How can Lambert get it right?

[eastie]

Get Lampard or Parker in on loan till end of the season. However the worry is that Harry will get one or both of them.

Parker may be worth a try but no way lampard would come here, he will have plenty of tempting offers from various clubs home and abroad.

[Ad@m]

He needs to consider the team we're facing and stop picking formations and tactics out of a hat.

We were clinging on for dear life at half time yesterday and when Baker went off injured his response was to make two attacking substitutions.  Whilst it did result in us having our best 5 minute spell of the game at the start of the second half it did also mean we were horrendously exposed at the back.

Whilst he's doing this he should also tell every single player (except Herd and Delph) that tackling has not yet been outlawed from the game.  In fact, they should be encouraged to do it.  The amount of time and space both Chelsea and Spurs have had in the last two games is ridiculous.  And for at least one of Spurs' goals yesterday they ran the length of the pitch to score without a single tackle coming in.

And then of course there's the experience point everyone else has made.  The past two games we've looked like a lower division side.  Whilst some of the kids look good, with no experience around them and regular beatings, we'll potentially get relegated and almost certainly destroy the potential these kids have.

There's a lot to be done in January...

[Villadroid]

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[Ad@m]

Last time I looked, Villa Park had the biggest pitch in the Premiership.

The big pitch just allows teams who play football to exploit the space and make it difficult for Villa's chasers to compress the play enough to stifle the better teams.

So the pitch needs to be reduced in size to give Villa's journeymen a chance.

Have Chelsea got the biggest pitch too?  Stoke shrunk their pitch to the smallest possible size when they got promoted so that they could stifle the opposition and get Delap's throws to land on the keeper's head - I'd rather we didn't resort to that thanks.

Oh, and it's the first time I've heard the youngest team in the league be described as 'journeymen'.

[MarkM]

You would hope that we would improve as the season has gone on, but statistically we have not really improved at all.

Our stats over the season thus far are not great (please feel free to check and correct, I have not included cup games or the first game of the season in order to give a balanced check)

0.94 points per game
0.79 goals scored per game
1.9 goals conceded per game
Won: 4
Drawn: 6
Lost: 9
Minus 21 goal difference worse than any other team
Only Southampton, Wigan, Reading and QPR have lost more games than us
Only 4 teams have won the same or less games than us

But have we shown any real improvement?

The last 9 games are as follows:
Won: 2, Drawn: 3, Lost 4. For: 7 Away: 22, G/D: -15 Pts: 9

The previous 9 games:
Won: 2, Drawn: 3, Lost: 4. For: 8 Away: 13, G/D: -5 Pts: 9

So statistically we are flatlining, except that we are conceding more goals.

This time last season we had 20 points so we are in terms of points worse than last season.

I agree with the main points in that we are desperately short of any leadership on the pitch, and our midfield is very lightweight. We need an injection of quality in midfield and central defence or we may find ourselves in the Division 2

[Villadroid]

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[TheMalandro]

Lambert needs Randy to back him in January. As far as I'm concerned he is still the right man for the job.

He quickly identified the problem players and his bigish signing have impressed. Perhaps the obvious error he has made is not signing somebody like himself in central midfield.
Time will tell if Karim is a mistake, but I'm not writing him off until he has experience and a brute to help him out.

We just need to cling to this league this season, if we do, I expect a much better next season.

[bertlambshank]

Last time I looked, Villa Park had the biggest pitch in the Premiership.

The big pitch just allows teams who play football to exploit the space and make it difficult for Villa's chasers to compress the play enough to stifle the better teams.

So the pitch needs to be reduced in size to give Villa's journeymen a chance.

No one on the pitch over 30.Who are these Journeymen you talk of?

[Risso]

Concede fewer goals, score more.  And for the love of god, stop saying "pick ourselves up and go again".

[Risso]

He needs to consider the team we're facing and stop picking formations and tactics out of a hat.

We were clinging on for dear life at half time yesterday and when Baker went off injured his response was to make two attacking substitutions.  Whilst it did result in us having our best 5 minute spell of the game at the start of the second half it did also mean we were horrendously exposed at the back.

That's the worrying thing, tactical knowhow and changing things to suit the opposition was supposed to be his strong point.  Looks like a certain case of emperor's new clothes to me.

[N'ZMAV]

People saying experience will help, have a valid point. Hopefully Dunne, Vlaar, Agbonlahor, Ireland and Given can help with that.

[Villadroid]

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[sirlordbaltimore]

Buy better players
Play to the strengths of what we have

[LeeB]

Score more goals than the opposition.

[Legion]

Score more goals than the opposition.

You've solved the problem!