A Look At Martin O’Neill’s Transfers

AVFC48 takes a look in hindsight at Martin O’Neill’s transfers:

Steve Sidwell: £5million, rarely is the Barry replacement ever picked by the bloke who bought him.

Luke Young: £5million. Not done bad as a left-back, thought he was a right-back at Boro mind.

Brad Friedel: £2.5 million. getting on and not as good as he was at Blackburn but better than what we had before, or was he, ask Stoke fans

Nickey Shorey: £3.5 million a decent left-back but never picked by the man who bought him

Brad Guzan: £600k who knows

Carlos Cuellar: £8 million and rarely picked or rarely when picked at the level his obvious talent suggests he should be

James Milner: £12.5 million. yes workmanlike, yes plenty of effort, yes big potential, yes 12.5 mill, get away with thee

Curtis Davies: £10 million. didn’t do much last season and hasn’t been consistent or brilliant this. Even by O’Neill’s standards a long transfer and did he get it right ?

Emile Heskey: £3.5 million. The current England centre forward who has been shite and because he keeps picking him we’ve gone 9 games without a win an obvious good buy, not.

£50 million plus spent in season 2008/2009 and we have steady progress or at worst consolidation of 6th

9 players bought 2 near ever presents one out of position, a third rarely gets picked, another third rarely get off the bench

Would you as owner of the club allow this manager substantial funding in this summers transfer dealings, when you also consider?

John Carew: £4.5 million, when he plays he’s great, but he doesn’t even when on the pitch play that often, off it though hmmm

Stiliyan Petrov: £8 million plus and 2 seasons wasted, now just paying his way, so what went wrong for 2 seasons?

Marlon Harewood: £4 million. another bench warmer if he’s lucky and we aren’t

Zat Knight: £3.5 million. another bench warmer who is just not good enough

Moustapha Salifou: sorry but he did buy him and even if it was a nominal fee of a few cows why ?

Wayne Routledge: £150k the man Robbo was going to turn into a star winger, worth a punt. No

Shaun Maloney: £1 million, sold at a profit, rarely played though but super dealing Mart well done

Ashley Young: £10 million. A genius according to Mart, well yes maybe but not of late, but at least he gets picked and that’s a bonus with any O’Neill buy isn’t it.

Nigel Reo Coker: £8 million and rarely played as much as he should be, why is that, anyone tell me. If he’s poor why buy him but then could we not ask that question of 75 % of O’Neill’s buys ?

Carson, Agathe, Bardsley and others all did a job, a very poor one mind, but they did a job, but were they worth the punt, when others like Davies, Sorensen, Cahill, even McCann, Hughes, Mellberg were already on the books. How would we stand today if Barry had gone to Liverpool, if Laursen had not recovered from his knee problems if Gabby had not scored the goals he has over the last 3 seasons?

Allowing the £2 million cost of Carson, that’s another £40 million plus spent on players few of whom are consistently picked by the man who bought them in the first place.

Why is that ?

avfc48