I have little sympathy for O'Neil. Villa cant turn down the kind of money Shiteh are offering for Milner (overated), O'Neil should just bite the bullet and get on with the job he is paid handsomely to do. Just hope we dont need to look at his smug coupon every saturday on MOTD.

INCREDIBLE

first big casualty - and the premier league is still 5 days away

Very clearly not popular in the dressing room.....

"Villa players were last night texting each other images of champagne bottles to celebrate O’Neill’s exit - just five days before the season starts."

Some interesting posts about O'Neil here, just thought it was time for a few words in his defense.

O'Neil the man came through the Brian Clough school of management in the late 70's / early 80's, he has stated before that his what influenced him the most. I guess spending so much time with Brian as a young man you would pick up various traits and bits of advice - good or bad. He is a good manager, but he is fragile, I wouldnt say in the Keegan way but not so different.

What you have with Martin O'Neil is a man who goes with his emotions and possibly at times lets them get the better of him, he makes his decision and you are either with him or against him there is no 3rd way with Martin O'Neil, in some ways I find it refreshing in a game dominated by billions of pounds that he still wants to do things his way.

O'Neil will have had a vision of what he wanted Villa to be doing this year and his plans will have been around the players that are being talked about leaving against his wishes.

As for Villa well it was only in the early 1980's they won the old first division AND became champions of Europe, the last side outside of Manchester and Liverpool to do such a thing. But football has moved on since then of course, but they remain the biggest club in the second largest city in the UK. If clubs like Newcastle who haven't won anything for years are allowed to dream then why not Villa ?

That's all very well, but it was bound to end in tears, especially when Lerner started asking questions about why O'Neill had four players - earning GBP40,000 a week - warming the benches.

Since O'Neill took over in 2006, Villa have apparently been the third biggest net spenders in the Premiership, behind Citeh and Spurs. Unfortunately for O'Neill he will be remembered more for his duff purchases (Reo-Coker and Harewood) than his good ones such as Young (at least in financial terms).

An explanation from non-exec director, Charles Krulack.

Given 'The General' actually posts on Villa boards, the following statement is probably the real deal.

http://www.astonvilla.vitalfootball.co.uk/article.asp?a=7505236

Meanwhile, Spurs have suddenly got GBP40m to splash around. Apparently we are going for Young and Adebayor.

Given Levy has told Bollockchops he must raise money in the market by selling you really couldn't make it up. Well actually the newspapers could.

He obviously thought he could change them into contendoers. We don't know what assurances on transfer budget he got from Lerner, but if O'Neil now realises his ambitions (and what's wrong with ambitions?) cannot be fulfilled at Villa, then he owes it to himself to move on.

Meanwhile, in the Alice in Wonderland world that is the transfer market it would seem that Citeh are holding up Woy's ability to launch a bid for Carlton Cole. Woy should be saved from himself and Liverpool fans should be grateful to Citeh.

If we sign Carlton Cole, all the good faith lent to Hodgson so far from Liverpool fans will evaporate instantly.

Cole is a donkey. A failure at even a modest Premier League level. He may do a job for a Birmingham or a Stoke, but not for a club whose ambitions are higher than safety before the last game of the season.

Then again, reports that Spurs are lining up a £22m bid for Adebayor made me smirk.

Back to Villa, and BBC are reporting that Gareth Southgate has expressed an interest in becoming their new manager.

I bet he has! LOL! Although if Southgate's looking for a club in that vicinity, Walsall may be the limit of his managerial skills.

And, as ever, Curbishley is in the frame. I know he's available because he's unemployed, but do people actually bother asking why he remains unemployed? No, of course not.

Oh, FFS, Spurs in for Gallas?

More good news for England or bad news for Sunderland (depends on which way you look at it).

Darren Bent sent home with a back injury.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/8901350.stm

Poor old Darren has certainly got the hex on him, he really has. I would have preferred him to play up front with Zamora and see England get hammered 6-0 with the pair of them missing a hatful of chances. That way we could consign them to the dustbin of history where they already belong. 

Birmingham goalkeeper Ben Foster has now pulled out of the England squad with a back injury. Foster could really do without anymore injuries. Scott Loach and Frankie Fielding are called up as replacements. It would be amazing if Scott Loach who is playing for Watford at Aldershot tonight, then got some game time for the England first team 24 hours later.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/8902576.stm

So near, yet so far.

http://www.mailonsunday.co.uk/sport/football/article-1301952/Steven-Gerrard-I-quit-England-World-Cup.html

Meanwhile, looking at the teamsheet The Fail has come with I must say I can hardly contain my excitement. Nothing like looking to the future with the likes of Zamora.

I may just tune into the game long enough to see these morons booed.

Carvalho off to Real madrd..... no doubt a loss for chelsea.  I rate Ricardo he is a good centre half and his performances often eclipsed Terry's.

I always thought that Ricardo Carvalho made John Terry look better than he actually is. John Terry could be shown up as a clown this season, though I suppose he has already done that in the past anyway.

Never mind tonight's meaningless result against an ordinary Hungarian team, the one thing we can be thankful for is that Capello has finally brought the curtain down on Beckham's international career - at least while he's in charge.

Beckham's agent apparently has issued a statement this evening saying Goldenballs is willing to carry on. Is there a vet in the house?

For all Beckham may be finished after this latest injury, it's not been a particularly dignified way for his England career to have a stake plunged through it. As many have said, Capello should have had the grace to have spoken with him prior to blurting out the news to a nagging ITV interviewer.

More craziness in the transfer market according to the BBC gossip column, with West Ham wanting £20m for Carlton Cole.

Hopefully this will scare off Woy, whose reported transfer targets are making me question whether he has got a clue after all. Carlton Cole, Peter Crouch, Luke Young, Stephen Warnock have all been mentioned as realistic targets in recent weeks. Who does he think we are? Fulham?

Amusing isn't it? If Carlton Cole is worth GBP20m does that make Rooney worth GBP1bn?

Regarding that esteemed list of potential Liverpool players you mentioned, you left Petrov out - the Villa one, not the ex-Citeh one. As I said in an earlier post I'm beginnig to think Woy needs to be saved from himself.

My guess is that Capello is trying to engineer a situation where the pressure on the FA to sack him is too great to resist. I suspect he'd like to be kicked out now , rather than on the basis of results immediately after the WC.  

Yes, but we have a standoff here. Capello won't walk without the money and the FA don't have the money.