Confidence In The Manager

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I am not on anybodys case. I just find it laughable that an excellent away performance,  a result that will likely be Arsenal's heaviest home defeat of the season, is explained away as dumb luck.

Bang on about the one poor league performance, try and gloss over anything positive. I know exactly how you "see it".

[Clampy]

I'm happy overall with what he's trying to do. There are going to be setbacks, we do need to sort out our home form and some of his tactics can be baffling but i'm happy to sit tight and see how far he can take us.

[olaftab]

There was nothing lucky about our win at Arsenal. We did have  bad luck via an incompetent official at Chelsea.

[supertom]

I don't think the Arsenal game was down to luck. Okay, in as much as we had a fair referee at the Emirates, yes, these days that's lucky. But we performed well and thoroughly deserved the win. Against Chelsea we deserved a point, minimum. The ref bottled it that day.
Against Liverpool we were largely poor. Bad first half. Mediocre second. I know some people might claim we deserved a point, but honestly, 3 shots on target in a home game is piss poor. A couple of good saves from Mignolet aside, we never really looked like scoring.
Newcastle and Spurs was dire.

So far what we have certainly seen this season is that we concede sloppy goals in every game (bar Norwich obviously). It gives us a lot to do. It's sloppy. It's something about our concentration and organisation that needs addressing.
That's a Lambert failing. After the Arse, Liverpool and Chelsea games he surely has to identify that we're prone to conceding early goals. We host the Toon and it happens again. We were resolute against Norwich, but in all truth they look as adventurous as we did under TSM.
But of course not simply the early goals given away, but our defensive problems still exist. Largely not as bad as last season and our central defence has generally been good. The isolated fullbacks are struggling, whilst when they attack the gaps left are also vast.

Our attack is one note. Again, you can't look past the manager. He talks the talk, he has the right idea. We want to get the ball down and play football. Thus far we're struggling. We're all about the counter, and even then we're a less effective version of O Neills side. We had the quality in midfield of Barry/Petrov to release the quality out wide of Young/Milner, who'd supply two double figure forwards in Carew and Gabby.

What I'd like to see Lambert do is take some action on the following:
-Fullback areas. No help from midfield. Huge gaps left when they go forward.
-The balance of our midfield. Predominently at home, but also for our goal of being a more possession based side. A lack of guile makes things difficult. Just like we lacked a CB signing in Jan to help us out, we've come out the summer short of a playmaker. This will definitely require action in the Jan window.
-Changing the game, in game. I'm talking about the ability to identify a problem and take action. Most times Lambo makes a sub, its a head scratcher. He'll often leave on a player or two who just can't get in the game. Against Newcastle, Wiemann needed to come off. He was woeful and looked jaded. Not just subs, but tactically he's inactive sometimes. He left Luna getting absolutely destroyed by Ben Arfa all game. He completely ran the game and we let him. Good managers take decisive action. The 4-2-4 nonsense also has to stop. Why weaken an already pretty rote midfield? It's suicide.
-Plan B. This has been a persistent problem with many of our managers to be fair. Clearly we can't play the same system at home as we do away. It just doesn't work at all. So he's got to change it. This is now utterly paramount with Benteke out.
-Lack of proven quality/experience. He cannot write these players off. We need players who have done it at this level and we know could have an impact in our side right now. Again, this should happen Jan. A defender and a midfielder to give us a solid spine would beneficial.

[olaftab]

Yes on Lambert I wanted him in and I have supported everything he has done so fat up till last night. Last night he sent out a team with no intention of winning a cup tie. So I am sorry but that is not what I expect of manager of Aston Villa football club so he is out as far as I am concerned.

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I would have said Kevin Friend was incompetant if he had just watched Ivanovic elbow Benteke and only book him. The fact he went on to watch Terry volley the ball away with his hand and ignore the most blatant hand ball you will ever see confirms he is a cheating ******.

[Clampy]

Yes on Lambert I wanted him in and I have supported everything he has done so fat up till last night. Last night he sent out a team with no intention of winning a cup tie. So I am sorry but that is not what I expect of manager of Aston Villa football club so he is out as far as I am concerned.

You want him out because he didn't want to risk players carrying knocks? Other managers probably would have done the same.

[olaftab]

It was a cup tie mate do worth the risk. And by out I don't mean I want him gone but just that I don't trust him anymore.

[dave.woodhall]

Yes on Lambert I wanted him in and I have supported everything he has done so fat up till last night. Last night he sent out a team with no intention of winning a cup tie. So I am sorry but that is not what I expect of manager of Aston Villa football club so he is out as far as I am concerned.

By that standard you've wanted every Villa manager since Brian Little out.You'll also want every future manager sacked in their first season. 

[frankmosswasmyuncle]

I would have said Kevin Friend was incompetant if he had just watched Ivanovic elbow Benteke and only book him. The fact he went on to watch Terry volley the ball away with his hand and ignore the most blatant hand ball you will ever see confirms he is a cheating c***.

And it was the third time he'd used the elbow on Benteke. He actually spoke to him earlier about use of elbow - which he should have booked him for, but didn't.
As with last night's penalty, it doesn't take a genius to apply a simple rule.
Refs are shit scared of giving decisions against "big" clubs. Our man at Arsenal wasn't.
We fully deserved the win at Arse. Their fans weren't angry that they lost - they were angry because we out-thought them, out-played them and taken full advantage of their weaknesses to win the game.
I loved it!

[olaftab]

By that standard you've wanted every Villa manager since Brian Little out.You'll also want every future manager sacked in their first season. 

How did you work that out?

[dave.woodhall]

How did you work that out?

Assuming you're referring to me, because every one of them has put out sides as weakened as last night's and every future manager will.

[olaftab]

Only O'Neill, Houllier and now Lambert have done that deliberately against stronger opposition.

[dave.woodhall]

Only O'Neill, Houllier and now Lambert have done that deliberately against stronger opposition.

Every manager has played weakened teams, with the level of opposition irrelevant. Anyway, how can you pick a team that isn't deliberate?

[pauliewalnuts]

I am worried that the transfer policy we have is really not going to move us on, but that is a concern for the chairman as well as the manager. I was hoping we wouldn't just buy more of the same in the summer, but we did. I'd hoped we'd look at a level above - that doesn't mean £25m players, it means better ones than those we have.

As I said elsewhere the other day, there's a thin line between buying well and improving the club and just bobbing along cheaply, it'd be easy to get wrong.

One thing I will say, though, is that it's unfortunate that our better performances are almost always away from home rather than at home. There's a certain frustration about watching us play at home, we've been poor there for several years now, so some of the stick Lambert might get for that isn't entirely his fault (or concern).