Paul Lambert - a retrospective

[Nev]

We've been through some shit over the years but the horrors of Lamberts reign will stay with me for a long, long time. I felt that I was physically shrinking as each desperate record fell.

[Hookeysmith]

He was a hugely popular choice that seemingly played attractive, successful football at Norwich and came to us after an eye wateringly boring defensive period under TSM. At that point I think most agreed that TSM was so poor anyone would have been a better replacement and at the time PL was as good as we probably could have got - a young up and coming manager.

He was ok until he went to the German training camp and then all of a sudden he had delusions of grandeur that we were the next Barcelona in the way we were to pass the ball 300 times more than the opposition - the significant difference was they did it on the way to scoring goals with world class players and we did it all in our own half with the likes of Westwood et al. Fans became frustrated at the growing possession stats but reducing attempts at goal that meant we were always one conceded away from a loss.

There were budget issues I am sure but that still did not warrant some of the dross that he did buy although there were a few notable exceptions such as Lowton, Benteke during his time.
The demise of Lerner's enthusiasm turned Lambert into very defensively minded both in style of play but also as a man - his press conferences becoming more and more illegible. Rumour has it he was also at this time going through a few damaging personal issues as well as having his right hand men sacked for alleged bullying - none of which could have helped I am sure.  This period was the start of the sinking of the good ship Villa and over the next few years we could not recover so he will always be remembered for that and it must have hurt him personally as he did not shut up about it to the point it became sour grapes and everyone stopped listening

Shame it did not work out 

[SoccerHQ]

Apart from March- May 2013 absolutely hated his reign.

[Lambert and Payne]

https://theclaretandview.com/2017/09/11/could-we-be-about-to-see-a-familiar-face-in-the-dugout/ This was an interesting article, if true.

I wanted him at the time, I really thought he'd make a difference but he never recovered from Bradford. How could anyone? It wasn't just Bradford either, that week we dropped a two goal lead against the stripeys, and knocked out of the FA Cup by millwall. They had an easy run to the semi final from there. That week was amongst the lowest times following the Villa

[SoccerHQ]

https://theclaretandview.com/2017/09/11/could-we-be-about-to-see-a-familiar-face-in-the-dugout/ This was an interesting article, if true.

I wanted him at the time, I really thought he'd make a difference but he never recovered from Bradford. How could anyone? It wasn't just Bradford either, that week we dropped a two goal lead against the stripeys, and knocked out of the FA Cup by millwall. They had an easy run to the semi final from there. That week was amongst the lowest times following the Villa

We finished that season pretty strongly, finally playing the football I thought we would get from him.

We started the next season pretty well (winning v Arsenal and Man. City and being robbed of a win at Chelsea) but all summer everyone was crying out for a number 10 (Kioyate/Belhanada who've had decent careers) and we signed another targetman forward (Kozak). We also signed Grant Holt later that season.

That thinking meant we just didn't kick on from a relative position of strength and just became a team battling relegation every year once teams worked out how to defend against our counter attacks.

[rob_bridge]

That Barcelona attempt in his last 3-4 months was utterly woeful.

The best 2 players were Delph and Benteke - so play to their strengths. When Dim Sherwood was an improvement on him ou know the horse has bolted long since

[Legion]

Shocking. Tactically inept and Comical Ali-esque post-match interviews. Horrendous results and performances. Did feel sorry for him at the end of his tenure in some ways though. He was clearly a broken man and it should not have been allowed to continue much earlier than it did.

[Smirker]

Any bright period was completely obliterated by the number of humiliations we had to suffer. Then there was his post match "thought we were fantastic" comments when he had us playing the keep ball in our own half tactic. Dreadful manager.

 

That had reached a point where I wondered if he was saying it to wind us up. 'We were excellent' was happening in pretty much every post match interview, including the matches we were being battered in. Just type 'Paul Lambert we were excellent' into Google.

https://www.theguardian.com/football/2013/mar/31/paul-lambert-aston-villa-liverpool

For 45 minutes we were excellent today

http://www.mirror.co.uk/sport/football/news/paul-lambert-heaps-praise-match-winner-4765473

We worked on some stuff on Saturday and I thought we were excellent at it today.

He was even doing it at Wolves  - https://www.expressandstar.com/sport/football/wolverhampton-wanderers-fc/2017/04/01/paul-lambert-hails-world-class-helder-costa-and-excellent-wolves/

I thought we were excellent right from the off

http://www.birminghammail.co.uk/sport/football/football-news/paul-lambert-deserved-three-points-12398494

“I think we should have had two penalties, we hit the post twice and Joe Mason should have scored, but I still thought we were excellent. It shows you how far we’ve come.

There are many more of him saying 'we were excellent' after defeats 

[Ad@m]

You can tell we haven't had a match in two weeks when threads like this pop up!

[sirlordbaltimore]

Tosspot. No other words necessary

[Nelly]

Smirker, that's a fantastic post! I thought maybe I had embellished the memory of him constantly saying that - apparently not. I remember hearing about Villa fans singing, "We go again, we go again, we pick ourselves up and we go again".

Wanted him to be the next Graham Taylor, sadly he presided over probably the worst set of results in Villa's history.

[Lambert and Payne]

Any bright period was completely obliterated by the number of humiliations we had to suffer. Then there was his post match "thought we were fantastic" comments when he had us playing the keep ball in our own half tactic. Dreadful manager.

 

That had reached a point where I wondered if he was saying it to wind us up. 'We were excellent' was happening in pretty much every post match interview, including the matches we were being battered in. Just type 'Paul Lambert we were excellent' into Google.

https://www.theguardian.com/football/2013/mar/31/paul-lambert-aston-villa-liverpool

For 45 minutes we were excellent today

http://www.mirror.co.uk/sport/football/news/paul-lambert-heaps-praise-match-winner-4765473

We worked on some stuff on Saturday and I thought we were excellent at it today.

He was even doing it at Wolves  - https://www.expressandstar.com/sport/football/wolverhampton-wanderers-fc/2017/04/01/paul-lambert-hails-world-class-helder-costa-and-excellent-wolves/

I thought we were excellent right from the off

http://www.birminghammail.co.uk/sport/football/football-news/paul-lambert-deserved-three-points-12398494

“I think we should have had two penalties, we hit the post twice and Joe Mason should have scored, but I still thought we were excellent. It shows you how far we’ve come.

There are many more of him saying 'we were excellent' after defeats 

"We go again" every single week.

[Can Gana Be Bettered!?!?]

We lost to Bradford.

[Marlon From Bearwood]

I've been happy / relieved when we've sacked most of the shit managers in recent years. But the night I found out we'd binned Lambert I was bloody ecstatic.

[Lobsterboy]

So many memories of the Lambert era... and all of them shit!

Should have been put out of his misery after the Bradford debacle but was allowed to carry on and we got progressively worse to the point where we did nothing but pass it sideways and lose