by its cold in the stands shadow » Mon Aug 25, 2003 12:43 pm
i`ve already written a post along these lines today but i suppose this is the correct place to do so again.
i think martin o` neil is a excellent motivator and gets the best out of players but his achilles heel is the style of play he adopts. the direct style brings relative success quite quickly but at the higher levels the better sides have no problem in figuring you out.( as celtic found out in the uefa cup final).
its no coincidence all the most successfull sides have the ability to play attractive fluid football...... real madrid, man u, arsenal etc.
even in england apart from the george graham side of the late eighties/ early nineties no team playing the direct style has done anything of note historically in the championship
race, and even then they were far from being a dominant force in the game. the great liverpool sides,the united side of best, law and charlton, the everton sides of harvey, ball, kendal (school of science) and the everton of sheedy, stevens and reid, the great double winning spurs side of mackay and blanchflower, the leeds of giles, gray and bremner, the busby babes etc. these all have two notable things in common, they are remembered as great teams and they all played the game on the floor. in my opinion these two factors go hand in hand.
o neill relies on big target men like sutton, heskey and hartson to hold the ball up and try to win free kicks around the opposition box or bring other players into the game.
when was the last time a team playing this style won the champions league or world cup?
i know he`s had success in scotland but walter smith and graeme souness have more scottish titles than you can shake a stick at.
m.o.n is a excellent manager but he is not the man to take us back to were we belong amongst the elite of the game.
my vote goes to keegan and i`ve explained why on a earlier post.