Aston Villa manager won't change priorities
Mar 10 2009 by Bill Howell, Birmingham Mail
“But I would want this football club to be qualifying for Europe every single year by some way or another.”
Despite being the fifth most successful club since the formation of the Premier League in terms of points accrued in the top flight – behind Manchester United, Arsenal, Chelsea and Liverpool – Villa have had precious little to shout about in their trophy cabinet.
O’Neill added: “It’s not what the football club deserve because I have to say the record since 1982 has been an FA Cup Final and two League Cup wins.
“We did that in four years at Leicester at the end of the day so the record has not been phenomenal, but the football club itself with the history it had quite some considerable time ago maybe should have.”
O’Neill’s ambition is clear over the remaining two months: Villa must do all they can to see off Arsenal for fourth place.
If he wanted some positive omens it could be that in the 16 previous seasons of the Premier League the side sitting fourth after 28 games have failed to finish in the top four only on five occasions.
The biggest fallers from grace being Peter Taylor’s Leicester City, who were fourth with 45 points in March 2001 but ended up 13th.
Leeds finished fifth in 1994, as did Chelsea in 2000, Charlton slumped to seventh in 2004 and Tottenham to fifth in 2006.
O’Neill said: “Everton made fourth with 61 points. That is incredible. And we couldn’t even qualify for the UEFA Cup last season with 60 points, so I think you can read whatever you want into statistics.”
