Heroes & Villains, the Aston Villa fanzine
Heroes & Villains => Heroes Discussion => Topic started by: villabear on August 15, 2015, 02:09:07 PM
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Now he knows how we felt.
Lambert talks to them 'good old boys' Keys and Gray about time at the Villa.
http://www.birminghammail.co.uk/sport/football/football-news/aston-villa-managing-club-like-9863130
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And yet you signed a new deal? Take some fucking responsibility.
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And yet you signed a new deal? Take some fucking responsibility.
That's a very good point. He could have always walked away if he wasn't happy. He sounds like a man after a new job.
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Agree.
His self serving bullshit can be exposed in 2 questions.
How come Sherwood delivered nearly twice as many goals in a third as many matches without changing the squad?
How come Sherwood delivered 50% more points in a third as many matches without changing the squad?
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Not got a job yet Paul?
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His answer would be one word..."Benteke".
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I'm sure there are quotes from lambert somewhere where he says he was patently aware of his remit in terms of finances so why is he trying to be a revisionist here? Also it wasn't as if he had no money to spend. Face it mate you weren't good enough.
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Bears out what the vast majority of us came to discover about him. He is a chancer.
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Totally out of your depth, you fuckwit.
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And having to put up with you as manager was like being on death row for the fans as well.
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And having to put up with you as manager was like being on death row for the fans as well.
Death would have been a blessed release!
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It just didn't work. We now seem to have someone who knows what he's doing. Time to move on.
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Mr. Mumbles flew to the top of a select list of loathed Villa managers purely for the shite he subjected us to with his dour humourless personality delivering dour bland football.
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Shouldn't the headline be:
Ape learns to speak; doesn't shut up
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The weekly shocking records that were broken are still a little raw Paul. Shut your mouth. Its going to take some to forget.
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Please don't remind me of the series of worst ever records...its about the only thing he successfully managed.
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It just didn't work. We now seem to have someone who knows what he's doing. Time to move on.
We have. He hasn't.
And to continue the analogy Paul, we really should have flicked the switch sooner. We'd all have got a buzz out of that.
Let's get this straight.
1.) You took over from McLeish, which instantly guaranteed you almost infinite goodwill.
2.) You signed the contract knowing the financial situation.
3.) You had free reign to shape the squad how you wanted within the financial constraints you'd already accepted.
4.) You repeatedly talked about how good a relationship you had with Lerner.
With that backdrop
1.) Over 2½ years, you delivered almost a full house of negative records (I know there are 2 you didn't manage but I really don't want to look up which) not to mention humiliation on humiliation, yet still retained unbelievable levels of support from the crowd.
2.) Regressed the football on the pitch to a point where you'd made McLeish's side look like Brazil of 1982.
3.) Signed a new contract for 4 more years of this purgatory.
4.) When you saw which way the wind was blowing started with the digs at the crowd.
5.) Were either party to, or allowed a bullying culture at Bodymore Heath, that was so bad your two mates achieved the impossible and were actually sacked.
6.) Were so lost without them that you first recruited Keane as your assistant and then when he couldn't be arsed any more/had finished promoting his book went through the rest of your tenure with no assistant and no obvious signs of coaching in the team.
Then when the inevitable finally happened you
1.) Stood by as your successor beat your record for the season to date in 50% fewer games using the same players.
Jealous much?
2.) Started gobbing off to your mates in the press about how hard it had all been.
You could always have resigned if it was that shit. You'd probably have a got a couple of million out of a tribunal. Ask you mate, the manager that's the expert in litigation.
3.) Now your talking about it being like living on Death Row.
Before we get on to anything else, that's f¤¤king distasteful.
You must have been the only person that lived thinking that you were going to get the bullet, because to the rest of the footballing world you looked bullet proof and it was a genuine shock when you went. And again you can't complain. You were given chance after chance to prove that the odd high point was something to build on and not a fluke. Every time you threw it away.
Now be a good boy, crawl back under your rock and shut the f##k up.
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I wanted to hang myself after watching the Bradford, orient ,millwall and sheff utd games , don't start me on the rest.
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Excellent summation VID. Only one thing you missed. The making of a public demand for credit due to lowering the expectations of the Villa fans. Of all the black and noisesome things that man inflicted on the club the claim that he should be congratulated for devaluing the club in the eyes of its fans was the most blackguardly.
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Having framed pictures in his office of the night we beat..... Sunderland at home in the league. Embarrassing.
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Lambert was so bad, I almost felt sorry for TSM1.
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Very well put, ViD.
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Most of this interview is fine but if he is looking for sympathy then no. Sorry Paul but you came, you stayed and you extended your stay so you were part of the problem along with Randy and Faulkner.
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Spot on VID.
Be nice to send that in a letter to the negative weasel.
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I thought the accounts exposed Lambert as blatantly lying about how much money he spent on players? Also didnt the General come out and contradict Lambert about the spending offered to him after he got axed as well? Which was rather borne out by Lerner's spending afterwards.
Honestly if Lambert wants a new job (and good luck too him, we had some good times) he is best served by being more discrete about behind the scenes tittle tattle about his previous employer, that never looks good to clubs looking to hire him.
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Watching Aston Villa under Paul Lambert was as an enjoyable as getting electrocuted slowly, so we're even.
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Football under Lambert was the worst I can recall for villa. Far worse than McNeill and that's some achievement.
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He honestly just needs to Shut The Fuck Up. Nobody fucking cares Paul. Nobody fucking cares.
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C**t interviewed by two other c***s, ends up talking like a c**t.
He's in the club now. Soft interviews by golf club pals, presenting an opportunity for monumental revisionism in grave attempts to garner favour in the media or to get another job. It's a huge self serving circle jerk that ends up with some other set of fans being subjected to the "talents" of another fuckin' shit manager.
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Thing is no one is denying that he had to work within excessively stringent restraints. But there are two things that stand up badly against that. Firstly that he not only took the job in the first place, but signed a contract extension knowing the extent of those restrictions. Secondly that even taking those restrictions into account he did a terrible job. This was a team that didn't score a goal for a month for fuck's sake. He needs to accept his obvious failings if he's ever going to have a chance of rectifying them.
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If hew was in prison, I'd have him down as a type of "Horrible" Hives character. Hopefully Lennie Godber would find a way to get him twatted.
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Thing is no one is denying that he had to work within excessively stringent restraints. But there are two things that stand up badly against that. Firstly that he not only took the job in the first place, but signed a contract extension knowing the extent of those restrictions. Secondly that even taking those restrictions into account he did a terrible job. This was a team that didn't score a goal for a month for fuck's sake. He needs to accept his obvious failings if he's ever going to have a chance of rectifying them.
I am.
Even when he was here and I was a Lambert supporter I questioned this notion he was operating on a shoestring.
Lerner backed Lambert to the tune of around 60 million during his time. Including over 25 million in his first season during which as he didnt have to sell anyone with a significantly better net spend than Sherwood has had so far.
These are not poor numbers, its better than many other Premier League clubs who never endured the kind of relegation scraps we had.
I am happy to defend Lambert on many things (I rather liked his early tactical choices and some of his signings were brilliant) but its a myth of his own invention that he didnt get money to spend, he did imho.
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Former Aston Villa manager Paul Lambert has likened managing Aston Villa to being on death row.
You should have felt what it was like for us to watch the shite you served up Paul.
Funny how you never take responsibility for anything. Tried to leave leave twice waaah waaah (still signed a new deal though). It ay fair, I didn't have enough money, my hands were tied, owner wants leave and I had to protect him (I still signed a new deal). He's turning into a bitter tool blaming anyone but himself to try and save face.
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Never to have a decent job again. Any future employer: Tell me Mr Lambert with all talent and infrastructure available at Aston Villa how did you manage to lose to Bradford City?
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Sick of still reading about this prick. Can we move all related threads to "other sports" as it wasn't football we played when he was in charge.
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...including over 25 million in his first season during which as he didnt have to sell anyone with a significantly better net spend than Sherwood has had so far.
That's pretty misleading though - it's not through Sherwood's brilliance that this summer's net spend is so low, it's because Lambert turned a £7m punt from the ninth best league in Europe and a guy on our bench who most people had given up on into around £40m of transfer revenue.
He also turned a lot of promise into a pile of unwatchable dross, so it doesn't mean that his tenure wasn't dreadful overall - but there's enough real stuff to complain about without having to bring something like 'net spend' which is one of the very few things for which he is in credit.
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Fair enough, you can ignore the net bit. Just focus on the actual spend. 25 million in his first season is not chump change for a manager who was not forced to sell his stars.
I happen to think he spent it pretty well but it undercuts the false narrative* that he was severely restricted in the transfer market. That was not severely restricted. It was a middling to decent backing for the league at that time.
*yes, yes I did go there :)
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C**t interviewed by two other c***s, ends up talking like a c**t.
And the comments are then published in an article by another c**t who works for a paper whose journalists can't help being c**ts when it comes to covering Villa.
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Apparently he was also asked what difference kicking towards the Holte End made in games?
His response was "nothing in the time I was there"...
He has turned all bitter very quickly.
