Having had that pivotal result on my mind all night I have come to the conclusion that it is Paul Lambert who is the work in progress not the team. It is he who has to develop into his full potential.
That's exactly right Brian.
He was learning on the job at Norwich and he's still learning on the job here.
For all the plaudits they received last year, some of Norwich's defending was horrific. Their goals against is a fair reflection of that.
But such has been our fall in status over the past few years -exacerbated by Faulkner's constant references to getting the wage bill in order- that pretty much any manager we went for was going to be in that bracket. We maybe had an opening to bring in a 'sure thing' in August 2010, possibly even in 2011. Last summer we didn't have that luxury.
Martinez, Solskjaer and Lambert seemed to be the favoured candidates -all of them are promising managers.
But we'd have most likely encountered similar patchy results under the first two as well, as they got to grips with the job.
I can wear inconsistency and up and down performances this year -providing there is a bit more up than down, and the first green shoots of something approximating recovery show through.
