David O’Leary has had his contract terminated at Aston Villa despite the inquiry board set up by chairman Doug Ellis failing to prove his complicity in the damning players statement of criticism against the chairman released last week.

The inquiry did however highlight the lack of belief in O’Leary’s leadership amongst the Aston Villa senior players and in light of this the Villa board felt it was unable to keep the former Leeds United manager in the position he had held for three turbulent years.

Arguing publically with your chairman is one thing but to back a player revolt against him and then have the same players turn on you while saving their own hides in the aftermath is quite another and it looks highly unlikely that David O’Leary will be able to take up any high ranking football management post any time in the near future. With the financial fallout of his reign at Elland Road still hurting the Yorkshire club, he now can add the Villa Park debacle to his CV as he ponders his next move.

Fighting the chairman is a dangerous activity at any club but after so many years of Doug Ellis’ tyranny at Villa Park, O’Leary has belatedly found that he had nowhere left to turn after his own disloyalty to his employers was mirrored back at him by the very players that he thought he could count on as allies in the war against Ellis.

The celebrations of the Aston Villa supporters at the news of O’Leary’s dismissal further highlights just how far from reality the Irishman was in his last few days at the club. Another episode closes in the Villa Park soap opera although the aftermath may still have some legs as the search for a new manager (possibly Alan Curbishley) begins.

This entry was posted on Thursday, July 20th, 2006 at 10:01 am and is filed under Aston Villa. You can subscribe via RSS 2.0 feed to this post's comments. Both comments and pings are currently closed.