Paul Lambert confirmed as new manager (reply #544)

[django]

Risso's right Houllier was awful. The best thing he did was think about signing Cabaye. The only thing that has enhanced his reputation was the new depths we reached under Mcleish.

[Brazilian Villain]

No sorry, what's revisionism is lots of people pretending that Houllier was midway through some Wenger-esque transformation of us into the Barcelona of the Midlands.  The reality is that Houllier's transfer record from the continent is absolutely dire, and the home loss to Wolves was the worst performance I've seen in years at Villa.  Plus he had the advantage of Young and Downing.

In hindsight that was the best result of the season as it meant Wolves stayed up and sent Blues down.

I thought GH was a disgrace as well.

[eastie]

Houllier seemed to lose the dressing room and although the passing football was nice his man management skills were very poor along with his gaffes at anfield and the team selection at man city in the cup- he was not the man for the job but better than mcleish.

The choice of lambert i believe will be great business by randy and i look forward to a new era under him, very good news indeed!

[eastie]

No sorry, what's revisionism is lots of people pretending that Houllier was midway through some Wenger-esque transformation of us into the Barcelona of the Midlands.  The reality is that Houllier's transfer record from the continent is absolutely dire, and the home loss to Wolves was the worst performance I've seen in years at Villa.  Plus he had the advantage of Young and Downing.

In hindsight that was the best result of the season as it meant Wolves stayed up and sent Blues down.

I thought GH was a disgrace as well.

But without that defeat we would have probably avoided the hellish mcleish reign.

[supertom]

Tom, what we learned about MON's style was that, even with all that money to back it, it had a very defined limit. Lambert needs to prove he can move beyond that.

Amen. The comparisons with MON are really starting to piss on my Lambert chips. A motivator? Yes. But you can stick your "MON style of play" up your arse. His teams didn't even try to pass the ball, it's no wonder Houllier struggled to teach the basics and TSM was clueless.

Hopefully Lambert's coaching badges weren't from the 1970's.

Lamberts already proved he's got more in his locker. Like I said, he's got a team that is direct, attacks quickly and counters well. And is also effective from set pieces. Much like O Neill at his best here. But like I said, he actually has a plan B, and the ability to switch styles. I've seen Norwich player like we did at our best under O Neill. I've seen them pass the ball well too.  I've seen them play the long ball effectively. I don't think O Neill comparisons are a bad thing. The good thing is that Lamberts more of a product of the modern game and more adaptable. As Randy wants, younger, more vibrant.

[Jimbo]

Does kicking it from player to player across the back line ten yards from the halfway line, in our own half, constitute a 'nice passing game'? If so, Houllier's football must have been a pleasure to watch. Either way, the results weren't good enough. Let's hope Lambert's ugly football gets us winning again.

[supertom]

Houllier was awful. The players never gave 100%. We may have passed the ball more (normally in our third and middle) but we had no penetration and created almost as little as we did with McLeish. It was only signing Bent that really made him worthwhile but it was as much because of Randy wanting to dig us out of the whole we were getting in. If we were comfortable without threat of relegation, he'd have never outlayed 24 million on Bent.

We played our best stuff that season when we had nothing to play for under Gary Mac. A couple of standout results against decent teams at the end probably masked just how poor we were, as did a lucky 9th finish. Lets face it, Liverpool and Arsenal had their minds on holidays by the time we played them.

If McLeish's season was a 1/10. Houllier merely has the benefit of being a 2 or 3.

[CJ]

Don't know if it's been mentioned already but just heard Pat Murphy on R5 saying the bit about Norwich 'not accepting' PL's resignation is purely face-saving on their part.  Apparently, like most prem managers, Lambert has a clause in his contract which states that if another club approaches his club in line with the correct procedure then he would be allowed to talk to that club. Murphy says that Villa wrote to Norwich asking for permission to speak to Lambert - i.e. following the correct procedure - and Norwich refused to give him permission to speak to us. He has therefore resigned and regardless of what happens will not be going back.  Murphy reckons he could be signed up with us tomorrow. Compensation will be interesting IF the above is true - they refused to honour the terms of his contract so he quit.

