O’Neill Takes Heart From Thumping?

Not sure, after a long and wet day the talk from Martin O’Neill really holds much mustard with me.

After two years in charge and money available but not spent, he was able to tell us after a 4-0 humiliation that Manchester United set the benchmark.

No shit Sherlock, they outclassed us in ever aspect of the game!

He told the official site:

‘If you could ever try to set the benchmark, that’s it. That’s what we’re trying to achieve, to play that level of football and to be as devastating as that.’

Maybe I’m just grumpy and wet through, but how exactly are we trying to achieve that? With Maloney, Harewood, Zat Knight etc? Yes, we are going to set the world alight and I bet when Osbourne was brought on for a striker (when 3 down if memory serves me right?) I bet Man Utd were quaking in their boots.

He added, ‘Also, remarkably, they don’t concede too many goals. Everybody talks about how fantastic they are in attack, but they’ve conceded something like 15 goals this season, that’s fantastic.’

They won’t concede many goals from us, we rarely shoot.

‘We came up against a team right at the top of their game today; we have to admit they were splendid.They’re riding high and their confidence is high at the moment. Even though we started brightly ourselves and took the game to them, the first goal was a poor one from our viewpoint and that set them on their way. We had plenty of possession in the game, but they’ve got world class players throughout the team and they’re just splendid.’

Adding, somewhat mystifyingly: ‘There were things there to give us heart. Eventually the scoreline was pretty strong, but we had one or two chances ourselves that could have made it more respectable.’

I saw nothing at all today to give the travelling fans any heart. The fans were spot on, A+ fantastic as usual, the shape of the team was not. I’m told we are moving forward with great strides. I hope those strides accelerate as I see nothing but humiliation following a result like that, other teams take it to Man Utd, just ask Portsmouth, we cower.

Right, will dry myself off and go sulk…. Wonder if I’ll think these comments harsh when I read them in the morning. Somehow I doubt it. The bench for Villa has been pathetic this season and I’m afraid instead of telling us we can take heart, MON needs to correct the situation or get someone in as director of football who can spend money.