I must be in the minority...

[pauliewalnuts]

Where we differ, Rolta, is that you take a mitigating factor and use it to essentially excuse Lambert, whereas I feel that his 'achievements', while to some degree lessened by the difficult situation, are still too remarkably bad for him to stay in the job. I'm also fed up of Villa having physically-minded managers with such tediously puritanical attitudes to football, but there we are.

Whilst I stand by my belief (up above) that ownership change is so important, it towers over such discussions, I think you're spot on with that, monty.

[Rolta]

Where we differ, Rolta, is that you take a mitigating factor and use it to essentially excuse Lambert, whereas I feel that his 'achievements', while to some degree lessened by the difficult situation, are still too remarkably bad for him to stay in the job. I'm also fed up of Villa having physically-minded managers with such tediously puritanical attitudes to football, but there we are.

I do still hold out hope that Lambert has more ambition to his style of football than what we saw last season. Nobody was happy with how we played last season. But we have seen Lambert try and play a more attacking style though, so, for me, I can see how our brush with relegation in Lambert's first season made him more cautious in our second season. I just don't think we have the players yet, and that comes down again to the youth/inexperience/cheapness of our side.

He played attacking football at Norwich. I don't think it's a Mcleish situation at all as Mcleish was all out defence down to his atoms.

I agree with Pauliewalnuts though – we just cannot go on the way we're going. The club is in a sad state, and we need investment more than anything. That must come first.

[LeeB]

Where we differ, Rolta, is that you take a mitigating factor and use it to essentially excuse Lambert, whereas I feel that his 'achievements', while to some degree lessened by the difficult situation, are still too remarkably bad for him to stay in the job. I'm also fed up of Villa having physically-minded managers with such tediously puritanical attitudes to football, but there we are.

I'm willing to give Lambert the benefit of the doubt, for one last time, that what we saw last season wasn't a fair reflection of his approach to football, and that matters off the pitch and mistakes/lack of clout in the transfer market produced a situation which he struggled to deal with.

I'm still of the opinion that many managers, even more talented, would have struggled to make much of the resources and remit he was given. We'll never know.

[Monty]

Fair enough Rolta, and I do grant to Lambert the ambition to play good football. The problem is that he appears to think that good football is compatible with sitting five defenders deep at home against mediocre opposition and praying for a counterattacking chance, and long balls to a big man when he's surrounded by masses of defenders. Until he realises that these are incompatible, he'll always limit himself - and don't forget, Norwich were good on the break (which they had more chances to do, teams not setting up behind the ball against them like they do to us), but they did actually play the highest number of long balls in the league, and frequently started both Grant Holt and Steve Morison, the Talentless Twosome, as a strike partnership.

He's always had this limitation, even when his reputation was at its height, and it's just been more exposed during his time with us.

[Hoppo]

You cant call Grant Holt talentless when he was with Norwich.
He was as effective for Norwich as Ricki Lambert is for Southampton.

[LeeB]

You cant call Grant Holt talentless when he was with Norwich.
He was as effective for Norwich as Ricki Lambert is for Southampton.

More so for me, he had a better range of goals.

[mr underhill]

true but those days are long gone. That's why Deadly Dave was keen as mustard to lend him to us. And who knows, he may well come back!

[supertom]

true but those days are long gone. That's why Deadly Dave was keen as mustard to lend him to us. And who knows, he may well come back!

I think even Lambo probably realises now that Holt is completely shot at this level. We'd get (a bit) more use out of Darren Bent coming off the bench next season.
Failing that we are going to need to sign another CF. Helenius is going, Bowery isn't good enough, Bent will never get a game under Lambert, Fonz is gone and Gabby and Weimann are too inconsistent. Tekkers is gonna miss half a season probably. Kozak isn't guaranteed to make the start. Even if he starts pre-season late, it could take him a while to get up to speed. Robinson needs plenty of gametime pre-season if he's to be ready to get thrown in. 

Whoevers in charge and whatever state we're in, we are gonna need 3-4 new players. Minimum.

[curiousorange]

On balance, I think we've seen a fair amount of 'panic' football from Lambert in his time at Villa. The man's only human - if your team's constantly under the cosh, the natural inclination is to tell them to get rid of it, even if it's just going to come back at you. There were examples of him using his players far better when the pressure was off - witness the Arsenal or Chelsea games last season, for instance. But what I don't really understand was why our play turned insipid and one-dimensional after about the third league game of the season. The team lost its confidence, turned in on itself and only showed what it was capable of in flashes. We got some results, but I would say the majority were either hard-fought or completely unexpected. I don't think it's any surprise that by the time Benteke returned, we were struggling, and his relatively poor form seemed to convince the rest of the team they had no chance of doing anything good.

What Lambert needs to realise is that he has to do more than keep his fingers crossed Benteke will return fitter, stronger and champing at the bit. I understand why he wanted to lay back and bask in his transfer success, but that's not an option this time round and he'd be better served thinking of Benteke as a bonus, not an essential.

[Rolta]

On balance, I think we've seen a fair amount of 'panic' football from Lambert in his time at Villa. The man's only human - if your team's constantly under the cosh, the natural inclination is to tell them to get rid of it, even if it's just going to come back at you. There were examples of him using his players far better when the pressure was off - witness the Arsenal or Chelsea games last season, for instance. But what I don't really understand was why our play turned insipid and one-dimensional after about the third league game of the season. The team lost its confidence, turned in on itself and only showed what it was capable of in flashes. We got some results, but I would say the majority were either hard-fought or completely unexpected. I don't think it's any surprise that by the time Benteke returned, we were struggling, and his relatively poor form seemed to convince the rest of the team they had no chance of doing anything good.

What Lambert needs to realise is that he has to do more than keep his fingers crossed Benteke will return fitter, stronger and champing at the bit. I understand why he wanted to lay back and bask in his transfer success, but that's not an option this time round and he'd be better served thinking of Benteke as a bonus, not an essential.

To be fair, I think with how Benteke was last season – missing and out of form – I'm sure he's thought about this.

[curiousorange]

On balance, I think we've seen a fair amount of 'panic' football from Lambert in his time at Villa. The man's only human - if your team's constantly under the cosh, the natural inclination is to tell them to get rid of it, even if it's just going to come back at you. There were examples of him using his players far better when the pressure was off - witness the Arsenal or Chelsea games last season, for instance. But what I don't really understand was why our play turned insipid and one-dimensional after about the third league game of the season. The team lost its confidence, turned in on itself and only showed what it was capable of in flashes. We got some results, but I would say the majority were either hard-fought or completely unexpected. I don't think it's any surprise that by the time Benteke returned, we were struggling, and his relatively poor form seemed to convince the rest of the team they had no chance of doing anything good.

What Lambert needs to realise is that he has to do more than keep his fingers crossed Benteke will return fitter, stronger and champing at the bit. I understand why he wanted to lay back and bask in his transfer success, but that's not an option this time round and he'd be better served thinking of Benteke as a bonus, not an essential.

To be fair, I think with how Benteke was last season – missing and out of form – I'm sure he's thought about this.

I hope you're right, because he didn't come up with many fantastic solutions last season.