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Andy Gray Put Back In His Box

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Great, I love a good row in the press!

Martin O’Neill has slated Andy Gray’s criticism of him saying his arguments ‘don’t stack up’.

Lets face it, those that can do, manage, those that can’t talk total shite on Sky.

Andy Gray said, as we covered some weeks back: ‘This Villa side is O’Neill’s team, littered with players that he has brought in since taking the reins at the start of the season.’

O’Neill has now answered, albeit late, saying:

‘I’m not saying I’m looking for five years to turn this club around, but there’s no such thing as patience today. It doesn’t exist in life and it certainly doesn’t exist in football. I don’t mind criticism if your argument stacks up. He mentioned the squad here is ‘littered’ with my own signings. The argument is simply not true. This sounds like mitigation but it’s true, we signed one player in August who was the only change to the team from last season, and we lost James Milner as well.’

‘We signed Chris Sutton outside the transfer window and he did OK, we didn’t get much from Didier Agathe on a four-month contract. Those signings were keeping us alive until January and then we signed three players, one of which (Shaun Maloney) was signed too late to play in January because he was signed on the very last day. We got John Carew in a swap deal which we’re pretty pleased and Ashley Young who will come good – absolutely no question of that.’

‘Shaun Maloney has played twice, John Carew had played five times before the Liverpool match. So to turn around and say we’re littered with my signings is simply not true. He also said if we’d lost to Liverpool, then that was two on the trot, well we didn’t lose to Liverpool. He said if we hadn’t got results early on, we’d be struggling – but we did get results early on.’

Like it! FIGHT, FIGHT, FIGHT! O’Neill added: ‘It’s like saying if Manchester United hadn’t have won the first 12 games of the season for example, then look where they’d have been. If you use a peripheral argument as the backbone of your argument, then you look a bit foolish. That’s my own view. I’ve seen that kind of argument before and it looks foolish. Criticism is there all the time. This time last year Sir Alex Ferguson was told to retire. You can pick bits of an argument and make it fit whatever way you want. The issue is we have to win some more games.’

Sorry as he was a great player for us, but never like Andy Gray anyway, used to bump into him around Four Oaks in the pubs and he was a snotty, arrogant pratt. He also spoke badly of us fans who wanted Ellis to go, so what he thinks about OUR manager, is irrelevant!!!!

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