Martin O’Neill today revealed he considered taking over Villa in “October, November or December” rather than risk not signing players in the August transfer window.The Villa boss has presided over 12 games without a win which has plunged the club from third to 15th in the Premiership table.
O’Neill only took the job two weeks before the start of the season and barely had time to assess his squad before the transfer window shut.
“Perhaps after the season’s over people will have time to take stock,” said O’Neill.”I realise, coming into the job a major difficulty was I had a fortnight to get to know players.
“More importantly, we could have signed a player, maybe not half as good as some young kid here, but I thought I’d better see what these young boys are like.
“So by the time August ended, we’d signed one player (Stiliyan Petrov).
“I could have sat out of it, hoped Mr Lerner came in and become manager in October, November or December - but what good is that?
“It would take me another four months to get to know the team.
“Those things are all partly contributary, but when results aren’t going so cleverly, you don’t really want to look at it.”
O’Neill insisted he was open to criticism after presiding over the club’s worst run for 20 years since they were relegated in 1986-87.
“The bottom line is you have to win some games, and nobody should be above criticism in this game and I’m certainly not,” he said.
“If Sir Alex Ferguson and all those boys get criticised, then just take it.
“But it’s a long season. People’s opinions and minds change constantly than in a three or four game period.
“So I’m not getting overly perturbed by it.
“Where you are at the end of the season, is where you’re judged and we still have over a third of the season to go.”
The former Celtic and Leicester boss believes he should be judged in a year’s time, when he’s had more chance to stamp his authority on the club.
“I have a job to do here, and this time next year I’d hope I would be judged on the side,” he said.
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