Martin O'Neill...

ConorMac77 wrote: Newryrep wrote: Trap junior wrote: Read his autobiography. Poor read like many footballers autobiographies. No insight into Clough or Taylor and just breezes through the interesting parts of his career. Literally only gave Ireland a few pages and discusses nothing of any interest. No game plans or his tactical thoughts on how we beat Germany or Italy. Nothing. More a ''we beat Italy and then played France only to lose out 2-1 but what a great achievement it was for us. The End.'' Does every chapter end with ‘ needless to say I had the last laugh ‘  ...And now, we move on, to liars...

 

I've been hard on Martin but I've kind of come around to his point about the language the Irish media and some Irish people use in relation to nationalists from the North, some (media) which is by design and some which is down to ignorance.

Edited by razzmatazaz - 24 Apr 2024 at 3:54pm

There undoubtedly is a partitionist attitude found among many in the media, but MON's complaints are entirely self-generated. He has himself stated on numerous occasions stated that he does not view himself as being Irish, in a far more strenuous manner than I've ever seen anyone in the media hint at it. A persecution complex on his part to go along with his seeming inability to accept in the lightest hint of criticism.

He has a point, but he’s also a petty, embittered arsehole tbh. 

Trap junior wrote: what did he say?

Drumcondra 69er wrote: Trap junior wrote: what did he say? “It’s right up there with everything I did. But I never won over the media. I don’t know why, but I said in my book I was made to feel like an outsider. I was called the Ulsterman, I’ve tried to explain this… just recently I heard an Irish commentator saying we have had outsiders as managers, we had [Giovanni] Trapattoni and we had O’Neill. “I’m definitely an Irishman. I’ve always considered myself an Irishman. No doubt about that. It does hurt me, of course it does. Deep down, at the end of it all, I honestly felt, from pretty early on, they were almost looking for the team to lose so they could have a go at me. “I think they have started to realise the job is a lot more difficult than they thought it was. They had an experiment with a manager (Stephen Kenny) that didn’t work, whatever they say, it didn’t work. “They couldn’t win football matches. It was all about this new style of play and here is the point, you are not a club manager, you don’t have these players every single day. The most important message which I think Irish football now realises is you cannot devise an elaborate style of play with the time you have with those players. “Your job is to win football matches and try and qualify for competitions. The Republic of Ireland don’t qualify for these tournaments too often, which is why it was so sublime when we did. You have to find a way knowing that, even at home, you are playing teams who are probably going to have more of the ball then you. “They haven’t been near a play-off game for years now. We lost a play-off game. I can’t say we got to Russia, so fine... the experiment after I left hasn’t worked, nobody can argue otherwise.”

Edited by irishmufc - 24 Apr 2024 at 7:18pm