A question I've alwayus thought about. Since Walter Smith saw off so many Celtic managers: Liam Brady, Lou Macari, Tommy Burns, Gordon Strachan, Tony Mowbray, how do you think he would fared against what I would consider to be our greatest Celtic manager since Jock Stein. Considering both MON and WS played a similar style of football, eg physical, reliant on a solid defence; do you think MON would have got the better of Smith, like he did Advocaat and McLeish. Both did not have their teams play particularly attractive, silky football, but they were certainly excellent motivators and man-managers, in terms of winning OF games and grinding out results in the SPL.
Also, out of all the Celtic managers who Smith saw off,none of them had particularly good defences. Our strongest defence in years was the Seville team-Mjallby, Balde and Valgaeren. Any thoughts?
Discuss How would Martin O'Neill have fared against Walter Smith? in the Celtic Chat area at TalkCeltic.net.
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MON would have been too smart for Smith and would have whipped his * as would Lennie if Smith had stuck around for another season.
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Would have gave him a doin just like Lennon.
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gary mcguire
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Can I just say, didn't MON lose 2 out of 3 titles against mccleish and Walter smith team is better than mccleishs. When MON was unable to spend he struggled big time. Also imo I don't think that the style of football MON and WGS was similar, oneills was long ball physical battering ram style football and WGS style was possession slow build up football. This is all my opinion remember. Don't hound me.
It's hard to say who would win but, if O'neill didn't have the money to spend I think that smith might just have edged it. But if he had money then O'neill would destroy him. -
O'Neill lost against McLeish. That tells us nothing though because I rate him higher than Walter Myth.
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Lennon * all over Smith in head to heads.
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gary mcguire
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But still lost the league. -
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McLeish is a better manager than Walter Smith.
McLeish had a better record as Rangers and Scotland manager aswell as doing better with Birmingham than Smith did with Everton. -
On a level playing field Celtic would have won. Call me paranoid but it's true. At least a dozen game-changing decisions went against us this season whereas Rangers were on the right end of a similar amount. The 3-0 humping we gave them tells you all you need to know about the quality of the two teams.
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gary mcguire
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I believe we were unlucky too. But if you want to go down that route mowbray would have won the league if we'd been on al level playing field.
I do believe we have the best team but just lacked experience at the end. Going with two out and out wingers against ict, in hindsight, was a mistake. We'd been our most successful with 3 of our 4 midfielders being cm. But hindsight great isn't it. -
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McLeish's win % at Rangers was 64.9% and Walter Smith's was 64.5%, near enough the same although tehcnically McLeish was better. But when you take into account McLeish had the 2nd best team in the SPL every year with Rangers and European wise a worse team than Smith. Smith as Rangers manager had by far the best team in the League in his first 6 and a half years that was also good enough to do well in Europe, Smiths first Rangers team should almost have been as good as O'Neills were in Europe but they were worse than McLeish's.
McLeish's Scotland win ratio was 70% compared to Smiths 43%
On average McLeish got 41.3 points a season in the Premiership, Smth averaged 42 points a season but again McLeish had a vastly weaker squad than Smith. McLeish also won the League Cup. -
Would have terified smith to gto up against oneil, why do you think smith never came back when oneil was dominating??? he couldnt win and he knew it, oneils team were one of the most powerful team in europ, ffs a lot of teams didnt want to face us at the time, we would have gave anybody a game, they were so dangerous at set pieces, maybe the most powerful av ever saw in terms of height.
Now av heard people slagging oneils team saying they didnt play nice football??? thats complete dross imo anybody that wants to even mention this * should look to the lyon game at home in the cl, or they should check out blackburn at ewood park or the liverpool game at anfield, imo martin oneil built the finest celtic side theres ever been, although he inherited the likes of henke, petrov etc, he did bring in really top players like lenny, sutton, thompson, agathe for 50 grand, valagarean, balde free a mean theses guys were and still are legends, my heroes anyway.
CHRIS SUTTON WAS HIS BEST SIGNING IMO, ONE OF THE BEST PLAYERS TO HOLD THE BALL UP THAT AV EVER SEEN, GREAT SIGNING, EVEN BETTER THAN LENNY:50: -
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O'Neill and Smith did go head to head in two seasons.
Leicester V Everton in the 1998/1999 and 1999/2000 seasons.
O'Neill won 1 match and the other 3 were draws.
Leicester finished 10th and League Cup runners-up and 8th and League Cup winners.
Everton finished 14th and 13th.
Leicester spent £10.3million and Everton spent £33.9million.
:50: -
Yes, he certainly was. We miss this type of player is a big way. Unselfish as well. In most cases, you get what you pay for however and we buy Murphy, Stokes and Samaras for half of his fee.
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Good post. :50:
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This also tells a story.
When O'Neill left Leicester within 2 years they went from 8th place and League Cup winners to stone last and relegated.
When Smith left Everton from 17th place, 1 year later they were 7th :56:
O'Neills team went from top half every year and 3 time Cup finalists to a Championship mid table team... where they were when he took over.
Smith's team went from relegation battlers to a cemented top half team. -
No I meant MON's and Smith's styles of football were similar- solid at the back reliant on power and strength of players, taking advantages of set-pieces.
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sorry man a misread ya. Ye they are but smiths was a bit more defensive than oneill. -
He would have wiped the floor with the biggoted waistcoat, fkn *:bbpd:
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he'd be wearing walters old raisin like balls as a pair of fat pat butcher earings!!
and john reid would be using his leathery * as a chew toy for when he felt like a hun type snack grrrrrr.... at the end of it you'd see the tramp in town wearing a pair of brown brogues with ian durrant hugging the tramps feet in tears!!!
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