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Why are people giving this man so much airtime? Bloody rent a gob.
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Previous managers have been constrained by severance arrangements, but because of the takeover position, PL would seem to have an opening in which to air his reflections.
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Stop talking about us you dumb bastard. You should be ashamed of your record at the Villa.
Believe me, watching your utterly hopeless hoofball followed by your brain dead interviews felt like being on death row too (ridiculous analogy by the way) so why don't you just fuck off.
Having you still in the job after 3 seasons just showed how far we'd fallen. Worst Manager we've ever had and if you carry on gobbing off like this you'll be the most disliked aswell. (and after DOL I can't believe anyone would even get close to that award).
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Let's just hope Paul never gets the opportunity to go again. Anywhere.
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Lambert won't be getting a job managing anything. Even if you running a lower tier, Scottish League tin-pot club would you want a grade A twunt like Lambert managing you, especially if after the inevitable denouement he slags you off in the press.
He is like O'Leary - someone who has managed the Villa, was exposed as a failure and managed to do naff all since.
And it is typical of the toilet paper that is the Birmingham Mail that they thought running this story would be a good idea. Can you imagine the Liverpool Echo or Newcastle Chronicle running a similar story running down one of their local clubs? Thought not. If I was Fox I think the Evil would be banned and their journalists escorted off Bodymoor Heath the next time they attempt to turn up to a press conference, after publishing that pile of arsebiscuits.
Meanwhile I'm sure there is a piggery somewhere that needs someone to help do the slopping out. An ideal job for Lambert.
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Apparently he was also asked what difference kicking towards the Holte End made in games?
His response was "nothing in the time I was there"...
He has turned all bitter very quickly.
He was right though, in his time here he managed to render any advantage null and void.
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He's just another one of those managers who gets the chop and then comes out with the "I'm going to take some time out of the game" line. Problem for him will be I don't think his phone will be ringing anytime soon. Charity golf days, sound bites and a bit of TV if he's lucky.
I think you can confine him to the Curbishley, Hoddle, Graham pile of ex managers.
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When was he on death row then?
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When was he on death row then?
There seems to be some kind of invisible to us mere mortals that once people are catapulted into certain salary levels they begin to believe their trials and tribulations are truly awful.
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When was he on death row then?
The executioner ?
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Having you still in the job after 3 seasons just showed how far we'd fallen. Worst Manager we've ever had and if you carry on gobbling off like this you'll be the most disliked aswell. (and after DOL I can't believe anyone would even get close to that award).
I dislike Lambert more than I dislike DOL. There, I've said it. DOL was a far better manager than Lambert for a start, and did less damage to the club on the field of play. Off it, I don't recall DOL popping up on every programme in world football to give his non-expert opinion on the club. I don't recall DOL allowing a culture of bullying at the club.
Lambert has become a rich man by presiding over some of the worst results in the club's history. Despite all the frustrations of life under Randy Lerner, he signed a new contract when he could have walked away a millionaire. He's a greedy, arrogant chancer who won't accept any responsibility for his own abject stupidity, and I dislike the unintelligible gobbledegook-peddler intensely for that reason.
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Lambert never belittled the club with quite the same arrogance as DOL did though. Lambert at least gave the impression that he 'got' us - understood what we'd been and what we could be again. He also always came across as a decent bloke while in the job, similar to TSM1.
DOL always gave the impression we were beneath him, he knew nothing of our history and quite frankly wasnt really bothered and text gate just told you everything about the man's character as a person.
DOL was the better manager but I think Lambert was the better bloke. He's trying my patience with all this shit though.
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Plain and simple, the guys struggling to get a whiff of a managers job anywhere.
And to be fair, his tenure at villa park was awful, with the poorest football I hope I'll ever see in my lifetime.
For myself, I began to detest the bloke with his moronic interviews, whether they were pre or post match, that was like the green mile for everyone watching.
I gave the man my full support up until his last 6-7 months, then cut myself away from Villa Park entirely, barely even watching any football, that's what you did for a 31 years time serving fan.
Your a disgrace, best thing you can do is go and sit in a darkened corner until some desperate club needs a body in place, but please make sure you take some good back room staff with you, who know the game.
Oh, and while we are obviously getting things off our chests, your appearance as a pundit on the Bournemouth game for setanta was as dull and boring as your football.
You should have left us alone, had a bit of dignity, and in time I'm sure some desperado's would have taken you on board for a fresh start, and I'm sure some of us would have wished you well. As it is, I pity whoever may take an interest in your dull, pathetic dire world of football.
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Lambert never belittled the club with quite the same arrogance as DOL did though. Lambert at least gave the impression that he 'got' us - understood what we'd been and what we could be again. He also always came across as a decent bloke while in the job, similar to TSM1.
DOL always gave the impression we were beneath him, he knew nothing of our history and quite frankly wasnt really bothered and text gate just told you everything about the man's character as a person.
DOL was the better manager but I think Lambert was the better bloke. He's trying my patience with all this shit though.
Agree, comparing Lambert to DOL is ridiculous. DOL influence in the club descended into absolute poison for a finish with fans, players and board revolted by his antics. While Lambert was clearly miles out of his depth at Villa Park, he didn't leave behind a similar situation to DOL
Lambert is obviously is in the market for a new job. He did such a poor job at Villa that he will struggle to get picked up at a mid table second division club. In hindsight, he should have resigned last summer instead of scraping the bargain basement for utter crap like Senderos, Cole and Richardson. But no, he stayed on and signed a new contract knowing exactly the constraints he was working under.
Eventually though even elsewhere he would have got found out for his woeful man management, questionable judgement re his staff, abysmal tactics and clueless coaching. Oh and his subs, farcical.
Nigel Atkins got back to back promotions in the same seasons Lambert did. I expect Lambert to have one further failure at a club like Reading before he is never heard of again.
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there are so many unanswered questions regarding Lambert's tenure at Villa that he probably warrants an episode on Unsolved Mysteries. For a start, does anyone have a rational idea as to how/why he was awarded that new 4 year deal just three or four games into last season and why he escaped all censure over the Bullygate incident? Surely as Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum's line manager, there is no way he couldn't have been aware of what was, allegedly, going on?
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Managers never take any blame.
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I dislike Lambert more than I dislike DOL. There, I've said it. DOL was a far better manager than Lambert for a start, and did less damage to the club on the field of play. Off it, I don't recall DOL popping up on every programme in world football to give his non-expert opinion on the club. I don't recall DOL allowing a culture of bullying at the club.
Lambert has become a rich man by presiding over some of the worst results in the club's history. Despite all the frustrations of life under Randy Lerner, he signed a new contract when he could have walked away a millionaire. He's a greedy, arrogant chancer who won't accept any responsibility for his own abject stupidity, and I dislike the unintelligible gobbledegook-peddler intensely for that reason.
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This. 100% for me too.
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When was he on death row then?
He is currently I beleive for crimes against attractive football. Death row career wise that is.
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Managers never take any blame.
He doesn't seem to think he's worthy of it. 12 goals in half a season and he's trying to blame everybody but himself.
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Even some clubs (clubs like ours, for example) have absentee landlords, the Chief Execs and the others down the next rung of the ladder form quite a tight circle in English football.
They are the ones that ultimately run the show, and they won't be too enamored at the thought of hiring a guy who will slag off the employer at the drop of a hat.
That's why most managers when they leave a job don't do it -even if they are financially secure. It's not loyalty, as such. They just don't want to scupper their future chances.
That ultimately did for O'Leary, and it will do for this twat too.
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I'm not sure I see much wrong with what he's saying to be honest. Glad he's gone mind.
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Managers never take any blame.
He doesn't seem to think he's worthy of it. 12 goals in half a season and he's trying to blame everybody but himself.
This isn't a shock though is it. I mean we are talking about the bloke who would stand in front of the media every week and say we played excellently with a serious face on when the rest of the developed world knew we were playing worse football than Zaire.
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I don't know about death row, but many of us died a bit every day watching the "football" he served up. And I hate to use the term football to describe it considering how beautiful the game can be.
Villa fans have been on death row for a good few years now, and last season prior to Sherwood's appointment it was clear that all of the appeals were exhausted and we were headed for the chair.
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I dislike Lambert more than I dislike DOL. There, I've said it. DOL was a far better manager than Lambert for a start, and did less damage to the club on the field of play. Off it, I don't recall DOL popping up on every programme in world football to give his non-expert opinion on the club. I don't recall DOL allowing a culture of bullying at the club.
Lambert has become a rich man by presiding over some of the worst results in the club's history. Despite all the frustrations of life under Randy Lerner, he signed a new contract when he could have walked away a millionaire. He's a greedy, arrogant chancer who won't accept any responsibility for his own abject stupidity, and I dislike the unintelligible gobbledegook-peddler intensely for that reason.
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This. 100% for me too.
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Me three. It got to the point where I began to despise the sight of him. I wish him no ill, but fucking hell, what a complete moron the man is. I never had those kind of feelings for O'Leary. I was glad when his tenure ended, however. Fuck the pair of them.
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No. Lambert was no DO'L.
