Post by QPR Report on Apr 3, 2010 6:55:34 GMT
The Times
Martin O’Neill a voice of sanity in Premier League asylumPatrick Barclay Chief Football Commentator
The economics of top-flight football and expectations of fans forced O'Neill to defend his record
It is an indication of the esteem in which Martin O’Neill is held that he can call himself “a breath of fresh air” and get away with it. Anyone else would have been widely derided for using the phrase, as the Aston Villa manager did on Thursday during a long and typically passionate response to criticism by some supporters.
O’Neill is so popular that he could even refer to himself in the third person — and be applauded for avoiding the shortest first-person pronoun.
The English love him so much that even those who believe that the country should have an English manager often cite his name, taking him for a national treasure (as an occasional television pundit, he blends the compelling quality of Brian Clough with the cuddliness of Henry Cooper) in apparent ignorance of, or perhaps healthy indifference to, his upbringing in a part of Northern Ireland where few could bring themselves to utter the first two syllables of “Londonderry”.
If O’Neill, rather than Steve McClaren, had been England head coach on the night when Croatia won 3-2 at Wembley in 2007, he would have been “the Fella With The Umbrella”, not “the Wally With The Brolly”. True, he probably wouldn’t have accepted the accursed thing in the first place. But can you remember McClaren ever calling himself a breath of fresh air? Even in Enschede, where he is one?
There is something about O’Neill that the rest of us wish could be bottled and put on sale. Its ingredients, I’d guess, include honesty and wit, as well as talent.
It was that honesty that impelled him to defend his record at Villa. The club had just finished sixteenth when he took over from David O’Leary in the summer of 2006. They have since finished eleventh, sixth and sixth again, and lay seventh when O’Neill addressed rumours that he had quit after a row with Randy Lerner, the owner. No wonder that, for once, the wit deserted him.
Football, like the Monty Python sketch, has become silly. Notably in the Barclays Premier League. The acceptance, indeed encouragement, of debt has brought about a situation in which Lerner, a much-liked American, feels obliged to play an expensive game of catch-up.
Sixth brings you a round of applause soon drowned by a clamour for fourth and the Champions League, and if you do not answer it, the manager and the players he has bought are accused of underachievement, to put it politely.
Villa’s debt is estimated at £80 million, which happens to be the amount O’Neill reckons to have spent — “that equates to £20 million a season,” he was careful to stress — and the assumption is that Lerner must be unhappy. There is no point in him saying otherwise. Nor are the disgruntled fans likely to change their minds and accept that it is enough to qualify for the Europa League every year, enjoy cup runs so prolonged that they are liable to end at Wembley and have pacey, vigorous and reasonably entertaining football in which vibrant young Englishmen are prominent.
Progress in the Premier League is like economic growth; it buys time in which to think about what you really want, but never quite enough.
You have to keep growing and, in the section of the league that Villa occupy, even a gesture at competing with Manchester City can leave you deep in the red. If Lerner were to wave his figures and wail at, say, Bill Kenwright, the Everton chairman would probably say: “Welcome to England.”
And where this madness would have led us but for the intervention of Uefa, with its new principle that clubs everywhere must work towards spending only what they earn, can only be described as Portsmouth.
Enlightenment did have to dawn eventually and there are fewer cheap gibes now about Uefa and Michel Platini, its president. Nor is Fifa, when Sepp Blatter discerns “something wrong with the Premier League”, told not to stick its nose in someone else’s business.
Such is the clubs’ aggregate debt that interest charges are £150 million a year. We know because of Oliver Kay’s report in The Times yesterday, and to have the figure is more than useful. But where did people think the money was coming from — Oxfam?
The top level of English football may continue to be fertile ground for usurers and administrators for a while yet, because Uefa’s regulations include no prohibition on ownership debt. A club will not be able to pay players more than they bring in, but owners can still make the supporters pay their interest, as in the case of Manchester United, without even a hint of compensation when said owners eventually depart enriched.
We inhabit, in short, a nuthouse. And only if the Premier League gets radical will the sanity offered by Uefa truly prevail.
