Tiger’s article has provoked a response from Ben Procter. Below he analyses Harry Redknapp’s claim, before looking at exactly why O’Neill deserves the prestigious Footballsup Coach of the Year Award...
Having read Tiger’s article on the footballing personalities of the year, I thought I might just expand on one of his nominations – the coach of the year winner, Martin O’Neill.
I feel there is a very strong case for Harry Redknapp. He took Portsmouth to the FA Cup title last season, and if you were to combine the points scored by him at Portsmouth and Spurs this season he would be sitting proudly in 6th position on 30 points with a goal difference of +1. It is testament to his quality as a manager that he has brought a group of players back together at White Hart Lane, who seemed down and out earlier in the season, and taken them to victory against the strongest Liverpool side we have seen in years and, more recently, to a hard fought and well deserved draw with Manchester United.
However, having said all this, I believe that Tiger is right in awarding the title to O’Neill. The obvious reason being the fantastic job he has done over the last few seasons, and more prominently this season, lifting Aston Villa to the brink of battling full time with the big four – at the same time disputing the aforementioned Harry Redknapp who, after the Spurs vs Man U game, implied that the big four would finish as the top four again this season.
Villa have everything required to join this elite group. A solid goalkeeper (Friedel), a titan of a centre back (Laursen), a battling and passing central midfielder (Barry) and a goalscoring striker (Agbonlahor). Add to this the youth and excitement of Ashley Young and James Milner, the experience of Jon Carew and Stilian Petrov, the battling qualities of Nigel Reo-Coker and Steve Sidwell and you have a formidable squad of players.
However, it is for the development of Gaby Agbonlahor that I believe he requires most credit. I think that most English football fans would place a national victory in the World or European Championships above club success. In recent times the most difficult job for the England manager (other than the Lampard and Gerrard issue) has been to find a partner for Wayne Rooney up front. In Gaby Agbonlahor, Martin O’Neill is moulding the perfect foil for Rooney. He has pace, can play on the break, has good vision, and has proved himself this season to be the best English born finisher in the league, to this point.
Martin O’Neill can take all the credit for this development, apart from Agbonlahor’s parents of course. One needs look only at the number of games started by premiership strikers since the start of the 2006/2007 season to see the reason for his development. O’Neill has shown an unerring will to start with Agbonlahor, indeed he has started 91 of a possible 93 games in this period, 13 more than Kevin Davies, who I think it is fair to say is not the perfect foil for Rooney, 15 more than the mercurial Dimitar Berbatov, who unfortunately is not English, and 16 more than Emile Heskey, who although throwing his name into the hat recently does not offer the same threat that Agbonlahor does. If other Premiership managers were to show the faith in young English talent which O’Neill has, then maybe there would be more future English World Class players developing in the premiership.
We must give kudos to Arsene Wenger for developing the precocious talent that is Theo Walcott, but Martin O’Neill’s devotion to developing young English talent is second to none. For that reason above any other, he is my coach of the season, and I look forward to the forthcoming years when the young Aston Villa starlets will be rife among the England set up.
Interesting that you don’t consider Alex Ferguson, who won the Premiership and Champions League!