There was widespread surprise yesterday when it was revealed that Martin O’Neill had been fired as manager of Sunderland with just seven games left in the season.

Surely losing away to the champions elect can’t have been the straw that broke the camel’s back, making the decision even odder.

I’ll admit to liking Martin O’Neill.  He learnt his trade under Brian Clough and has had a mostly successful career as a manager until recently. He is an engaging pundit when he does TV work and his passion for football is plain for all to see. I also liked his sense of priorities when he took a break from football to nurse his sick wife.

So it’s a shame that his career has, finally, been knifed in the back.

The question is, whose fingerprints are on the blade?

The simple answer is the Sunderland owner, Ellis Short. But I think we need to look beyond the obvious. The real culprit may well, in fact, be a certain lanky Frenchman with well-documented zipper issues.

Yes, Arsène Wenger – je t’accuse!

When Arsène arrived in English football (famously heralded as “Arsène Who?” by the London Evening Standard), Martin O’Neill was enjoying real success as manager of Leicester City, having already made his name at Wycombe Wanderers.

He was a “bright young thing” and was often mentioned as future manager of England – or of top clubs like Manchester United and Arsenal.

The problem for O’Neill was that Wenger’s arrival betokened the dawn of a new, technical style of football – not just for Arsenal, but for the English game as a whole.

The Irishman, however, was a standard bearer for the old style of English football – a style based on defensive solidity, hard work and direct play.

At the time, O’Neill’s approach was the prevailing one and the struggle between the styles was not even automatically obvious. But in the years since, helped by the increasing importance of the Champions League and the influx of “technical” players from abroad, the old style has become more and more obsolete.

I’m afraid to say that O’Neill, for all his qualities, has now become a creature out of time. A dodo in an age of swifts.

When he took over at Sunderland and we played them last season, it was immediately obvious that he had done what he always does: he got them working hard for each other, got them well organized at the back and made them – as pundits like to say – “hard to beat.”

The problem is, that’s not good enough any more in the Premier League. Arsene’s revolution has taken time, but his approach to how the game should be played is now reflected in a majority of EPL teams.

And it’s no surprise that the managers most associated with the “old” style of play are finding their fortunes on the slide.

Phil Brown has gone; Fat Sam is defying gravity for the time being at West Ham but for how long?; Tony Pulis and his Orcs are heading towards a relegation fight… and now Martin O’Neill is out, leaving his Sunderland team one point above the relegation zone.

Meanwhile the new generation of Premiership coaches – with the likes of Laudrup, Martinez, Hughton, Rogers and Clarke in the vanguard – is claiming the aesthetic as well as the results high ground.

Obviously this theory is a simplification, but it’s one that has truth in it, I feel.

O’Neill and Wenger – only three years apart in age – have both lived through a period of massive change in English football. Interestingly, both have been stubborn and refused to substantially change their styles.

The difference is that Wenger’s style was the way of the modern world game and he was at the forefront of implementing it here. O’Neill’s was the style that served the English domestic game well for a long time but saw us consistently fail at international level and gradually slip behind the rest of Europe at club level.

I’m not sure Arsène Wenger will ever fully get the credit he deserves for changing the English game. Perhaps one day.

As for O’Neill – I wish him well for the future. Where that future lies, who knows? Perhaps back in Scotland. Perhaps in the lower leagues in England. Perhaps this proud man will just decide that it’s time to step away from all the stress and make a comfortable living from television punditry.

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