Only prudent finances, transparently exposed, will discourage supporters from baying at the Moon and relieve the game’s human assets, men such as O’Neill, from having to justify themselves in terms that edge dangerously close to David Brent. It would be — to borrow a phrase — a breath of fresh air.
www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/sport/football/article7086073.ece
Martin O’Neill a voice of sanity in Premier League asylumPatrick Barclay Chief Football Commentator
The economics of top-flight football and expectations of fans forced O'Neill to defend his record
It is an indication of the esteem in which Martin O’Neill is held that he can call himself “a breath of fresh air” and get away with it. Anyone else would have been widely derided for using the phrase, as the Aston Villa manager did on Thursday during a long and typically passionate response to criticism by some supporters.
O’Neill is so popular that he could even refer to himself in the third person — and be applauded for avoiding the shortest first-person pronoun.
The English love him so much that even those who believe that the country should have an English manager often cite his name, taking him for a national treasure (as an occasional television pundit, he blends the compelling quality of Brian Clough with the cuddliness of Henry Cooper) in apparent ignorance of, or perhaps healthy indifference to, his upbringing in a part of Northern Ireland where few could bring themselves to utter the first two syllables of “Londonderry”.
If O’Neill, rather than Steve McClaren, had been England head coach on the night when Croatia won 3-2 at Wembley in 2007, he would have been “the Fella With The Umbrella”, not “the Wally With The Brolly”. True, he probably wouldn’t have accepted the accursed thing in the first place. But can you remember McClaren ever calling himself a breath of fresh air? Even in Enschede, where he is one?
There is something about O’Neill that the rest of us wish could be bottled and put on sale. Its ingredients, I’d guess, include honesty and wit, as well as talent.
It was that honesty that impelled him to defend his record at Villa. The club had just finished sixteenth when he took over from David O’Leary in the summer of 2006. They have since finished eleventh, sixth and sixth again, and lay seventh when O’Neill addressed rumours that he had quit after a row with Randy Lerner, the owner. No wonder that, for once, the wit deserted him.
Football, like the Monty Python sketch, has become silly. Notably in the Barclays Premier League. The acceptance, indeed encouragement, of debt has brought about a situation in which Lerner, a much-liked American, feels obliged to play an expensive game of catch-up.
Sixth brings you a round of applause soon drowned by a clamour for fourth and the Champions League, and if you do not answer it, the manager and the players he has bought are accused of underachievement, to put it politely.
Villa’s debt is estimated at £80 million, which happens to be the amount O’Neill reckons to have spent — “that equates to £20 million a season,” he was careful to stress — and the assumption is that Lerner must be unhappy. There is no point in him saying otherwise. Nor are the disgruntled fans likely to change their minds and accept that it is enough to qualify for the Europa League every year, enjoy cup runs so prolonged that they are liable to end at Wembley and have pacey, vigorous and reasonably entertaining football in which vibrant young Englishmen are prominent.
Progress in the Premier League is like economic growth; it buys time in which to think about what you really want, but never quite enough.
You have to keep growing and, in the section of the league that Villa occupy, even a gesture at competing with Manchester City can leave you deep in the red. If Lerner were to wave his figures and wail at, say, Bill Kenwright, the Everton chairman would probably say: “Welcome to England.”
And where this madness would have led us but for the intervention of Uefa, with its new principle that clubs everywhere must work towards spending only what they earn, can only be described as Portsmouth.
Enlightenment did have to dawn eventually and there are fewer cheap gibes now about Uefa and Michel Platini, its president. Nor is Fifa, when Sepp Blatter discerns “something wrong with the Premier League”, told not to stick its nose in someone else’s business.
Such is the clubs’ aggregate debt that interest charges are £150 million a year. We know because of Oliver Kay’s report in The Times yesterday, and to have the figure is more than useful. But where did people think the money was coming from — Oxfam?
The top level of English football may continue to be fertile ground for usurers and administrators for a while yet, because Uefa’s regulations include no prohibition on ownership debt. A club will not be able to pay players more than they bring in, but owners can still make the supporters pay their interest, as in the case of Manchester United, without even a hint of compensation when said owners eventually depart enriched.
We inhabit, in short, a nuthouse. And only if the Premier League gets radical will the sanity offered by Uefa truly prevail.
Only prudent finances, transparently exposed, will discourage supporters from baying at the Moon and relieve the game’s human assets, men such as O’Neill, from having to justify themselves in terms that edge dangerously close to David Brent. It would be — to borrow a phrase — a breath of fresh air.
www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/sport/football/article7086073.ece
The Telegraph
)