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I think Lambert would do well to keep his mouth shut about managing Villa and if he does feel the need to do so, he should not make out that he was the one who it was tough for. How much did he get for being sacked again?
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Where to start?
Any kind of self improvement needs to start with an honest appraisal of your own failings, a manager who can make you pine for the return to the swashbuckling days of Alex McLeish has plenty of failings to consider.
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He knew the limitations.
His LMA statement read: "My initial remit was to conduct a massive overhaul of the playing squad, lower the overall wage structure of the playing staff and achieve this whilst keeping the club in the Premier League.
"There was also a concerted effort to purchase and develop younger players who would provide a solid footing for the football club to move forward and enhance the value of the playing squad in the future.
"When I came on board the club’s owner, Randy Lerner, warned me that I was embarking on the toughest challenge of my working life and he was not wrong. But I have never stepped away from hard work and I put my heart and soul into the job from my first day until my last."
Villa have also dismissed suggestions that Lambert will receive more than a year’s salary in compensation. He is expected to receive around £2 million.
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He's splashing around right now looking for anyone to listen to his side. I think two things are happening. One he knows the gig is up and other Chairman at least immediately are really wary of what happened at Villa. They're not buying all this my hands were tied bollocks as many times as he says it. Then, he's also fucking himself, because what board are going to want to hire a bloke with that much baggage and one who so readily spills the beans at the first opportunity? How can he be trusted?
He better hope he's not fallen into the Pit of O'Leary where he becomes an outcast in the game. He needs to shut up, go away and come back in a little while when all of this has blown over and start again lower down the leagues.
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He'll get the Celtic gig soon enough, I'd imagine.
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I wouldn't be surprised to see him rock up at Sunderland.
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Some strange comments from Lambert there. Everyone knows there was a lack of investment in his tenure, but most factored that in when judging his first two seasons at the club. Because that was the only reason there wasn't a clear-cut case for sacking him after two years. It was only in the third season that it was completely obvious that it wasn't going to work out. I guess the main problem was that without his sidekicks he didn't have that much about him.
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Just for the record, he doesn't say anywhere in the article that "managing the club was like being on death row" as the sensationalist headline claims. The article ends (for those who haven't read it) in reference to financial restrictions he claims he was under - "The crowd was never going to put up with that, the Holte End was never going to put up with that and I told Randy if you don't come out and tell these fans exactly what's happening then they are going to go. I'm the one who's got to stand out there and take it."
The interview ended with him comparing walking down the Trinity Road track to the tunnel to the 'Green Mile'.
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The reference to The Green Mile is even more abject than a reference to Death Row. The character who walked to execution in The Green Mile was totally innocent. A misunderstood miracle worker. Lambert? Hmmmm.
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The reference to The Green Mile is even more abject than a reference to Death Row. The character who walked to execution in The Green Mile was totally innocent. A misunderstood miracle worker. Lambert? Hmmmm.
Didn't realize that... wonder if Lambert did? - Scorpion pit it is then.
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Which Circle of Hell would that be?
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What a sad, bitter little man. The worst manager in my time supporting Villa, and that includes McNeill. He didn't have a clue the mumbling oaf, and lurched from one dismal record to another. Good riddance, I can't see him 'gracing' the Premier League again any time soon, the hapless twat.
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Back in the day Leeg it would have to be the Inner Circle 8 because it went past The Sty. Don't even know if Brum has buses any more let alone the Inner Circle 8.
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It just didn't work. We now seem to have someone who knows what he's doing. Time to move on.
We have. He hasn't.
And to continue the analogy Paul, we really should have flicked the switch sooner. We'd all have got a buzz out of that.
Let's get this straight.
1.) You took over from McLeish, which instantly guaranteed you almost infinite goodwill.
2.) You signed the contract knowing the financial situation.
3.) You had free reign to shape the squad how you wanted within the financial constraints you'd already accepted.
4.) You repeatedly talked about how good a relationship you had with Lerner.
With that backdrop
1.) Over 2½ years, you delivered almost a full house of negative records (I know there are 2 you didn't manage but I really don't want to look up which) not to mention humiliation on humiliation, yet still retained unbelievable levels of support from the crowd.
2.) Regressed the football on the pitch to a point where you'd made McLeish's side look like Brazil of 1982.
3.) Signed a new contract for 4 more years of this purgatory.
4.) When you saw which way the wind was blowing started with the digs at the crowd.
5.) Were either party to, or allowed a bullying culture at Bodymore Heath, that was so bad your two mates achieved the impossible and were actually sacked.
6.) Were so lost without them that you first recruited Keane as your assistant and then when he couldn't be arsed any more/had finished promoting his book went through the rest of your tenure with no assistant and no obvious signs of coaching in the team.
Then when the inevitable finally happened you
1.) Stood by as your successor beat your record for the season to date in 50% fewer games using the same players.
Jealous much?
2.) Started gobbing off to your mates in the press about how hard it had all been.
You could always have resigned if it was that shit. You'd probably have a got a couple of million out of a tribunal. Ask you mate, the manager that's the expert in litigation.
3.) Now your talking about it being like living on Death Row.
Before we get on to anything else, that's f¤¤king distasteful.
You must have been the only person that lived thinking that you were going to get the bullet, because to the rest of the footballing world you looked bullet proof and it was a genuine shock when you went. And again you can't complain. You were given chance after chance to prove that the odd high point was something to build on and not a fluke. Every time you threw it away.
Now be a good boy, crawl back under your rock and shut the f##k up.
Don't normally like to requote a lengthy post, but this is spot on/
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Agreed, absolutely spot on.
Lambert is right in that he had limited funds. The problem with that, though, is that what he managed to deliver was way, way off being acceptable even given that limited spending power.
It wasn't just awful in terms of league performance, it was so offensively horrible to watch that even the national press got in on the act.
I thought the McLeish season was horrendously depressing but - and this is being kind to Lambert - the second and third Lambert year (ie not so much the first) were way, way worse.
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McLeish can claim to have had far greater limits placed on him than Lambert.
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Some strange comments from Lambert there. Everyone knows there was a lack of investment in his tenure, but most factored that in when judging his first two seasons at the club. Because that was the only reason there wasn't a clear-cut case for sacking him after two years. It was only in the third season that it was completely obvious that it wasn't going to work out. I guess the main problem was that without his sidekicks he didn't have that much about him.
If the truth be told, he was lucky not to be sacked after the Millwall and Bradford defeats in his first season. Yes, the team picked up towards the end of the season, but that week was one of the darkest I have experienced in my 30 years following Villa and not many other clubs would have kept the manager on in that situation. The Bradford debacle in particular still hurts.
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Anyone know how much TSM2 got to spend in his tenure as Villa manager?
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Anyone know how much TSM2 got to spend in his tenure as Villa manager?
About 55-60M quid if this site is anywhere near accurate.
http://www.transferleague.co.uk/aston-villa/english-football-teams/aston-villa-transfer
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Some strange comments from Lambert there. Everyone knows there was a lack of investment in his tenure, but most factored that in when judging his first two seasons at the club. Because that was the only reason there wasn't a clear-cut case for sacking him after two years. It was only in the third season that it was completely obvious that it wasn't going to work out. I guess the main problem was that without his sidekicks he didn't have that much about him.
If the truth be told, he was lucky not to be sacked after the Millwall and Bradford defeats in his first season. Yes, the team picked up towards the end of the season, but that week was one of the darkest I have experienced in my 30 years following Villa and not many other clubs would have kept the manager on in that situation. The Bradford debacle in particular still hurts.
The Chelsea drubbing would have been it for me. Was that the start of the (his) list of new records for Aston Villa.
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Some strange comments from Lambert there. Everyone knows there was a lack of investment in his tenure, but most factored that in when judging his first two seasons at the club. Because that was the only reason there wasn't a clear-cut case for sacking him after two years. It was only in the third season that it was completely obvious that it wasn't going to work out. I guess the main problem was that without his sidekicks he didn't have that much about him.
If the truth be told, he was lucky not to be sacked after the Millwall and Bradford defeats in his first season. Yes, the team picked up towards the end of the season, but that week was one of the darkest I have experienced in my 30 years following Villa and not many other clubs would have kept the manager on in that situation. The Bradford debacle in particular still hurts.
The Chelsea drubbing would have been it for me. Was that the start of the (his) list of new records for Aston Villa.
That was when the whole thing turned. We'd beaten Liverpool 3-1 the week before with a fantastic performance but that 8-0 followed by the Spurs/Wigan home drubbings swiftly followed by Bradford/Millwall led most of us to realise something wasn't quite right. We picked up at the dnd of the season but years 2 and 3 just got worse and worse.....
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I thought year one was very promising. I know there were people who had seen enough after that year to want him out - and I actually understand entirely their line of thinking, even if I disagreed with it - but for me, we had seen sufficient glimpses of something promising to think he was building something.
IIRC he had pretty much 70% support on here at that point, didn't he? Whatever the figure, Villa fans in general seemed to be behind him.
Season two was like a nine month long sinking feeling where it looked more and more like we were getting worse.
