Villa Manager Slated

Criticism of Martin O’Neill seems to have increased slightly recently. We’ve had Matthew Le Tissier and Andy Gray saying the team is Martin O’Neills and should do better and now former Villa striker Milan Baros, who moved to Lyon in exchange for John Carew (and what a great deal that was, although I’d loved to have seen them BOTH play in the same team I must admit!) has slated the Villa boss.

The former Liverpool striker and Czech Republic international said; ‘To be honest, the last six months at Villa was a kind of survival. Neither I nor the club was doing well and everything was much more difficult.’

‘We play football at Lyon, not long ball tactics. It was very difficult at Aston Villa in that respect – it was more like fighting than playing football. There, I got one chance in a game, sometimes not even that. At Lyon, I have three or four chances a game.’

Although some will say they don’t care what Baros says because he left Villa etc etc, it is what many of us have said for a long time, you could play Ruud Van Nistelrooy in his prime at Villa and even he wouldn’t score. I thought this season would see a departure from the way we played last year under David O’Leary, I thought the long balls would end and we’d get the supply to the strikers sorted. Maybe it will just take longer, but at the moment I see five in midfield and a big man up front who doesn’t get the sort of ball where he can turn and shoot, so he has to flick on to …. well, no one basically.

I’m sure earlier in the season our formation was more attacking, what happened?

Five across midfield is rubbish, it was last season, it is when played this season, that isn’t a dig at the manager at all, I am all for Martin O’Neill building an empire at Villa, but you have to look at where we are in the league and look at the amount of goals scored. WHY have John Carew up front and no one to feed off him? Why not put Gabby, Luke Moore or Juan Pablo Angel up front in a proper 4-4-2 to feed off the Hulk and all the hard work he puts in?

I’d rather see us go down fighting than the puerile crap we saw against Liverpool or Fulham for instance, wouldn’t you? Quicker this season is over and the summer changes start the better, but I still can see little or no excuses for our placement in the league OR for the latest talk of a lack of confidence in the players, they wear the mighty claret and blue shirt, they should go out for every match with their heads held high and put the same guts and balls into the game that the team of 82 – soon to be honoured – did game in and game out! Are they over paid ninnies or Lions, the choice I guess is theirs.

And no, I don’t want the manager merry go round to continue!