Facts or Fiction, past or future

I see talk of Martin’s joining Villa, fans still suggesting Defoe is a target and so on. From the day the season closed until the 31 st of August, Martin O’Neill managed to get Reo Coker, Martin Harewood and Zat Knight for a spend of £15 million. In fact if you take into account the sales he made the actual spend is far less.

If in all that time the sum of O’Neill’s trading’s are summarised as above, why oh why, do people still offer such suggestions as Defoe and Martins?

Why are fans still believing that such purchases are possible, that O’Neill will even contemplate such. He had a full season, plus a full summer to deal, every other club did to their best ability so I assume so did we. No one has dared do a comparison of this summers deals to those of O’Leary and Taylor’s under Ellis I note, but considering the extra money available from media rights, and Randy’s wallet, the sum spent, the players bought are arguably far poorer.

Was Reo Coker a bigger buy or risk than Crouch, 5 seasons ago for 6 million? Was Harewood a better gamble than Allback, was Knight a better buy than Mellberg, Alpay, Bouma, Hughes?

Many don’t like him but Baros was a proven golden boots striker who had played several seasons in the Premiership, when he was bought with Hughes and Bouma did we all rain praise on O’Leary, was our expectation comparable to now.

It bloody well was not, complaint after complaint piled in O’Leary, this, O’Leary that, Ellis is a this, Ellis is a that, why can’t we buy better, what hope have we with such buys. This time around the Board have money and provided funds, the media funding was huge compared to that in Ellis times, especially under Taylor and O’Leary, yet the same fans who criticised and moaned who made a life on slating Ellis and his managers now sit quietly by the computers eulogising over the possible purchase of such as Defoe, SWP, Martins.

We have a 5 year plan but nothing in the transfer market so far has matched the off field improvements, especially when you consider the money available from all sources this summer. The spend indicates no more ambition on the field, especially when you account those sold, than at any time under Ellis, so why the continued insane suggestions?

We are still a club with mid table aims struggling to find players to move us centimetres at a time, thankfully O’Neill’s past record suggests he’s better at doing it that way than his two predecessors. He’s bought some decent prospects, in Young and Coker, but so did Taylor, so did O’Leary, so did Gregory, they mainly bought make do’s that’s why long term we didn’t progress well enough, is Carew, Harewood, Knight, Maloney anything more?