We didn’t have anybody in a senior football administrative role who had a clue what they were doing under short. We were just buying players
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Martin O'Neill
- Thread starter shadowplay
- Start date
Father Jack Hackett
Striker
Players O’Neill wanted. He got the payers and dished-up some of the most turgid football I’ve ever seen.
He had frontlines of Larsson, Sessegnon, Fletcher/Bendtner and Johnson and served us that.
Short made a lot of bad decisions but backed O’Neill and his football was only topped by Parkinson for its negativity imo.
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I do agree that it was hugely underwhelming tenure. It marked the end of my 25 years or so as a season timer holder the failure of O’Neil, but with the benefit of hindsight I don’t think he or any of the other high profile managers had a chance under Short.
Stella Spark
Central Defender
Been fantastic everywhere he's been, except here.
Typical Sunderland
Typical Sunderland
chriswallace85
Striker
He sanctioned two big signings in Fletcher and Johnson. I wouldn't say he backed him a great deal. O'Neill had said the squad needed major surgery - it did - but he wasn't given the means to do it.
Roll on the summer after his sacking, and we let that clown De Fanti in and we do all sorts of bad business.
Fletch and Johnson at least were bloody good signings for us.
Alfie N'Diaye was decent enough too, and we got our money back on him.
Danny Graham is the stick people often beat O'Neil with, but at £5m he cost buttons, and in the Premier League, you get what you pay for. We needed a body, and he'd done more than ok at Swansea, so on paper, it was worth the punt.
I don't believe O'Neill was a negative manager, or that he set out to be negative. What he was aware of is how soft we were. And we were soft. He knew that any point we were susceptible to being rolled over and having our bellies tickled.
Our back four was a mess. Brown in and out the side, couldn't train, coming to the end. That last season under O'Neill, he didn't even play.
Bramble - do I even need to expand?
Bardsley for the most part was in one of his half arsed periods. We had Craig Gardner filling in a number of weeks - that gave us a little more attacking impetus, but he wasn't exactly a solid defender. Danny Rose was a decent loanee.
In midfield, we were without Cattermole for most of the season. We could be a soft touch with him in the side, without him it was even worse. David Vaughan, weak as piss.
I liked Larsson, but there was plenty who didn't. And he was more effective with the likes of Cattermole alongside.
The way we absolutely capitulated at Aston Villa was precisely why O'Neill approached games in a certain manner. And it's not so different to what Poyet realised when he walked through the door. And if we fast forward a decade, it's not so different to Regis Le Bris' approach either.
31.8% win ratio in the prem for us - which is better than most.
I think a big problem at the time is that our expectation weren't aligned with the quality of the squad in front of us.
My biggest concern about us going forward from the brilliant season we've had so far, is the fans losing sight of where we're actually at again.
We've got form for it.
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Black Cat Gypsy
Striker
Shite at Nottingham Forest. The last year with Ireland was awful. 1 win in 14 games I think.
Definitely Maybe
Striker
There's the age old debate about Short and the amount of money spent but it's more complex than that imo.
We spent a shitload of money BUT there was a clear trend from 2012 onwards - the first summer without Quinn as chairman:
12/13 - Went into the summer needing a striker as Bendtner's loan ended. Sold Turner and started the season with only Saha and Cuellar on free transfers as our only signings then signed Fletcher and Johnson after the start of season. Both had been frozen out and arrived unfit without a pre-season - Fletcher hit the ground running but Johnson took until the second half of the season to start to deliver and said how it took him ages to adjust from being a perennial sub at City to playing 90 minutes without any pre-season
13/14 - The De Fanti Udinese model summer. Bit of an outlier as we did most of our business early but sold Mignolet and Sess for a combined £16m then signed 14 players for less than £20m combined
14/15 - Colback and Bardsley left on frees and Alonso, Ki and Borini returned to their clubs after their loans. Signed Jones, Pantilimon and Gomez on frees early on, started the season without a right back and Roberge starting in defence then spent big on Rodwell in August.
15/16 - Signed Lens and Kaboul early on for £9m and £3m but also bought Adam Matthews for £2m only to realise he was shite, sack him off and replace him (Yedlin) in the same window. Then got off to a bad start and bought Borini immediately after Short started to get stick in the ground vs Norwich, despite Advocaat asking for a targetman and being told by Congerton he could play there.
