Lambert Out?

[PaulWinch again]

The big worry for me is that you would expect as the season progresses for Lambert's players to start to gel and for him to establish a style of play which will work with the players he has in the squad.   The real bummer about that Norwich game is that Lambert seems no closer to climbing up the learning curve than he was at the start of the season.   I fear that it will be back to square one in January and the drafting in of players to keep us in the Premiership.   The one thing which managers do not have is time.   You will know when we are about to change to Plan B when he starts asking the fans to be patient.

Very true the nature of money in football now means that you literally can't afford to be relegated. As a consequence even if you have long term plan, if the threat of relegation looms even just a little bit in January you spend money on players who don't meet that long term aim. So you're virtually always caught in a cycle of buying players to maintain Premier league status at the expense of those players who may be better overall in the long run.

[paul_e]

Hopefully the 1-2 players we need in January won't cause this problem.  We need a controlling force in the middle of the park but after that I'd hope any other signings are similar to what we've seen, lots of potential to grow as a unit.

Of his signings only really Bennett is struggling so far (ignore bowery and westwood who haven't played enough), so I'd trust him to make more of  a similar stature.

The only thing that's worried me is that he's dropped Bannan for Delph when Bannan was, in my opinion, looking like an important player for us.  He just reads the game better, I still think Delph has a lot of potential and you see glimmers of it, but he seems to panic when teams close him down fast, Bannan has the technique to get away from people when that happens whereas Delph doesn't seem to.

[jackgallimore]

The last time we sacked three managers in three years was back in the 1960's. DickTaylor in 1967, Tommy Cummings in 1968 and Tommy Docherty in 1969 and that resulted in relegation to Division 3. Mind you the two years in that division were great fun! Thousands of Villa supporters taking over tiny grounds that most of us would have never visited had we not been relegated? Oh yes and a League Cup final!

[eastie]

The last time we sacked three managers in three years was back in the 1960's. DickTaylor in 1967, Tommy Cummings in 1968 and Tommy Docherty in 1969 and that resulted in relegation to Division 3. Mind you the two years in that division were great fun! Thousands of Villa supporters taking over tiny grounds that most of us would have never visited had we not been relegated? Oh yes and a League Cup final!

The last time we sacked three managers in three years was back in the 1960's. DickTaylor in 1967, Tommy Cummings in 1968 and Tommy Docherty in 1969 and that resulted in relegation to Division 3. Mind you the two years in that division were great fun! Thousands of Villa supporters taking over tiny grounds that most of us would have never visited had we not been relegated? Oh yes and a League Cup final!

The last time we sacked three managers in three years was back in the 1960's. DickTaylor in 1967, Tommy Cummings in 1968 and Tommy Docherty in 1969 and that resulted in relegation to Division 3. Mind you the two years in that division were great fun! Thousands of Villa supporters taking over tiny grounds that most of us would have never visited had we not been relegated? Oh yes and a League Cup final!

Welcome to the site - good first post.

[Ad@m]

The last time we sacked three managers in three years was back in the 1960's. DickTaylor in 1967, Tommy Cummings in 1968 and Tommy Docherty in 1969 and that resulted in relegation to Division 3. Mind you the two years in that division were great fun! Thousands of Villa supporters taking over tiny grounds that most of us would have never visited had we not been relegated? Oh yes and a League Cup final!

The last time we sacked three managers in three years was back in the 1960's. DickTaylor in 1967, Tommy Cummings in 1968 and Tommy Docherty in 1969 and that resulted in relegation to Division 3. Mind you the two years in that division were great fun! Thousands of Villa supporters taking over tiny grounds that most of us would have never visited had we not been relegated? Oh yes and a League Cup final!

The last time we sacked three managers in three years was back in the 1960's. DickTaylor in 1967, Tommy Cummings in 1968 and Tommy Docherty in 1969 and that resulted in relegation to Division 3. Mind you the two years in that division were great fun! Thousands of Villa supporters taking over tiny grounds that most of us would have never visited had we not been relegated? Oh yes and a League Cup final!

Welcome to the site - good first post.

So good you quoted it three times?! 