Season three was just horrific. We had that opening decent spell - and even that wasn't really that decent, including as it did getting dispatched from the league cup by Orient, at home, and a no-shots-on-goal yawn fest at home to Newcastle - but then it was just horror show after horror show.
I genuinely can't remember the vast majority of the unwanted records we broke, there were just so many of them. To have had that absurd situation with Karsa and Culverhouse and then the Roy Keane farce, then Lambert on his own, as we became a national joke due to our non-scoring was really horrific to watch. It was just so depressing.
I am not old enough to remember the descent to the third division, but I remember the 86-7 relegation season in great detail, and most of last season looked just like that.
It was just horrible - grim, austere, unrelentingly depressing, drab, like having a constant stomach ache for seven months.
In a way, I don't blame Lambert making his case, he's got to find a job somewhere if he wants to keep himself busy, and at the time, I never bought into that whole "OMG! He mumbles! And he's thick!" line of attack which struck me as petty and irrelevant, but when I think about him now, my head just gets filled with memories of his shell shocked, ashen face as he walked along the front of the lower Trinity after having our arses handed to us by some no-mark club like Crystal Palace yet again.
It wasn't just bad to watch, it was spirit-sappingly depressing.
I'll be honest, I am still far from convinced by Sherwood, but he starts with a gigantic chunk of credit in the bank purely on the basis that he at least manages to make the club seem alive, ambitious, watchable again rather than the morgue-like experience of the later Lambert period.
Thank god that is over.
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We'd beaten Liverpool 3-1 the week before with a fantastic performance but that 8-0 followed by the Spurs/Wigan home drubbings swiftly followed by Bradford/Millwall led most of us to realise something wasn't quite right.
That was his major failing in a nutshell.
There were times when we'd pull out of the hat a marvellous performance and result. Any other manager would have used that as a platform to build on. Doesn't mean you'd automatically go out and sweep aside all your following opponents, just use it to spur on something promising.
With Lambert pretty much every one of those matches was followed by a catastrophic spell.
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If managing was like being on death row
Watching it was like being tortured - a combination of water boarding and being beaten on the soles of your feet while biting ants were stuffed in your underpants - with Max Bygraves singing "pink toothbrush" being played at full volume ..............
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For all of Lambert's faults, the one that really annoyed me was his omission to put a proper coaching-team in place. Whether this was be design or just negligence I do not know, and I would also lay some of the blame with his superiors for allowing it, but we were a complete shambles after the Karsa and Culverhouse fiasco and Lambert has to take responsibility for not adequately addressing the problem.
I hold my hands up to the fact that I was (albeit cautiously) optimistic about Keane coming-in, as I thought he'd install a much needed 'winning mentality' in the players, but as 'a friend' surely Lambert would have asked for some assurances that Keane wouldn't up-and-leave at the first sign of difficulty that he did.
On pretty much every level Lambert failed as the Manager of Aston Villa. He'd do as well to recognise his own failings rather than look for excuses if he seriously wants to resurrect his career.
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I thought year one was very promising. I know there were people who had seen enough after that year to want him out - and I actually understand entirely their line of thinking, even if I disagreed with it - but for me, we had seen sufficient glimpses of something promising to think he was building something.
IIRC he had pretty much 70% support on here at that point, didn't he? Whatever the figure, Villa fans in general seemed to be behind him.
Season two was like a nine month long sinking feeling where it looked more and more like we were getting worse.
Season three was just horrific. We had that opening decent spell - and even that wasn't really that decent, including as it did getting dispatched from the league cup by Orient, at home, and a no-shots-on-goal yawn fest at home to Newcastle - but then it was just horror show after horror show.
I genuinely can't remember the vast majority of the unwanted records we broke, there were just so many of them. To have had that absurd situation with Karsa and Culverhouse and then the Roy Keane farce, then Lambert on his own, as we became a national joke due to our non-scoring was really horrific to watch. It was just so depressing.
I am not old enough to remember the descent to the third division, but I remember the 86-7 relegation season in great detail, and most of last season looked just like that.
It was just horrible - grim, austere, unrelentingly depressing, drab, like having a constant stomach ache for seven months.
In a way, I don't blame Lambert making his case, he's got to find a job somewhere if he wants to keep himself busy, and at the time, I never bought into that whole "OMG! He mumbles! And he's thick!" line of attack which struck me as petty and irrelevant, but when I think about him now, my head just gets filled with memories of his shell shocked, ashen face as he walked along the front of the lower Trinity after having our arses handed to us by some no-mark club like Crystal Palace yet again.
It wasn't just bad to watch, it was spirit-sappingly depressing.
I'll be honest, I am still far from convinced by Sherwood, but he starts with a gigantic chunk of credit in the bank purely on the basis that he at least manages to make the club seem alive, ambitious, watchable again rather than the morgue-like experience of the later Lambert period.
Thank god that is over.
I agree with most of what you say here, except the "mumbles/thick" line. I'm sorry, but he was frequently unintelligible and inarticulate. That's not a style faux pas; communication is a fundamental aspect of his job. If people from England struggle to understand him, how would someone from overseas deal with it? When I'm speaking to people from other countries as part of my job, I tone down my accent and make sure I can be understood. It's not that hard to do.
Then there's the question of intelligence. Remember his 'new style'? That groundbreaking revolution in possession football, wherein the players knock the ball around among themselves in their own half for a few minutes before launching it in the general direction of the opposition's half, and losing it?
Remember his genius tactical switch when we were getting dumped out the cup by Bradford at home: shove on every forward on the club's books and hope for the best?
Remember the bomb squad?
There's a reason why were were so incredibly, record-breakingly shit under Lambert, and a lack of support from Randy Lerner wasn't the main one.
Why do you think Villa will be safe?
"I just do."
The bloke was an arrogant idiot.
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The reason I didn't like the "he's thick" line of attack was because it reduced it to what could be perceived as a personal attack on the bloke himself, rather than the job he was doing.
If that happens, I think it devalues the other criticisms.
I agree entirely on the stuff like the bomb squad and his "I just do" nonsense, but I don't see that as evidence if him being some sort of jibbering dimwit, I see it as him not being very good at his job.
The thing he used to say which drove me most nuts was after we'd just failed dismally against some shit side, and usually failed to fashion a shot on target, he'd tell the media he couldn't have asked for any more from the team, and we were "excellent".
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If his "we go again" rhetoric grated on the fans, imagine how little motivational impact it must have had on the players.
I'd love to be able to sit-down with Lambert - and more so than any other ex-Villa manager and ask him some questions. I think my top 5 would be;
1) Was anything, ever, done on the training ground to address the issue of us not being able to retain possession of the football for longer than 1 second from our own throw-ins?
2) Whose decision was it to sign Senderos instead of Lescott?
3) Whose idea was the Bomb Squad?
4) Did you not think that a winger might be a useful addition to the squad after spending £15m on 2 6ft 3inch strikers?
5) Andi Weimann. Discuss.
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re the bomb squad, I'd love to know whose idea that was. If it was Lambert's then, really, he should have known better. If it was Faulkner's, then Lambert should have stood up for himself and pointed out how stupid it was.
Worse than that, though, was the situation with Culverhouse and Karsa. We start hearing stories of how they're being bullies, and how they're coaching us in long ball tactics, how BMH isn't a nice place to work.
Either Lambert knew about that or he didn't. If he did, and they were acting on his instructions, then that is really pretty damning. If he didn't know about it, then that is just as bad - not knowing that your assistants are doing at your training ground?
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Not to mention the 'I call them "number tens" I do' moment.
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The reason I didn't like the "he's thick" line of attack was because it reduced it to what could be perceived as a personal attack on the bloke himself, rather than the job he was doing.
If that happens, I think it devalues the other criticisms.
I agree entirely on the stuff like the bomb squad and his "I just do" nonsense, but I don't see that as evidence if him being some sort of jibbering dimwit, I see it as him not being very good at his job.
The thing he used to say which drove me most nuts was after we'd just failed dismally against some shit side, and usually failed to fashion a shot on target, he'd tell the media he couldn't have asked for any more from the team, and we were "excellent".
There's no doubt a lot of that criticism was born of frustration on the fans part. But it went beyond Lambert being bad at his job. Just listen to what he says, even when the pressure's off, and I guarantee you'll struggle to find anything that sounds remotely insightful or intelligent.
Now he's refusing to shoulder any responsibility for his own failings, or acknowledge and learn from his mistakes, which is another classic sign of low intelligence. I'm no Einstein, but when I fuck up I hold my hands up and try to find out where I went wrong. I haven't heard Lambert accept he got it badly wrong once. His team were always 'excellent', which infers that he was also excellent. They weren't, they were shit; he was shit.
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He must have been a written-journalist's nightmare. Imagine trying to paraphrase some of his interviews. Even on the official site there'd be articles that were effectively 3 paragraphs of him repeating the same sentence over and over again.
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In my time supporting Villa, we were very rarely thrashed. Sometimes well beaten, not usually thrashed. The worst thing about Lambert's reign was that we were thrashed so often we became numbed to them.
For me, the 8-0 alone was sackable. Wasn't that to a Benitez team too? Benitez! A manager as negative as Mourinho, thus giving us the infamous Shit on a Stick derby.
