If you are going to believe reports in The Sun and The Guardian today, then Martin O'Neill needs to go spend some money on some real quality players, otherwise Ashley Young is going to do the off.
I wouldn't blame him either if this is true. I mean no disrespect to the likes of Heskey or Knight or Salifou or Harewood but we are desperate for quality and we are desperate for more players, if it doesn't happen you can almost understand why Young would want to leave. Barry had heard the blarney so many times before he left to a team that finished 10th last season.
If Martin O'Neill wants to turn us into another Leicester or thinks he can win things managing the way Brian Clough used to manage with a group of hard working players, he needs a wake up call. He needs more quality and greater numbers and I'm convinced he knows this and the wake up call isn't necessary.
Although I'm not sure our owner does and I'm fairly confident O'Neill knows exactly how much he has to spend and I'm also fairly sure it isn't going to be enough, but I'd love to be wrong. Lerner needs to fund the addition of five players to walk into the team, if he doesn't, we might as well pack up before the season starts, because that is what we need to move forward.
Someone said yesterday in the comments that O'Neill learns, I hope so, because we made a lot of mistakes last season and it needs to change. I guess we will find out with how he sets his team out in pre-season.
More later, I just thought this should go up sooner rather than later as it was in two papers.