It does seem the rumour from VT I posted on Monday led to the stories that Talksport and the Daily Mirror peddled on Tuesday.

I will accept some liabiltiy for the senationalist headline but boy I never thought it would lead to that maelstrom. In today’s pre match press conference this issue dominated for 90 mins and as reported on the OS MON is bemused at what happened

O’Neill said it was a “surreal” experience to see spurious messageboard gossip “grow arms and legs” and develop into a story picked up by the national media.

The fan site post suggested O’Neill had relinquished his post after an internal bust-up over transfer funds for next season.

The Villa boss insisted he was thoroughly enjoying working at Villa and even revealed the chairman had taken time out of his schedule to call him to ask if there was anything he could do to ward off untrue speculation.

He said: “I wasn’t aware of it until my press officer told me that these things had come from a story on a blog. Someone started them by saying ‘I don’t know how true this is’ yet surprisingly the media come in and don’t check the story through.

“I felt it was hardly worthy of dismissal because if you’re dismissing something it means there might be something there in the first place.

Now I know MON does not look on the internet but the club does so to make it clear I meant no malicious intent from the story, I just believe it was right to publish one of the rumours doing the rounds, blogs do that as a talking point. I made it clear it was a ‘friend of a friend story and not be took as serious but shows that there is some unrest.

Anyone reading my posts can see how much I support MON and in no way do I want him to leave Villa, that does not make him perfect of course but for me simply there is no one better. However I would like to apologise to Martin and the club for the hassle this week that this story caused, by irresponsible journalists picking up on it without checks an in the future. I will be more careful on how I post rumours which you find on all message boards.