[levico]

Looks like we all, rightly, think that it's too early to start thinking about PLs departure. Just under the heading of idly speculating, I wonder what will happen when Randy returns to Brum in 2 weeks time (according to Meaning Evil). If we have had 2/3 bad results in that time, do we think things will be more than a little tense?

At the moment this s our worst start since 1969 - 3 more defeats, how long will be then 50, 60 years. Is there any possibility that Randy will react badly to that or indeed that PL will respond by walking away?

Hopefully common sense will prevail but there's no getting away from how critical the next few weeks are.

[Risso]

I bet Lerner's head is spinning like the girl in the Exorcist.  It lloks like he knew he messed up with the McLeish appointment, so appoints a popular replacement, gives him £20m, and the rate of decline then gets worse than ever!  I almost feel sorry for him.

[Irish villain]

I bet Lerner's head is spinning like the girl in the Exorcist.  It lloks like he knew he messed up with the McLeish appointment, so appoints a popular replacement, gives him £20m, and the rate of decline then gets worse than ever!  I almost feel sorry for him.

In my opinion we have the right manager. My worry is that the damage was already done over the previous couple of years and that the job of rebuilding was just too big for whoever took it on. 

[eastie]

I bet Lerner's head is spinning like the girl in the Exorcist.  It lloks like he knew he messed up with the McLeish appointment, so appoints a popular replacement, gives him £20m, and the rate of decline then gets worse than ever!  I almost feel sorry for him.

I doubt he expected such an awful start to the season , would love to be a fly on the wall at his meeting with lambert in November.

[pedro25]

I was excited about the younger players being brought in to integrate with the likes of Dunne, Given, Bent, Ireland, N'Zogbia, but it seems they have been brought in as replacements for these guys which is worrying.  Also the passing philosophy of the early games with the likes of Ireland and Bannan trying to create for Bent has been replaced with a policy of industry over guile and creativity across midfield and forward ranks as far as I can tell.  We wont be able to shift Given, Dunne, Bent, Ireland, N'Zogbia, Warnock, Makoun and Hutton in the next window and I fear waiting for their contracts to expire before refreshing the squad will see us go down in the meantime.  Even with money to spend we only seem to be buying from the cheaper end of the market and more Lowtons/Bennetts etc may not be enough to see us clear anyway.

[MarkM]

If TSM had had the start PL has had we would of been burning effigy's of him!

This is our worst start since the relegation season of 86/87.

I agree he needs more time, but and here is the big but, perhaps Villa is too big a job for him?

[Clampy]

I think we'll be ok to be honest although the start is'nt the greatest.

[ktvillan]

The last time we sacked three managers in three years was back in the 1960's. DickTaylor in 1967, Tommy Cummings in 1968 and Tommy Docherty in 1969 and that resulted in relegation to Division 3. Mind you the two years in that division were great fun! Thousands of Villa supporters taking over tiny grounds that most of us would have never visited had we not been relegated? Oh yes and a League Cup final!

Welcome to the site - good first post.

I don't think we sacked Houllier did we?  Didn't he retire or at least leave by mutual agreement on health grounds?

[JUAN PABLO]

I still  cant believe Ireland is not getting in the team.

There was a lot of talk from Ireland last week about "playing through the pain barrier", so he obviously isn't out of the woods injury wise.

but all the fans are watching through the pain barrier too.     Half a bottle of whisky normally does it for me.

[JUAN PABLO]

I was excited about the younger players being brought in to integrate with the likes of Dunne, Given, Bent, Ireland, N'Zogbia, but it seems they have been brought in as replacements for these guys which is worrying.  Also the passing philosophy of the early games with the likes of Ireland and Bannan trying to create for Bent has been replaced with a policy of industry over guile and creativity across midfield and forward ranks as far as I can tell.  We wont be able to shift Given, Dunne, Bent, Ireland, N'Zogbia, Warnock, Makoun and Hutton in the next window and I fear waiting for their contracts to expire before refreshing the squad will see us go down in the meantime.  Even with money to spend we only seem to be buying from the cheaper end of the market and more Lowtons/Bennetts etc may not be enough to see us clear anyway.

when PL came I was hoping we were going to be like a Holland with the football  but we have turned into England.