[pauliewalnuts]

Houllier was poor, but you had the idea he was trying to do something, but failing.

McLeish was far far worse than that, and you had the knowledge that he wasn't trying to do anything other than that which he always does - scrape around for draws.

I know 1986-7 was terrible, too, and I can't remember the relegations prior to that, but last season was the most mindbendingly depressing load of bollocks for me

It really was terrible, joyless shit, served up by a manager who had a history of serving up terrible, joyless shit, something which everyone knew except Lerner and Faulkner.

They were lucky to get away with it in the end, it almost cost us big time.

[Toronto Villa]

after Christmas we had one of the best records of any team in the PL under Houllier. Yes, we signed Bent, but apparently teams do sign players to improve themselves. Houllier put his foot in his mouth on numerous occasions, but the team played much better football under him in the second half of the season. Had he stayed he'd have got rid of many of the wankers that were just as guilty as McLeish in letting us down last season. Houllier wasn't perfect. but he wasn't as bad as some of you are making out.

[pauliewalnuts]

I think what is going to be interesting is to see how the press react to us now.

We were loved by them when we were Martin O'Neill's Aston Villa, then treated like shit when we viciously sacked him, not recognising we were dealing with football greatness, then we were ungrateful bastards for driving Houllier out, and not giving McLeish a chance from the start.

Now we've got a manager they generally doff their caps to again (Henry Winter, for example, loves Lambert as he loves O'Neill).

It will be interesting to see what sort of coverage we start getting.

[eastie]

I still think randy will pay compensation to norwich although lamberts contract should be much less than mcleish's .

Lets hope the backroom team will also follow lambert to villa park , im sure being a good mate of stan he will have a good idea of things at the club, i wonder if he sounded out mon and if so how mon portrayed the club to him.

[Rudy Can't Fail]

Does kicking it from player to player across the back line ten yards from the halfway line, in our own half, constitute a 'nice passing game'? If so, Houllier's football must have been a pleasure to watch. Either way, the results weren't good enough. Let's hope Lambert's ugly football gets us winning again.

Don't be naughty, James. In our last games, admittedly under Gary Mac, we scored three goals that were the accumulation of 16 or 17 consecutive passes, something we'd never seen in the previous 6 years. It was a delight to see, certainly better than hoofing it front for Gabby to chase or giving it to Warnock to hoof it up to Ashley. Admittedly, the rest of the season was crap but what would you expect given the (lack of ) coaching and tactics over the previous years?

Ugly football will only take you so far. Good habits breed success, something Spurs and now sadly Newcastle are starting to learn. In fact, so are plenty of other teams. Still, if playing like Stoke every week is your thing, you may be disappointed this coming season. I certainly hope so.

[john e]

Reading the posts about the football played under Houlier makes me realise we will probably be better of with Lambert than either Rodgers or Martinez.

There is no way they would have got us playing there style of football Straight away, and like Houlier would have been slated for trying to pass the ball to much, especially when it goes wrong. We would have had to put up with some poor displays as they tried to slowly bring it about


Lambert is more direct and we are more used to that style and so are the players.

The other two managers would have been long term projects and I don't know whether Villa fans would have had the patience for that.

[James]

Reading the posts about the football played under Houlier makes me realise we will probably be better of with Lambert than either Rodgers or Martinez.

There is no way they would have got us playing there style of football Straight away, and like Houlier would have been slated for trying to pass the ball to much, especially when it goes wrong. We would have had to put up with some poor displays as they tried to slowly bring it about


Lambert is more direct and we are more used to that style and so are the players.

The other two managers would have been long term projects and I don't know whether Villa fans would have had the patience for that.

I said from the off that Lambert was the best fit in terms of getting the most from what he'd inherit for that very reason, however, I do believe he has the technical nous to push us on from that too. Brilliant appointment if we can tie it up, absolutely the best call!