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Author Topic: Paul Lambert (R)  (Read 211887 times)

Online Lastfootstamper

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Re: Paul Lambert gets a new job.
« Reply #825 on: May 10, 2018, 08:02:28 PM »
I have no doubt in my mind about that. That day, that one solitary day, if we'd held on for the win, we'd have stayed up, and Leicester wouldn't even have troubled the top four, let alone won the frickin league.

Offline PeterWithesShin

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Re: Paul Lambert gets a new job.
« Reply #826 on: May 10, 2018, 08:56:36 PM »
Lambert may not even be able to claim he found Benteke, from the Brum Mail.

Quote
Christian Benteke was placed on Aston Villa’s scouting database by Alex McLeish, BirminghamLive can reveal.

Paul Lambert signed the Belgian striker in 2012 for £6million from Genk - but it was actually his fellow Scot McLeish who identified Benteke.

Benteke, who now plies his trade for Crystal Palace after his £30m switch to Liverpool backfired, spent three years at Villa Park and scored the goals to preserve their top flight status under Lambert and, latterly, Tim Sherwood.

But it wasn’t Lambert or scout Paddy Riley who pinpointed Benteke as a potential target. McLeish marked him out as one to watch shortly after he made the ill-fated move across the Second City from Birmingham City.

McLeish, now manager of Scotland, was bemused to arrive at Villa and discover the club hadn’t implemented a scouting database to keep tabs on targets from across the globe.

Benteke, who scored 49 goals in 101 appearances in claret and blue, was put forward to McLeish by scout Arthur Numan.

Numan watched Benteke regularly whilst he was playing for Genk - a club McLeish would later manage - and thought Villa could grab themselves a bargain.

McLeish’s appointment at Villa Park came at a time when owner Randy Lerner was reining in the spending. Previous managers Martin O’Neill and Gerard Houllier had been backed heavily in the transfer market and Lerner demanded cuts were made.

McLeish was asked to reduce the wage bill and decided to expand Villa’s scouting horizons in the hope of snaring a few gems.

The decision to include Benteke’s name on the database he installed and ensure Numan and other scouts continued to watch the 6ft 4in frontman was key in the club’s decision to sign him.

Papiss Cisse, who eventually joined Newcastle United and fired them to a fifth-placed finish, was another player on the database, as was Gylfi Sigurdsson.

Offline Damo70

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Re: Paul Lambert gets a new job.
« Reply #827 on: May 10, 2018, 09:05:01 PM »
I have no doubt in my mind about that. That day, that one solitary day, if we'd held on for the win, we'd have stayed up, and Leicester wouldn't even have troubled the top four, let alone won the frickin league.

I can't say I agree. I don't think the common theory that both club's seasons hinged on that day stands up. Particularly as it came so early in the season.

As for Sherwood he deserves great credit for keeping us up and getting us to the final. As for 'surrendering' the final Arsenal were quite simply a far better team than us. Unlike the Chelsea final when the teams were more evenly matched. I was slightly surprised that Sherwood was sacked so early in the season. Obviously in hindsight we ended up being so bad you suspect he couldn't have done any worse than Garde and Black, but that doesn't necessarily mean he would have done much better. His time at Spurs and Villa suggest he is a short term impact manager but not one for the medium to long term.

Offline Risso

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Re: Paul Lambert gets a new job.
« Reply #828 on: May 10, 2018, 09:07:26 PM »
I think Sherwood would have been better off with a different transfer policy. He'd have got a tune out of that nutter Adebayor and then a few over priced ex-Spurs like Townsend and Huddlestone would have done the meat and veg 442 trick.

He didn't know how to handle the foreign players, it was clear they'd been signed without a thought of blending them in. He ok'd everyone, I don't believe otherwise, but equally I don't think he knew a thing about them either. But at the same time, it's clear Reilly didn't do his homework on them.

I liked Sherwood. He didn't have the nous and would have benefited from somebody very tactically astute alongside him. But his ego wouldnt allow for that and his Machiavellian way of stabbing AVB in the back to secure the Spurs job is evidence of it.

I will always have a bit of time for the charlatan though, as football is about fun and for a few brief months in half a decade of shite, Villa were back.

If we'd won at Leicester I think confidence would have seen us through perhaps and they wouldn't have won the title.