16/17 - Allardyce leaving undoubtedly disrupted things, but even at the point of the Iceland game we were one of only two clubs (Stoke the other) not to have made a signing and Allardyce has said he was still trying to agree transfer budgets with Short when he left in late July. We then spent £8m on Djilibodji in August on the eve of the season and £13.5m on Ndong on deadline day.
So imo there's a clear pattern where we ended each season scraping survival and relying on loan players who returned to their clubs, going into the summer needing significant investment just to catch up to the level we ended the season at but trying to get by with frees or cheap signings until we inevitably got off to a poor start then splurging on unfit players after the season started. The headline figures show we spent a lot but a lot of that was throwing good money after bad to correct our own mistakes after his hand was forced. Perhaps if we'd started the season with an actual fit players through the door early in the window we might have won a game before October at some point? We could have gotten away with doing that too if we weren't starting from such weak positions every year with key players from the previous seasons leaving.
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Roadhouse
Winger
As frustrating as it was at the time, O'Neill and Poyet (second season) probably had no choice but to play the way they did. Both had squads full of slow players that just couldn't play high up the pitch.
Kingdom Bhoy
Striker
People seem to forget his first season when he kept us up
The appointment of De Fanti was a major factor in his second season
Did you actually watch his first season at SAFC?
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ATTACK ATTACK ATTACK
Winger
The 1,000 doesn't include his non league Wycombe Wanderers games which is a shame as it's 1,000 professional.
He got them to 5th in his 1st full season and runners up on GD in his 2nd season. The 3rd season he got them into the Football League Division 3 (now League Two) and promoted again the season after into Division 2 (now League One).
He finished 6th in his final season, 1 place and 3 points off the playoffs, before leaving to go to Norwich. He also won 7 various cups with them so must have been a great time for Wycombe fans during those seasons, especially visiting new grounds.
Kingdom Bhoy
Striker
Arfa Sleep
Striker
Bruce didn't have a positive or negative net spend, it was the club, he didn't personally deal with spending. Roy Keane definitely wasn't a massive fuck up here like, though that obviously plays nicely into your username.
Father Jack Hackett
Striker
I did, his first couple of months were good then, not so much
Definitely Maybe
Striker
The net spend argument always bugged me.
Keane undoubtedly spent and wasted a lot of money, but he inherited a threadbare squad that was significantly worse than the one McCarthy got promoted and even worse still than the 15 pointers, having lost Poom/Myhre, Arca, McCartney, Stewart etc.
Bruce was praised for his net spend at the time but smashed our transfer record in both his first two summers. His 'positive net spend' was aided by selling the likes of:
Chopra - bought by Keane for £5m, scored some important goals then went off the rails, sold for £4m by the club but the £1m loss was more than justified by the goals he'd scored
Whitehead - Bought by McCarthy for £175k, sold for £3m before he kicked a ball for Bruce
Collins - Bought by McCarthy for £145k, developed by Keane from a boo boy to 2x POTS, fell out with Bruce and sold for £2.75m
Jones - Bought by Keane for £6m, was brilliant and resulted in a £20m offer which the club rejected. Sold by Bruce for £8m after falling out with him and trying to play him at centre back
... Which alone amounts to an £18m net profit for Bruce despite 3 of the 4 not kicking a ball for him and him degrading the other to the point his value more than halved.
Bruce spent a shitload to finish 13th and 10th then all fell apart as soon as he had to balance the books. He took over a team that had finished 15th and 16th, blew a load of money then left us 16th (18th after Eric Black's defeat as caretaker) once we had to start selling.
hank williams
Striker
Zen Den
Full Back
I do think Short gets a bit of a rough deal. Backed the club well financially for a long time. Unfortunately he didn’t have a clue about the sport, and he wasn’t able to hire clued-up people because he didn’t have a clue about who did have a clue because he was clueless himself.
contrarian
Central Defender
If BSA had stayed Short may have.
Totally agree re unfair stick he got and still gets.
Our wage bill from Keane’s tenure alone was outrageous.
Arfa Sleep
Striker
Allardyce was never going to stay, he wasn't going to get the backing he wanted. You're obsessed with Keane, Short had plenty of time to rectify any wage bill issues from his tenure.
Kingdom Bhoy
Striker
MON has never done the coaching at the training sessions of the club's he's managered.