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Anyone who went to the mighty Leicester last season will know how dire we were away from home.
How many games did we go 'unwinning' ??
Worst manager I've witnessed at VP ever, and that's saying something.
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He should be so ashamed of his record at the Vila ,particularly last season with all the broken record and the transformation Sherwood gave with the same players, that I'm amazed he's had the gall to even mention us.
If I were him I'd be wanting to talk about anything but my record at the Villa. Idiot.
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It's telling that Sherwood reorganised and effectively transformed the side with a five minute team talk at half time against Leicester in the cup before he'd even officially started. That second half was the first decent football we'd seen in months.
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Worst manager I've witnessed at VP ever, and that's saying something.
You must be too young to remember Graham Turner. He took over the team that won the European Cup and in very quick time turned us into a relegation-bound shambles.
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Wasn't Turner just an Ellis puppet who was used to dismantle our team so Mr Aston Villa didn't have to be reminded of our success every time he watched ?
Lambert is just rewriting history in an attempt to get a job - I am trying to remember correctly but wasn't there a story at one point indicating that Lerner had provided transfer money and Lambert chose not to spend it ?
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The 8-0 humiliation was the moment you realise you could possibly have a Poltergeist in the house. Follow that up with the Bradford/Millwall debacles then you know for sure you have a ghost. Season two that ghost had turned into a full-blown demon and season three was when the fucker should have been exorcised well before he was!
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two best things Lambert did whilst at Villa
1 - Buying Benteke
2 - Him and Keane telling Mourinho to fuck of when he wanted to shake hands early
that's basically it
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His comments on Randy are pretty low IMO.We all know the constraints ( Lambert was given alot of slack because of that) but now he wants to play some kind of hero who protected Randy and now he is just letting the truth out.There is one truth Paul and that's any other owner would of sacked you 18 months earlier at the least.
These comments are purely to repair his own reputation which has been destroyed by his time at Villa but I doubt they will get him very far.He was as bad as any manager I can remember ( I'm 34) and no manager bar GT in my time has done anything of significance after managing Villa.
On purely lack of funds I can accept like most struggling against the prem giants of Chelsea , Man City etc ..but I'm sure the managers of clubs like Millwall, Bradford and Shef United could educate him on real financial constraints !!.IIRC Bradford beat us with a squad costing of free transfers and signings they were less than half of Darren's Bents weekly wage !!
After his initial statement after being sacked every comment he makes about Villa seems bitter and somewhat deluded.
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didn't he say in that interview that Randy had only been to one game? I might be wrong, but I thought he said that, though I distinctly remember him coming out with some sort of secret spy shite that suggested Randy used to visit VP regularly, only in disguise?. Regardless of how many games Lerner did attend, that comment firmly placed him in the nut job basket for me. Very Kevin Turvey-esque.
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The reason I didn't like the "he's thick" line of attack was because it reduced it to what could be perceived as a personal attack on the bloke himself, rather than the job he was doing.
If that happens, I think it devalues the other criticisms.
I agree entirely on the stuff like the bomb squad and his "I just do" nonsense, but I don't see that as evidence if him being some sort of jibbering dimwit, I see it as him not being very good at his job.
The thing he used to say which drove me most nuts was after we'd just failed dismally against some shit side, and usually failed to fashion a shot on target, he'd tell the media he couldn't have asked for any more from the team, and we were "excellent".
One just for you....
A moment of magic from Gylfi Sigurdsson saw Swansea City take all three points from Villa on their home turf yesterday.
The talented Swans midfielder curled home a delicious free kick in the first-half to wrap up the win, with what proved to be the only goal of the game.
Lambert said: "I was very pleased with the way we played. I thought we were fantastic the whole game and deserved to take something, we were excellent.
"Coming here, we did to them what they do to most teams. We looked the better side. They scored the goal, albeit our goalkeeper Brad Guzan will probably blame himself.
"But Brad has kept us in games before with massive saves. He's maybe taken a step to his right. He will be disappointed with himself, but Brad has been brilliant for me since I have been here.
"Their goalkeeper kept them in the game at the end, but I was really happy with how we played. We've changed the way we played over the last three or four weeks.
"There's new things we're working on. The lads have been really good with it, they really have.
"It's something I have asked them to do and they have been excellent at it. They are comfortable with it. The way we are playing is really, really pleasing, at the minute.
"The lads are enjoying the way they play. They are enjoying their football, the way we have asked them to do it.
"Sometimes you come off the pitch really disappointed because you haven't played well. But today I am proud of them because of the way they have played.
"I am disappointed to lose the game but I was proud of the way they played."
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Some of the records.
Premier League goals - worst in Football League and Europe so far this season
Goal drought 1: 547 minutes
Goal drought 2: 660 minutes
Longest run of defeats without scoring 5 - Arsenal, Chelsea, Man City, Everton, QPR.
Heaviest defeat in history 8-0 at Chelsea
Most goals Villa have conceded in Premier League season - 69 - 2012-13
101 points from 101 games - worst point ratio of any Villa manager who has reached 100 games
Most defeats in Premier League season - 20 - including most ever home league defeats in a season - 2013-14.
Lowest Premier League attendance at Villa Park for 15 years - 25,311 against Southampton in November, in keeping with dwindling crowds.
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Thanks.
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I like this one the best because it has pictures of him and Royston looking happy.
http://www.independent.co.uk/sport/football/premier-league/aston-villa-vs-southampton-paul-lambert-believes-cold-weather-and-live-broadcasting-caused-lowest-villa-attendance-in-15-years-9881706.html
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Lambert was utterly clueless. In way over his head. Even with a budget we would have struggled to show any sort of semblance of a plan. The way he back tracked on the young and hungry experiment was embarrassing. We ended up getting worse.
Plus what really wound me up was this genuine acceptence he seemed to have for some of the absolutely shit performances we had. I mean when a Mourinho or a Ferguson is giving the spiel at the end of a bad game, you know they don't really believe what they say sometimes. But with Lambert I felt like he genuinely believed we were playing well when all the world could see we were awful. That Swansea game as a case in point.
Awful, awful manager. Okay he wasn't the massive end of a bell that O Leary was but in managerial terms he's not fit to lace O Leary's boots and lets face it, Dolly was pretty limited himself.
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No matter how many times I see this I laugh...it is spot on...
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No matter how many times I see this I laugh...it is spot on...
It's sort of tragically funny. ha ha. Absolutely spot on though.
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Had he kept council I could have considered him an unlucky, but limited chump.
Now he's just a deluded areshole. I suppose from his point of view, if it lands him another job for a couple of million a year why would he give a shit?
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The tosser should be on death row for the torture of 10's, in not 100's of thousands of football supporters.
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No matter how many times I see this I laugh...it is spot on...
It's sort of tragically funny. ha ha. Absolutely spot on though.
Haha, hadn't seen that before.
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No matter how many times I see this I laugh...it is spot on...
It's sort of tragically funny. ha ha. Absolutely spot on though.
Haha, hadn't seen that before.
Although very very funny it really rings true. I can remember coming away from games where we had been absolutely terrible only to hear him coming out with that "we were excellent" mantra.
The logic of that new contract he got after four games last season still baffles me to this day.
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I like this one the best because it has pictures of him and Royston looking happy.
http://www.independent.co.uk/sport/football/premier-league/aston-villa-vs-southampton-paul-lambert-believes-cold-weather-and-live-broadcasting-caused-lowest-villa-attendance-in-15-years-9881706.html
yes cold weather and live on TV Paul and not the utterly bollocks football and the slide towards oblivion that kept the fans away. Tosser.
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How dare anyone making millions of pounds for managing a feckin game compare their occupation to life on death row.
Clown, get lost already.
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His observation of his predicament at Villa remind me of Alice In The Looking Glass when she tumbles down a rabbit hole and reality becomes reversed. Lambert spent his whole time, even the early goodish brief spell under reacting to what was going on. Every horrible foul up whether it was bomb squad, bullying, old and past it, young and hungry, fantasy assessments of performance, the debacle that was Keane, match tactics, fan relations all had at their source the fact that he was unable to be sensitive to what was going on around him. Then he falls down the rabbit hole that was his totally deserved sacking and he falls into a world of reversed reality where he was the victim. A super sensitive innocent victim of unjustified criticism. To put the metaphor of victimization in even higher definition and even worse taste than comparison with an execution block he chooses to compare himself to the victim in The Green Mile who is a totally innocent misunderstood miracle worker. Compared with what Alex McLeish got Paul Lambert was treated with patience and boundless tolerance by everybody at Villa Park including the fans.
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We had our disagreements during Lambert's tenure Brian but since he has left I think we can agree. He has become a deluded fuckwit. Down the rabbit hole indeed.
Lambert continues to break records even now, he is actually making Alex McLeish look good. Quite an achievement.
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I did not wish to give the impression that it was personal ciggies. I think you showed more patience than I did and that was no bad thing. I am an old man in a hurry. My meter is running.
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I wouldn't read too much into the Green Mile reference. I doubt Lambert has the slightest inkling what it really means. I think it's just a case of the walk seeming like a mile, and he could see the pitch, which was green.
