Get rid of Barry now or else this season will be a season of death for sure.
industrial_musical
I think you have a great manager in Martin O'Neill. I am sure the new chairman will give him a few quid to spend this summer.
dazza71
I think you have a great manager in Martin O'Neill. I am sure the new chairman will give him a few quid to spend this summer.
dazza71
Good article, certainly provides food for thought. MON though is made of sterner/better stuff than many who have gone before, arguably the best manager we've had at the club since Ron Saunders.
glensider
Good article, certainly provides food for thought. MON though is made of sterner/better stuff than many who have gone before, arguably the best manager we've had at the club since Ron Saunders.
glensider
Very important summer though, a summer that will reveal much about the clubs true ambitions. We really are in a great position to build and push on, with or without our somewhat confused skipper.
glensider
Very important summer though, a summer that will reveal much about the clubs true ambitions. We really are in a great position to build and push on, with or without our somewhat confused skipper.
glensider
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