Breaking News EPL - Aston Villa’s Martin O'Neill resigns from the post of manager
The news will be marked as one of the biggest shocks of the summers 2010 in the football community, as the manger of Aston Villa Martin O'Neill has announced his resignation from the English club.
This stunning news comes just 4 days before Barclay’s English Premier League is about to start. With this unbelievable news, all the implications and predictions made in the English League might just turn around.
A lot of hustle and bustle has been going on in the Lions camp lately. They have been planning to sign in players and trying to fix their transfer contracts. This does lead to the suspicion that if this was the reason behind the departure of the 58-year-old Irish manger. O’Neil has also worked as a manager at the Leicester City and Celtics. He worked at Leicester City for 5 years and was a manager for five years at Celtics. For Aston Villa, the manager has managed for 4 years, starting in 2006.
Irishman O’Neill is among those managers that have had a long football career, as a player before they started managing at clubs. His popular clubs were Nottingham Forest, Manchester City, Norwich City and Notts County. His club career includes 435 caps with 68 goals.
He has also been a prominent player for his country; concluding 64 appearances and 6 goals while playing as a midfielder. His best managing statistics are with the Celtics, for which he has a winning percentage of 75.5%. He also helped them win 3 League Titles, 3 Domestic Cups and League Cup. With Aston Villa he has a winning percentage of 42%. His career winning percentage is so far at 53%.
He has, however helped Aston Villa in many tough spots. He has even helped the Villains achieve the 6th position in Barclays English Premier League. They thwarted the mighty top 4 team; Liverpool down to the 7th position in the process.
Now that the manager is gone and the transfer issues are still hot on the plate, their owner Randy Lerner will definitely be having a tough time in managing things at Villa Park and Birmingham. The players must be anxious and nervous, as to who will replace the manger and what were the reasons that lead O’ Neil to make this decision, and would the next manager be affected by this.
There have been no justifying statements about the departure of the manager from any side, but they both are expected to make a press conference today. Experts believe that reason for the departure is not just the amount power that was handed to O’Neil along with funds he was given to refurnish his squad. They also expect that he was not happy with the signings interference and the influence over him for player transfers.
Another reason is that O’Neil has never spent more than 5 years at a club, which makes it apparent that if O’Neil did not see an impressive future of Aston Villa under his rule, then he would have left the club in search of a better one. The reason for his judgment of Villa’s lack of progress could be the owner. Coming from a strong club like Celtics in comparison to the Leagues, the manager must have felt that he needed more autonomy along with a better budget.
O’Neil had already complained about his unhappiness about the signings and transfers stating that things had not been going according to plan, also pointing out the glitches in the process.
There have been massive assumptions that after the departure of James Milner to one of the hottest clubs demanding for him Manchester City, Ashley Young would be moving out too, who has also been demanded by Liverpool. In Milner’s case the matter is so far hung up as Villa is asking for 25 million pounds, which the Eastlands are refusing to provide. In Young’s case, he has been demanding a higher salary than the Liverpool is offering him and therefore the deal hasn’t been struck yet.
This was not the first time O'Neill tried to move away from Aston Villa. Just last year, he tried to run away but immediate negotiation with the owner, Lerner made him stay another year. Now until the club finds a new manager Kevin McDonald, the caretaker, will be looking after the club.
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