Slideshow

O'Neill's Legacy

Martin O'Neill arrived at Aston Villa in August 2006 as part of former Chairman, Doug Ellis's final act in charge before the sale of the club to American millionaire, Randy Lerner.

His most successful buys into the club arguably came on the same day in January 2008, where Watford's Ashley Young was purchased for £9.75m and John Carew arrived in a swap deal for Milan Baros.

O'Neill's biggest win came in April 2008 when arch rivals Birmingham City succumbed to a 5-1 defeat at Villa Park, Carew scoring two.

This was one of many successful wins over the 2007-08 season that saw Villa finish sixth in the Premiership, earning an Intertoto qualification place as a result.

Gareth Barry's form as Villa captain saw his rise to the England ranks where he became a regular under Steve McClaren and now, Fabio Capello.

O'Neill spent most of this summer convincing his star midfielder to stay at the club, setting an £18m asking price to Liverpool, who Barry claimed he was "desperate" to join.

Barry ended up staying with the Villains, for now anyway, and played a crucial role in the team's opening UEFA cup group game against Dutch giants Ajax.

Barry scored the winner in front of an electric Villa Park to defeat Ajax 2-1 and set the tone for what will hopefully be a successful UEFA cup campaign.


Friday, 5 December 2008

Safely through to the final 32.

Hardly.

Martin O'Neill went with an under strength side for the 2-1 defeat to MSK Zilina but hopefully last night's shock defeat will serve as a message that Villa cannot afford to take any team likely this year.

Villa qualify from Group F as they, along with Hamburg and Ajax have six points from three games, leaving Slavia Prague and MSK Zilina unable to catch up.

With AC Milan and the teams dropping down from the Champions League it should make for a competitive final 32 phase in the UEFA Cup.

Let's hope Villa can hold their own and not crash out early or embarrasingly like Everton and Portsmouth have done and fly the British flag high on the European stage.
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3 comments:

  1. Jonny Rogers5 December 2008 at 08:34

    Jack! You told me to watch the game and see Villa thrash some random foreign team! what happened!!! Good goal by Delfonso or whatever he's called, looks a good prospect for the future

    ReplyDelete
  2. PompeyJourno8 December 2008 at 04:31

    It's alright for some - do England proud and go on and win seen as we're out

    ReplyDelete
  3. PompeyJourno8 December 2008 at 04:31

    Don't know why the villa game was on tv and pompey wasnt - ridiculous

    ReplyDelete

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