The cup semi final was one of the most enjoyable days out I've had, so I'll be grateful for that at least.  The wheels did fall off spectacularly though, and the writing was on the wall towards the end of the season, when we got battered by Southampton, lost at home to Burnley and were humiliated in the FA Cup final.

Offline PeterWithesShin

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Re: Paul Lambert gets a new job.
« Reply #829 on: May 10, 2018, 09:13:22 PM »
You never know about them but it probably gave them self belief that no game was lost.

I reckon our season could have been different. We win that and we're on 7 points from 5 games, as it was it took us until game 17 to reach 7 points. We may still have dropped, but not as bad as we did.

Offline SoccerHQ

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Re: Paul Lambert gets a new job.
« Reply #830 on: May 10, 2018, 11:20:05 PM »
I have no doubt in my mind about that. That day, that one solitary day, if we'd held on for the win, we'd have stayed up, and Leicester wouldn't even have troubled the top four, let alone won the frickin league.

We played very smart game for sixty minutes which made it more baffling what happened afterwards. We actually did to Leicester what they did to pretty much every team in the league after, just sat back and picked them off on the break. Missed some decent chances before Grealish curled one in and the Gil effort was a superb team goal if I remember rightly.

We looked a decent mid table side right there but then the Kamikaze put more strikers on approach spectacularly backfired and we also saw what a disaster the Lescott-Richards combination was going to be.

Offline SoccerHQ

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Re: Paul Lambert gets a new job.
« Reply #831 on: May 10, 2018, 11:22:27 PM »
I have no doubt in my mind about that. That day, that one solitary day, if we'd held on for the win, we'd have stayed up, and Leicester wouldn't even have troubled the top four, let alone won the frickin league.

I can't say I agree. I don't think the common theory that both club's seasons hinged on that day stands up. Particularly as it came so early in the season.

As for Sherwood he deserves great credit for keeping us up and getting us to the final. As for 'surrendering' the final Arsenal were quite simply a far better team than us. Unlike the Chelsea final when the teams were more evenly matched. I was slightly surprised that Sherwood was sacked so early in the season. Obviously in hindsight we ended up being so bad you suspect he couldn't have done any worse than Garde and Black, but that doesn't necessarily mean he would have done much better. His time at Spurs and Villa suggest he is a short term impact manager but not one for the medium to long term.

Of course Arsenal were always going to win but we didn't have a shot or a corner which said it all for our approach or lack of it. 12 months before Hull took largely the same 11 to extra time before losing....wonder which dinosaur manager was in charge of the underdog that day....

Offline ChicagoLion

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Re: Paul Lambert gets a new job.
« Reply #832 on: May 11, 2018, 04:58:41 AM »
I have no doubt in my mind about that. That day, that one solitary day, if we'd held on for the win, we'd have stayed up, and Leicester wouldn't even have troubled the top four, let alone won the frickin league.

I can't say I agree. I don't think the common theory that both club's seasons hinged on that day stands up. Particularly as it came so early in the season.

As for Sherwood he deserves great credit for keeping us up and getting us to the final. As for 'surrendering' the final Arsenal were quite simply a far better team than us. Unlike the Chelsea final when the teams were more evenly matched. I was slightly surprised that Sherwood was sacked so early in the season. Obviously in hindsight we ended up being so bad you suspect he couldn't have done any worse than Garde and Black, but that doesn't necessarily mean he would have done much better. His time at Spurs and Villa suggest he is a short term impact manager but not one for the medium to long term.

Of course Arsenal were always going to win but we didn't have a shot or a corner which said it all for our approach or lack of it. 12 months before Hull took largely the same 11 to extra time before losing....wonder which dinosaur manager was in charge that day....
Wenger

Offline stuart445

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Re: Paul Lambert gets a new job.
« Reply #833 on: May 11, 2018, 09:36:20 AM »
I have no doubt in my mind about that. That day, that one solitary day, if we'd held on for the win, we'd have stayed up, and Leicester wouldn't even have troubled the top four, let alone won the frickin league.

I can't say I agree. I don't think the common theory that both club's seasons hinged on that day stands up. Particularly as it came so early in the season.

As for Sherwood he deserves great credit for keeping us up and getting us to the final. As for 'surrendering' the final Arsenal were quite simply a far better team than us. Unlike the Chelsea final when the teams were more evenly matched. I was slightly surprised that Sherwood was sacked so early in the season. Obviously in hindsight we ended up being so bad you suspect he couldn't have done any worse than Garde and Black, but that doesn't necessarily mean he would have done much better. His time at Spurs and Villa suggest he is a short term impact manager but not one for the medium to long term.