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I did not wish to give the impression that it was personal ciggies. I think you showed more patience than I did and that was no bad thing. I am an old man in a hurry. My meter is running.
Fair play sir, fair play. To be honest I think I was unable to see how bad things had got until Hull and it was in my face.
Let us hope we have a better few years ahead of us! Would be nice to actually win something!
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I wouldn't read too much into the Green Mile reference. I doubt Lambert has the slightest inkling what it really means. I think it's just a case of the walk seeming like a mile, and he could see the pitch, which was green.
Maybe it's because Lammbert has a load of flies buzzing around his mouth with all the nonsensical shit he comes out with.
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I think as opposed to The Green Mile reference, after his first season, the correct analogy was more like Dead Man Walking. Admittedly it was a slow, painful death.
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I think as opposed to The Green Mile reference, after his first season, the correct analogy was more like Dead Man Walking. Admittedly it was a slow, painful death.
In the end he was more like Rain Man, but without the useful abilities.
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It's occurred to me that he should have been sacked for breach of contract.
Presumably he got the job after promising Randy / Faulkner he could deliver improvements on the pitch (anyone remember the "vibrant playing style" we were promised?) whilst delivering the savings. He clearly didn't achieve the first half of that = failing to deliver as promised.
Anyway he's gone now, we just about got away with not sacking him sooner, so let his memory fester in some dark forgotten footballing purgatory. Yeps. I've got him down as next blues manager :)
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His first season was shit as well. From memory the last 10 or so games we're pretty good but the previous 35 we're just as appalling as anything that came in the other 2 seasons after. We pulled off a Wigan but we're still terrible.
I really dislike Lambert, I'm just glad he's gone so we don't have to argue about him anymore, fucking clown that he was, excellent my arse.
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I'll never subscribe to the 'he's mumbling so he's thick' or even the 'he's arrogant' line of arguments. I was one of his last defenders on the site, but even I knew the gig was up a few weeks/months before the Hull debacle. I think I hoped he'd do well rather than expect he would. Essentially, I just don't think he's a very good manager, but is having to say all this to keep his name in the shop window.
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There was a definite point in season three at which you could see he had genuinely lost interest and belief. In the space of a few weeks he put on a load of weight, looked scruffier than usual, looked like he'd probably stopped washing, looked permanently ruddy faced.
That time of him sat on our bench next to that shabby fucking mental tramp Keane was so depressing.
Did anyone really - really - think the Keane appointment was going to work out? That was only ever going one way.
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I'll never subscribe to the 'he's mumbling so he's thick' or even the 'he's arrogant' line of arguments. I was one of his last defenders on the site, but even I knew the gig was up a few weeks/months before the Hull debacle. I think I hoped he'd do well rather than expect he would. Essentially, I just don't think he's a very good manager, but is having to say all this to keep his name in the shop window.
Woodhall said to me at one point last season that maybe the problem was he'd never experienced failure before (as a manager), and he was experiencing it here on a big scale, which left him with no idea how to turn it around. I think that's probably a decent-ish point.
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Lambert's 'tenure' put my youngest son off football for life (constant defeat and thrashings) - for that I will never forgive him...
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There was a definite point in season three at which you could see he had genuinely lost interest and belief. In the space of a few weeks he put on a load of weight, looked scruffier than usual, looked like he'd probably stopped washing, looked permanently ruddy faced.
That time of him sat on our bench next to that shabby fucking mental tramp Keane was so depressing.
Did anyone really - really - think the Keane appointment was going to work out? That was only ever going one way.
The Keane appointment more than anything else started to make me think he actually wanted the club to sack him.
Why else introduce a volatile element like that.
With the pressure on, the last thing you need is (a) an assistant who was essentially doing the job part-time and was quite open about how it was way down his list of priorities and (b) is a facking lunatic at the best of times.
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I don't think he rationalized his situation like that. He simply didn't have to look beyond Uncle Randy awarding him a new 4 year deal - he was never going to resign, no matter how death row- like his Villa experience became, and with the new contract, he was quid's in when the axe did fall. He's the ultimate blend of stupidity and hubris.
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There was a definite point in season three at which you could see he had genuinely lost interest and belief. In the space of a few weeks he put on a load of weight, looked scruffier than usual, looked like he'd probably stopped washing, looked permanently ruddy faced.
I used to cringe when he'd be interviewed unshaven, dishevelled, bloated and looking clueless. His team started to mirror him. I notice he's smartened himself up these days, shame he didn't make the same effort for Aston Villa Football Club.
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If I could make a list of Villa's mistakes and regrets, I will put his name on top. And every line after it.
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There was a definite point in season three at which you could see he had genuinely lost interest and belief. In the space of a few weeks he put on a load of weight, looked scruffier than usual, looked like he'd probably stopped washing, looked permanently ruddy faced.
I used to cringe when he'd be interviewed unshaven, dishevelled, bloated and looking clueless. His team started to mirror him. I notice he's smartened himself up these days, shame he didn't make the same effort for Aston Villa Football Club.
I recall seeing McLeish in his first post Villa interview and he looked 20 years younger.
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If I could make a list of Villa's mistakes and regrets, I will put his name on top. And every line after it.
... And You Will Know Him By the Trail of Defeats
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Mind you Tim looks as if he has aged 10 years already.
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He is only doing what every mediocre manager does:
- blame the lack of funds
- claim he wasn't supported by the Chairman / Board
- make specious comparisons with previous / subsequent managers
The bottom line is: it is down to him; it always is. And, TS has proved that he could get more than a dead cat bounce from the same squad of players.
TS has, admittedly, got lucky in that Fox appears to have surrounded him with good footballing guys. But he has also taken the bull by the horns with regard to Benteke ... do you think he deliberately released Benteke's buy-out value in order to get the funds to rebuild? - it looks like it to me.
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Not interested in slinging more mud at Lambert. It was proven over a long period that he wasn't good enough for the job and he was given more than enough backing from the club. This just comes off as a bitten simply as. I think he mostly had a good relationship with the management and this is him just trying to save face. It is him who has made himself look bad in all this, and by choosing Talkshite rather than a proper broadcaster like Fivelive to air his dirty washing has just made it worse.
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can you air dirty washing on the radio or has he done it on TV as well?
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That house of his looked a bit more luxurious than death row. I bet his bank balance for presiding over all those shambolic home performances looks a lot healthier than mine does after paying for my son and I to watch them. A relatively inexperienced manager sarcastically named 'Tactics Tim' made a poor Lambert side score goals, get to a cup final and most importantly stay up, none of which we would have done had he stayed. Still, maybe some chairman will buy his version of events and give him a job.
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That house of his looked a bit more luxurious than death row. I bet his bank balance for presiding over all those shambolic home performances looks a lot healthier than mine does after paying for my son and I to watch them. A relatively inexperienced manager sarcastically named 'Tactics Tim' made a poor Lambert side score goals, get to a cup final and most importantly stay up, none of which we would have done had he stayed. Still, maybe some chairman will buy his version of events and give him a job.
I doubt it, I think it's what you call a "false narrative".
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Mark Fletcher used to call Emile Heskey The Green Mile. It's a pity he's gone (Fletcher, not Emule).
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can you air dirty washing on the radio or has he done it on TV as well?
Does anybody actually air dirty washing?
Why wouldn't you just put it in the washing machine, and then air it once it's clean?
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That house of his looked a bit more luxurious than death row. I bet his bank balance for presiding over all those shambolic home performances looks a lot healthier than mine does after paying for my son and I to watch them. A relatively inexperienced manager sarcastically named 'Tactics Tim' made a poor Lambert side score goals, get to a cup final and most importantly stay up, none of which we would have done had he stayed. Still, maybe some chairman will buy his version of events and give him a job.
This is the point. He's trying to make it sound like he was sacked, and then the next guy was all the money which he was denied - whereas actually Tim took exactly the same players and made them look half-decent, and easily good enough to stay up (even if it was still very close thanks to Lambert's magnificent record earlier in the season). You can't spin the difference between the performances under Lambert and under Sherwood.
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That house of his looked a bit more luxurious than death row. I bet his bank balance for presiding over all those shambolic home performances looks a lot healthier than mine does after paying for my son and I to watch them. A relatively inexperienced manager sarcastically named 'Tactics Tim' made a poor Lambert side score goals, get to a cup final and most importantly stay up, none of which we would have done had he stayed. Still, maybe some chairman will buy his version of events and give him a job.
This is the point. He's trying to make it sound like he was sacked, and then the next guy was all the money which he was denied - whereas actually Tim took exactly the same players and made them look half-decent, and easily good enough to stay up (even if it was still very close thanks to Lambert's magnificent record earlier in the season). You can't spin the difference between the performances under Lambert and under Sherwood.
I don't remember him making any reference or comparison to Death Row when he was signing a new improved contract. After the amount of times I walked away from Villa Park after yet another defeat under him this has really wound me up.
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Mark Fletcher used to call Emile Heskey The Green Mile. It's a pity he's gone (Fletcher, not Emule).
We should have an amnesty for The Damned.
