Villa Can Learn From Forest Says O’Neill

Martin O’Neill is a City Ground legend and has done OK for himself since leaving here in 1981, after helping us on to numerous Cup Final victories over a 10 year spell.

So as you’d expect, he picked up a few tips whilst here and is putting them to good use as manager of Premiership club Aston Villa. It now seems that those experiences are helping him in his bid to take the Villans onto bigger and better things.

O’Neill wants his Villa players to take a leaf out of the Forest side of 1977’s book and go on to achieve better things. He told the Birmingham Mail. ‘If the prize is big enough I think that you can keep overstretching, you should be able to. It is in this drive to overstretch that you actually might even find yourself able to play at an even higher level. That is something I know from my own experience at Forest.’

He admits that the Forest side he helped to promotion back in 1977 overachieved and that many players in the squad played above themselves. He believes his present Villa team could do exactly the same. I’m not sure how Villa’s current crop of Premiership stars will take to being encouraged to follow in the steps of a club that’s just fought it’s way out of the third tier of the English game, but it’s nice to be talked about at any rate.

Martin O’Neill made 285 appearances for the Reds and scored 48 goals in an illustrious career that saw him take part in 2 European Cup triumphs, as well as winning the League title with us. Glad to see we can still be of service Sir.