The final vs Arsenal was as bad if not worse than anything Lambert served up.  Arsenal are known to weak when put under the slightest physical pressure, we'd witnessed that ourselves with Benteke but we didn't bother we just surrendered, it was that bad questions over his future as our manager should have been asked the moment the game finish imo

Offline Ad@m

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Re: Paul Lambert gets a new job.
« Reply #834 on: May 11, 2018, 12:32:11 PM »
Yes we stood off Arsenal but they were also fantastic that day.

For us to have won, we needed to be brilliant and they needed to have an off day - in reality, the opposite happened.

Offline AsTallAsLions

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Re: Paul Lambert gets a new job.
« Reply #835 on: May 11, 2018, 12:34:05 PM »
Yes we stood off Arsenal but they were also fantastic that day.

For us to have won, we needed to be brilliant and they needed to have an off day - in reality, the opposite happened.

Indeed. Sanchez in particular tore through us that day.

Offline passitsideways

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Re: Paul Lambert gets a new job.
« Reply #836 on: May 11, 2018, 02:46:02 PM »
It was mostly us not being up for it but Moss gave us nothing that day either - I think he booked Cleverley about 15 minutes in for a pretty trivial foul, which I think basically signalled to the team that they wouldn't have much leeway at all for playing aggressively, and they didn't get near Cazorla after that and let him run the show.

Then, at 3-0, there were those two obvious penalties that he failed to give - I'd stick my neck out and say that if the final scoreline had been closer, the Grealish one in particular would've been one of the most atrocious decisions in cup final history.

Offline stuart445

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Re: Paul Lambert gets a new job.
« Reply #837 on: May 11, 2018, 03:04:26 PM »
Yes we stood off Arsenal but they were also fantastic that day.

For us to have won, we needed to be brilliant and they needed to have an off day - in reality, the opposite happened.

Arsenal were fantastic because we put up no resistance what so ever,  Arsenal are are good team I'm not denying that but are famous for not coping with resistance (see why they hate stoke so much).  For us to have had a chance to beat them we'd have had to put up a fight,  The team was capable if it as it wasn't long previously that we'd beaten them 3:1 in there own backyard.  Instead we just embarrassed ourselves.

If i'm honest I'd have taken a heavier defeat if it had meant we'd have had a few attempts at goal.  I'll never understand what happened with Sherwood that day he was an attacking manager but we didn't bother attacking that day.  It was a final where we were huge underdogs we had nothing to lose so why didn't he just throw caution to the wind.

Online Mister E

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Re: Paul Lambert gets a new job.
« Reply #838 on: May 11, 2018, 03:44:47 PM »
Yes we stood off Arsenal but they were also fantastic that day.

For us to have won, we needed to be brilliant and they needed to have an off day - in reality, the opposite happened.

Arsenal were fantastic because we put up no resistance what so ever,  Arsenal are are good team I'm not denying that but are famous for not coping with resistance (see why they hate stoke so much).  For us to have had a chance to beat them we'd have had to put up a fight,  The team was capable if it as it wasn't long previously that we'd beaten them 3:1 in there own backyard.  Instead we just embarrassed ourselves.

If i'm honest I'd have taken a heavier defeat if it had meant we'd have had a few attempts at goal.  I'll never understand what happened with Sherwood that day he was an attacking manager but we didn't bother attacking that day.  It was a final where we were huge underdogs we had nothing to lose so why didn't he just throw caution to the wind.
There was a general player lethargy which could be attributed to stage fright (I don't buy that) or something that Sherwood did or said before the game that pissed them off.
I certainly remember thinking at half-time that we'd been fortunate to get away with only the one goal conceded. After the super-second from Sanchez, it was definitely game over.

I wasn't as pissed off about that defeat as the one in 2000. The 2000 game we definitely could and should have won, since Chelsea weren't much cop and the Villa side had a really good balance: in 2015, Arsenal were capable of tearing us a new one, and did.

Offline mr underhill

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Re: Paul Lambert gets a new job.
« Reply #839 on: May 11, 2018, 03:45:23 PM »
I was there in 2000 and we fell flat on our arse that day too

 


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