Bring the Gnasher back too.
Balance the books by giving anyone who quotes themselves or refers to their own witless musings months ago free transfers.
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"I knew the first two years would be tough but we've made progress and now we're beginning to see the benefits of all of that hard work," added Lambert.
"We're in a much healthier position on and off the pitch.
"The bar had to be raised, everyone has stepped up and there will be continued improvement."
Said Paul Lambert after signing a new four year contract.
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He left the job with very little or maybe even no credibility left after serving up that turgid football and breaking so many unwanted records. Now he is just making himself look stupid as well as clueless.
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I think our anti-football and goal record becoming a national joke will put pay to Lambert getting another job anytime soon, good, boring fucker.
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I feel sorry for Lambert, that nasty Tim Sherwood getting all the money to spend!
Bags O'Money Sherwood: Currently a net spend of just over £5m
Poor no money Lambert's net spend each season: £23m, £16m and £9m.
So using those figures, by my calculations, Lambert is a twat.
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So finally the useless twat has reaquainted himself with his razor, put his food stained cardigan in the wash, wiped the sick off his shirt and is doing the media rounds trying to get back into the game.
You had the best chance and the biggest job you were ever going to get. You fucked it up.
You ought to be ashamed of yourself.
Now go back to the pub and place your self in the losers corner and stay there.
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I feel sorry for Lambert, that nasty Tim Sherwood getting all the money to spend!
Bags O'Money Sherwood: Currently a net spend of just over £5m
Poor no money Lambert's net spend each season: £23m, £16m and £9m.
So using those figures, by my calculations, Lambert is a twat.
£2,073.46 Odds
I feel sorry for Lambert, that nasty Tim Sherwood getting all the money to spend!
Bags O'Money Sherwood: Currently a net spend of just over £5m
Poor no money Lambert's net spend each season: £23m, £16m and £9m.
So using those figures, by my calculations, Lambert is a twat.
I think the endless "we were excellent" and "we go again" rolled out quotes grated so much with every supporter that I can't disagree.
The freezing out of Hutton then rediscoving him was one of his strangest moves. Like him or not he was certainly a lot more committed than some of Lamberts choices. Weird. I think there's obviously a lot of shenanigans that went on we'll never find out.
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So many dispiriting, horrible, soul crushing times under that manager, more than I can remember under any other.
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yet he retained the goodwill of the media throughout. Very strange.
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All of the points about his total inability to manage the club are correct.
But who gave the fucker a new 4 year contract?
Who is the madderst?
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I begged Randy to sack me but he just kept paying me more money.
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The freezing out of Hutton then rediscoving him was one of his strangest moves.
See also, Shay Given.
One day, spending training playing headers and volleys on the far field with the other bomb squad people and 12 year olds. Next day, on the bench as assistant manager.
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See also Bent, D. From Captain in Lambert's pre-season to being literally surplus to requirements within a matter of weeks.
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I'm just so glad we got rid when we did or we'd be gearing up for someone like Rotherham on Saturday in front of less than 25k at Villa Park.
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I'm just so glad we got rid when we did or we'd be gearing up for someone like Rotherham on Saturday in front of less than 25k at Villa Park.
Bearing in mind he was given a new contract he didn't deserve and a lot longer in the job than he should have been, he should be thanking Randy rather than coming out with the guff that he is.
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I'm just so glad we got rid when we did or we'd be gearing up for someone like Rotherham on Saturday in front of less than 25k at Villa Park.
And expecting to lose.
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And saying we played 'excellently' against a really decent side who will cause a lot of teams problems this season after a shabby last minute 0-1 reverse.
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It was the constantly trying to convince us we were excellent week after week, defeat after defeat that confirmed that he was utterly bonkers.
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Then trying to convince us that having loads of possession by keeping the ball in our own half and not actually trying to attack was a good thing.
...and being excellent at it too.
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I think some of Lambert's decisions in his last season should dispel the myth that football managers always know more about the game than the fans.
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it was never a myth with Lambert - he knew nothing about nothing
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Lambert should probably stop and think about what you'd have to do to go from getting a new four year contract to getting sacked within six months, particularly at a club which was trying it's best not to waste any money at the time.
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Currently on Skysports news to discuss his specialist subject ....cup upsets
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Currently on Skysports news to discuss his specialist subject ....cup upsets
Towards the end of his time at the Villa he had embarrassed us so many times nothing apart from us winning would have been classed as a cup upset.
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Currently on Skysports news to discuss his specialist subject ....cup upsets
Fair play to Sky getting the world's leading authority on.
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"... an' ah found if ye really want to get knocked oot, ye just pile on every striker yiv got oan yer books fae the last ten minutes. It looks like yer tryin' tae win, but yiv got noo chance."
"That's interesting Paul, why do you think that is?"
"Ah just do."
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He looks well doesn't he?
The millions of pounds contract payout from his "Death Row" job seem to be doing him a lot of good.
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Link (http://www.birminghammail.co.uk/sport/football/football-news/aston-villa-change-transfer-policy-9924547#ICID=FB-Birm-avfc)
Paul Lambert admits Aston Villa’s increased transfer spending this summer makes him “laugh a little bit”.
Lambert, who was sacked in February with Villa in the Premier League relegation zone, reckons the club have changed their transfer policy.
New boss Tim Sherwood is estimated to have been given around £40 million so far this summer.
Aston Villa manager Tim Sherwood during the Barclays Premier League match at Selhurst Park, LondonAston Villa manager Tim Sherwood during the Barclays Premier League match at Selhurst Park, London
It is more than Lambert had to spend during a single transfer window, but has been funded predominantly by the sales of Christian Benteke and Fabian Delph.
Asked on Sky Sports News HQ whether it frustrated him that his successor in the Villa Park hotseat has had more money to spend, Lambert replied: “It does a little bit.
"It makes me a laugh a little bit in the change in the policy but that’s the way it is and good luck to Tim and Aston Villa in the future, whatever they want to do.
“Everybody has moved on and they have spent an awful lot of money.”
Aston Villa players with manager Tim SherwoodAston Villa players with manager Tim Sherwood
Villa have signed a host of players this summer, bringing in Scott Sinclair, Micah Richards, Mark Bunn, Idrissa Gueye, Jordan Amavi, Jordan Ayew, Jordan Veretout, Rudy Gestede and Juan Angel Crespo.
Lambert added: “Tim will be upbeat going into the season with the squad that he’s got and hopefully they can go and do it.
"It has probably been stop-start for them but we’ll see how it goes.”
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Our net spend is lower than any of your seasons, why don't you mention that you whining tart?
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“Everybody has moved on and they have spent an awful lot of money.”
As opposed to you Paul who spent a lot of money on awful.
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Silly Paul.
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His constant comments are becoming very dull now.
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His constant comments are becoming very dull now.
When were they ever exciting?
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Can he just shut the f¤¤k up.
You came, you tried, you were shit.
The obvious reason as to why we've spent the amount we have is 40 odd million in incoming fees.
His bitching about us after the fact is starting to piss me off as much as Miss Piggy did with the constant talking us down whilst here.
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Can we merge this with the other Lambert thread so we can waste our oxygen discussing this twat in one spot. He really needs to STFU.
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Lambert through the looking glass. Saddest thing is that he seems to believe his version of his martyrdom.
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Can we merge this with the other Lambert thread so we can waste our oxygen discussing this twat in one spot. He really needs to STFU.
He needs to FRO.
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At ANY other club he would have been sacked for any one of at least ten things he was responsible for.
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At ANY other club he would have been sacked for any one of at least ten things he was responsible for.
Per season probably
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Our net spend is lower than any of your seasons, why don't you mention that you whining tart?
Surely the person who takes most credit for our 'net spend' being so low this summer is er...Paul Lambert?
Sherwood isn't the reason we saw a four-fold return on Benteke's transfer fee or turned Delph into somebody that a Champions League team would want.
Paul Lambert can be blamed for a lot of things, but not turning his predecessor's signings into big incoming transfer fees like Sherwood has isn't really one of them.
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Our net spend is lower than any of your seasons, why don't you mention that you whining tart?
Surely the person who takes most credit for our 'net spend' being so low this summer is er...Paul Lambert?
Sherwood isn't the reason we saw a four-fold return on Benteke's transfer fee or turned Delph into somebody that a Champions League team would want.
Paul Lambert can be blamed for a lot of things, but not turning his predecessor's signings into big incoming transfer fees like Sherwood has isn't really one of them.
I agree , timing is also everything , we have cashed in on our assets which has given us the opportunity to reinvest. If Lambert had stayed and kept us up (dream ) he would have had the opportunity to do the same
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And would quickly have turned what he bought into more negative, boring, anti football shite. The bloke couldn't manage a fart, I'm glad the Lambert nightmare is over.
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Our net spend is lower than any of your seasons, why don't you mention that you whining tart?
Surely the person who takes most credit for our 'net spend' being so low this summer is er...Paul Lambert?
Sherwood isn't the reason we saw a four-fold return on Benteke's transfer fee or turned Delph into somebody that a Champions League team would want.
