Martin O’Neill believes top six ‘wasn’t enough’ during his time at Aston Villa
Ex-Aston Villa boss Martin O’Neill believes the club should have been playing Champions League football during his time as manager.
The 70-year-old coach successfully led the club to three straight top-six finishes between 2007 and 2010 with a team including James Milner, Gabriel Agbonlahor, and Ashley Young.
Speaking on the Claret and Blue podcast, O’Neill outlined how his main aim at the club was to deliver Champions League football, as he had previously witnessed while manager of Celtic.
“I didn’t think the top six was good enough for Aston Villa,” he said. “That’s really it.
“I wanted to be in the Champions League. I had the experience of that with Celtic, there’s nothing like it.
“There’s nothing like that music being played. Imagine having that played at Villa Park. That was my drive.”
Glory Days
For any Aston Villa fan, the years of Martin O’Neill’s tenure were happy ones. Three top-six finishes in a row, plus a league cup final appearance in 2010 punctuated an extremely successful period for the West Midlands club.
Whether a top-four finish was possible is up for debate. But finishing best-of-the-rest alongside David Moyes’ Everton was no mean feat and has not been nearly matched by any of Villa’s 10 managers since.
The central-midfield partnership of Gareth Barry and Stiliyan Petrov, accompanied by Young and Milner on the wings will live long in the memory of the club, while Agbonlahor and John Carew always proved a nuisance up top.
However to break into the seemingly ever-present top four of Manchester United, Arsenal, Liverpool, and Chelsea bordered on the impossible, so O’Neill can’t be too hard on himself.
Both Wes Edens and Nassef Sawiris will look enviously upon these comments by O’Neill and wish that at some point during their leadership of the club, Aston Villa can once again compete for these elusive Champions League positions.
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