He is a seasoned pro, professional, keeps himself fit and plays his heart out.
If Newcastle want to see where a lot has gone wrong, then having a Gary Oneill in the centre of the park, would have been a good start.
Same with QPR last season, after they released him upon promotion and then purchased more journeymen.
Just goes to show how important it is to bring in the right characters and I think this is something that Alex Neil is very good at, it was hilarious when he sent that Argentine player back to Spain. He must have been good enough in terms of quality else we wouldn't have flown him over, was obvious that he turned up with a billy big boll*cks attitude and was sent packing.
In the bottom three teams I can count 9 former England internationals:
Wes Brown, Jack Rodwell, Jermaine Defoe, Micah Richards, Gabriel Agbonlahor, Joleon Lescott, Kieran Richardson, Jonjo Shelvey, Andros Townsend. And Scott Sinclair is a Team GB player.
How many of those would we actually take, how many of them are just interested in their final pay day and how many still feel like they have something to prove and some ambition left? I wouldn't get excited about any of them. I'd possibly be interested in Defoe at the right price, because he still seems to have a passion for playing and scoring and looking after his fitness, but even he could potentially become a problem when dropped and would I'd be worried about his attitude if not the main man.
Shame that Shelvey seems to be going the same way as all the other great English w*nkers who get rich and arrogant and achieve nothing in the game because they think they've made it at 19, his passion was the best thing about him when he appeared on the scene as a youngster.
I've never fancied Townsend either, poor mans Nathan Redmond who has had one good season in his entire career.
Now, if we got to see the weekly salary of all of those players, that's when you'd probably realise that it isn't how much you spend but how you spend it on the right characters. I bet our wage bill is by far the lowest in the bottom 4.
Gary O'Neil has never been anywhere near good enough to justify an England cap, but he's got more passion and desire in his little finger than any of those other wasters have got in entirety, so give him another year, he's earned it, even if we succeed in upgrading and he's used to tighten up games for 10 minutes at the end.
Perhaps sometimes operating on a tight budget can actually a blessing in disguise, because it means that you don't have to resist the temptation to take a punt on Micah Richards playing like it is 2009 again, if you haven't got £50k a week to waste on a four year contract for Micah Richards then you aren't going to do it.