Paul Lambert can be blamed for a lot of things, but not turning his predecessor's signings into big incoming transfer fees like Sherwood has isn't really one of them.
How much do you think we'd have got for Benteke in January when Lambert had managed him to his two goal total?
And Lambert didn't turn his predecessors signings into big incoming transfer fees did he? Sherwood did.
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Our net spend is lower than any of your seasons, why don't you mention that you whining tart?
Surely the person who takes most credit for our 'net spend' being so low this summer is er...Paul Lambert?
Sherwood isn't the reason we saw a four-fold return on Benteke's transfer fee or turned Delph into somebody that a Champions League team would want.
Paul Lambert can be blamed for a lot of things, but not turning his predecessor's signings into big incoming transfer fees like Sherwood has isn't really one of them.
How much do you think we'd have got for Benteke in January when Lambert had managed him to his two goal total?
Substantially more than we paid for him.
Edit: How much would you have been willing to sell him for?
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Our net spend is lower than any of your seasons, why don't you mention that you whining tart?
Surely the person who takes most credit for our 'net spend' being so low this summer is er...Paul Lambert?
Sherwood isn't the reason we saw a four-fold return on Benteke's transfer fee or turned Delph into somebody that a Champions League team would want.
Paul Lambert can be blamed for a lot of things, but not turning his predecessor's signings into big incoming transfer fees like Sherwood has isn't really one of them.
How much do you think we'd have got for Benteke in January when Lambert had managed him to his two goal total?
Substantially more than we paid for him.
I don't think anyone would have met his release clause.
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It would have been interesting to see what Lambert would have done with forty million quid. Well, the twenty five million left after he had bought six crap left backs anyway.
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I'm probably in a minority but I can't be entirely negative about Lambert's tenure. After the decline, inertia, stagnation, whatever you want to call the previous three years, it was refreshing to see a change in the club's ethos. The wins over Stoke, Sunderland and Arsenal will always be among my favourite memories of watching the Villa and in Christian Benteke, he brought in one of the best players to ever wear the shirt.
He really needs to shut the fuck up now though. He sounds like someone fired from The Apprentice around the third week when it becomes apparent that, one or two flashes of inspiration apart, he's completely out of his depth yet somehow manages to big themselves up in the taxi ride of fail and assure us that Lord Sugar has made a mistake and that we haven't heard the last of them before disappearing from view for ever.
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It would have been interesting to see what Lambert would have done with forty million quid. Well, the twenty five million left after he had bought six crap left backs anyway.
I reckon he'd have spunked the lot on Ricky Lambert to fill the massive hole left by Grant Holt
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Our net spend is lower than any of your seasons, why don't you mention that you whining tart?
Surely the person who takes most credit for our 'net spend' being so low this summer is er...Paul Lambert?
Sherwood isn't the reason we saw a four-fold return on Benteke's transfer fee or turned Delph into somebody that a Champions League team would want.
Paul Lambert can be blamed for a lot of things, but not turning his predecessor's signings into big incoming transfer fees like Sherwood has isn't really one of them.
How much do you think we'd have got for Benteke in January when Lambert had managed him to his two goal total?
Substantially more than we paid for him.
Edit: How much would you have been willing to sell him for?
If you're ignoring the release clause, probably about £50m. I could see that any half-competent manager could make him worth that again in no time.
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Put a sock in it, Lambert, you big gobshite.
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It's still a lower net spend. Which he never mentions when whining about money. Maybe if Lambert had managed the squad better he wouldn't have had a load of players we couldn't shift because he had devalued them. And so he could have spent even more.
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Lambert the Revisionist in fabricating a false narrative to justify return to management shocker...
Give it a rest Paul, you're a busted flush and a grade-A numpty.
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This sums up my thoughts
http://www.birminghammail.co.uk/sport/football/football-news/paul-lambert-comment-time-sacked-9926028
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This sums up my thoughts
http://www.birminghammail.co.uk/sport/football/football-news/paul-lambert-comment-time-sacked-9926028
Back at ya yer useless tub of Glaswegian lard.
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shock, horror. The first meaningful Villa article in the Mail in ages and look who wrote it. I can just imagine the Gregg Evans version would have been how right Lambert is and why he was left to fend for himself.
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jordan bowery instead of darren bent says everything you need to know about lamberk
should have been sacked after bradford
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Where Lambert's argument falls down is in that he failed to get anything like the best out of the players he did have, regardless of any others he wasn't able to buy.
Our team under him almost looked like considerably less than the sum of its parts.
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This sums up my thoughts
http://www.birminghammail.co.uk/sport/football/football-news/paul-lambert-comment-time-sacked-9926028
I bet Kendrick enjoyed writing that. Cant blame him either.
Anyway, yeah, time to stop talking about Villa Paul.
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If you want to pick flies in the article, McLeish was the only manager of the last decade forced to sell his best players when he lost Young and Downing while he was still trying to find his office at BH.
MON spent shitloads.
Milner sold somewhere.
Houllier didn't have to sell anyone.
McLeish lost Young and Downing.
McFuckup sold no one of value
One of Lambert's many problems was he got almost nothing back from the transfer market. The only one I can think of with a few quid into the kitty is KEA.
If he'd managed to get a few quid in for Benteke Bent, Hutton, Given and company instead of freezing them out maybe he'd have had a better budget in his second summer.
Edited the obvious mistake. Bloody predictive text.
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There was more money for the fecker to spend - he was more than happy to go along with the young and hungry thing - he would have waxed lyrical about how it had worked well for him at Norwich when we intereviewed. I'd have a lot more respect for him if he said something along the lines of ''I did try and blood these talented kids from the lower leagues and other countries but I was probably naive to think that most of them would prosper. Lads like Ashley Westwood make me think that it's still possible to do that but maybe not on a wide scale. But these are the type of things you learn in management especially when going from a medium-sized club like Norwich to a big, potentially massive one like Villa".
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I always thought and hoped that he could succeed and tried for a very long while to keep the faith. I thought he might be a decent sort of chap but all this whinging is really making him look a right bitter idiot.
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Jonah
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Trumpton Town are looking for a new kit man. Go Paul!
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At least you only have to walk to the chair on Death Row once. I don't want to tot up all the times I exited the North Stand and had to walk past delighted away fans during his time in charge.
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we do seem to kill managers careers off at Villa,
when you think of all our previous managers of recent years most of them find it difficult to find another job, based I'm sure on the fact they were staggeringly bad when they were with us
Lambert, Mcliesh, Houllier, Dolly, I don't think ever managed on these shores again since leaving, and MON took his time then bombed at Sunderland, and he was the darling of fleet street
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MON killed his own career off, we didn't do that for him.
It was interesting how, when he finally comes back to the game, it is to Sunderland (bit of a come down after his hoped for next stops while he was managing us), and the internet is awash with Villa fans predicting what would happen there.
Fast forward a season or so and said Villa fans were absolutely spot on, from the lazy overpriced home market signings, to the one dimensional football, the lot.
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MON killed his own career off, we didn't do that for him.
It was interesting how, when he finally comes back to the game, it is to Sunderland (bit of a come down after his hoped for next stops while he was managing us), and the internet is awash with Villa fans predicting what would happen there.
Fast forward a season or so and said Villa fans were absolutely spot on, from the lazy overpriced home market signings, to the one dimensional football, the lot.
he did take Stephen Fletcher to Sunderland though for 12 mill,
good bit of business that was I'm sure all black cats would agree
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To be fair to the Sunderland fans they figured out his flaws a lot quicker than we did.
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It's not that they figured it out quicker. They had a massive body of evidence to work from which in fairness we didn't have. He joined us fresh off successes at Leicester and Celtic and with the goodwil generated by why he left Celtic and the natural excitement of Randy buying the club. By the end of his time with us most smart fans could see what has happened and Sunderland fans just knew what would around the corner. And they weren't wrong.
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Lambert reminds me of a stranger you might meet in a pub who wants to bitch about being recently and unfairly ditched by their partner. You listen to all their woes knowing full well there's another side to the story. PL seems oblivious to the fact we know the other side to the story in all it's graphic detail. So much so that if you knew the stranger's previous partner in the same way you'd stop the stranger in flow and tell them to shut the f*** up because they were talking like a c***.
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Agreed. Started work on an article about him and his recent outbursts yesterday. I got too involved with the Sherwood roller coaster to stick it to him properly last season. Game on, mother fucker!
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Talking aboutarsehole managers I am sitting about 15 yards away from DOL in a hotel bar in Chicago,
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Go and flick his ears for me please and tell him I'm not fickle, I wasn't leaving, despite us being 3-1 down in a shit stinking ground, I just fancied a beer before the half was over.
If you want to nut the pug nosed twat, then that's cool too.
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Talking aboutarsehole managers I am sitting about 15 yards away from DOL in a hotel bar in Chicago,
Feel free on my behalf to go and urinate on his shoes.
I'll be in your neck of the woods in a couple of weeks CL. Where's Vernon Hills in relation to Chicago?
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Talking aboutarsehole managers I am sitting about 15 yards away from DOL in a hotel bar in Chicago,
A noogie seems more than fair.
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Is he just standing in the doorway leaning against the frame?