Lambert in or out? Poll reset with majority 'in', 7th May

[paul_e]

Mid september was the date being suggested in the summer, it was only after the window shut that it extended.  As I recall He was back in training and had a relapse so yes it was a bit of a risk  but if everything had gone to plan he'd have expected a full compliment by the start of october.

[Somniloquism]

We've been shit all season. Lots of delusion on here.

Swansea at home, Newcastle away, Arse at home, 60 mins of the Manure match, Liverpool, Norwich and Citeh in the cup. Or were they all delusuions?

Not talking about the League Cup. I'm talking about the league. It's our bread and butter and it matters the most. By the way, no team however poor they are goes through a season without a few good performances, and we're no different. For every Swansea game I could give you an Everton, Chelsea, Wigan or a list of other appalling performances. Even when we beat Reading it was an absolutely awful display.
Stop dreaming - this team is heading towards the drop unless we invest this month in PL experience.

So we have not been shit ALL season as you originally posted. And I have seen Manure get results in absolutely awful performances. I'm not arguing we are not in trouble, especially if we buy poorly in the window and our injuries don't stop happening, just saying that we have shown we can also get results as well as shown we can get battered.

[Risso]

As I recall He was back in training and had a relapse so yes it was a bit of a risk  but if everything had gone to plan he'd have expected a full compliment by the start of october.

Incorrect.  This was from the Mail in October:

"In comments made to the Birmingham Mail Lambert said that Dunne had suffered some complications during his recovery from surgery and asked the question if he was anywhere near returning to training, especially given we only have one natural centre half who's fit, the manager said:

'No he's not, he's been feeling a lot better and that's a good thing. He's still not training with us but hopefully he'll start very shortly. He might get the tail end of the year, but you've got to take into account the training time to get fit.'

He hadn't returned to training at all.

[Concrete John]

As I recall He was back in training and had a relapse so yes it was a bit of a risk  but if everything had gone to plan he'd have expected a full compliment by the start of october.

Incorrect.  This was from the Mail in October:

"In comments made to the Birmingham Mail Lambert said that Dunne had suffered some complications during his recovery from surgery and asked the question if he was anywhere near returning to training, especially given we only have one natural centre half who's fit, the manager said:

'No he's not, he's been feeling a lot better and that's a good thing. He's still not training with us but hopefully he'll start very shortly. He might get the tail end of the year, but you've got to take into account the training time to get fit.'

He hadn't returned to training at all.

So, that was once the window closed then?

[paul_e]

That's the comments I was thinking of but I was certain they were in september.

Regardless at the start of August we sent him for an operation with an expected return of up to 2 months.  That's definitely true because we made a big song and dance of slagging of slagging off the Irish medical team when we sent him for the operation and it was all over the papers.

That means, as far as we were aware, until he relapsed, which it appears occurred at some point in september, we expected him to be unavailable for up to 6 matches.  Should we really have spent money signing an experienced central defender as cover for that period when we'd just signed 1 and had 2 very promising youngsters who deserved a chance to show they were up to it?

[Risso]

Yes, it was always going to be the case that he would be out for all of August and most of September at the very least.  But given his injury history and general attitude/fitness, it was always going to be a risk relying on him to come back sooner than that.  Especially when that left us with such an inexperienced pool of central defenders, as I said before.  Lambert has only go himself to blame on this one.

[eastie]

Yes, it was always going to be the case that he would be out for all of August and most of September at the very least.  But given his injury history and general attitude/fitness, it was always going to be a risk relying on him to come back sooner than that.  Especially when that left us with such an inexperienced pool of central defenders, as I said before.  Lambert has only go himself to blame on this one.

I think that's a bit harsh risso, it's a freak situation to have 3 out of 4 central defenders out at the same time injured , normally 4 central defenders will be enough with others as cover .

Regarding dunne , lambert could not have expected him to be out this long as the original diagnosis suggested.

[Risso]

  Should we really have spent money signing an experienced central defender as cover for that period when we'd just signed 1 and had 2 very promising youngsters who deserved a chance to show they were up to it?

Absolutely we should.  Starting a Premier League season with somebody completely new to the league and two kids with a handful of appearances each was madness, as our general defensive malaise shows.  Even with Vlaar in the team we were shipping an average of 1.75 goals a game.

[Concrete John]

Yes, it was always going to be the case that he would be out for all of August and most of September at the very least.  But given his injury history and general attitude/fitness, it was always going to be a risk relying on him to come back sooner than that.  Especially when that left us with such an inexperienced pool of central defenders, as I said before.  Lambert has only go himself to blame on this one.

I don;t think they were relying on him to come back sooner, but what is Lambert supposed to do other than take the advice of his medical staff on matters such as this?

Signing A N Other centre back with Dunne still on the books would have been an unwsie use of resources, given what they knew at the time.

[MarkM]

The defence stats speak for themselves with regard to how the defence has performed.

It was a gamble and it has gone terribly wrong, only one person to blame for it.

[pedro25]

Even so to lose Baker and Vlaar and both left backs at the same time, meaning we couldn't even play Lowton centrally as Lichaj was needed on the left, was a pretty unlikely scenario.  Not including Dunne, Warnock, Hutton, Williams and Herd we still had 7 defenders in the squad, I bet not many other Prem teams apart from those in Europe have any more than this.

You can bank on having 3 players unavailable at any given time but you can't build a squad on the basis you are deprived of 10/11 players at any given time, we have been extremely unfortunate, especially given the age of the squad.

[eastie]

The defence stats speak for themselves with regard to how the defence has performed.

It was a gamble and it has gone terribly wrong, only one person to blame for it.

The defence are exposed far too often by a weak midfield providing little or no protection .

[Risso]

Yes, it was always going to be the case that he would be out for all of August and most of September at the very least.  But given his injury history and general attitude/fitness, it was always going to be a risk relying on him to come back sooner than that.  Especially when that left us with such an inexperienced pool of central defenders, as I said before.  Lambert has only go himself to blame on this one.

I don;t think they were relying on him to come back sooner, but what is Lambert supposed to do other than take the advice of his medical staff on matters such as this?

Signing A N Other centre back with Dunne still on the books would have been an unwsie use of resources, given what they knew at the time.

They thought he was going to be out for at least 6-8 weeks, with then added time to get match fit.  It was hugely risky, which is fine if it works out, but it hasn't, as 40 goals conceded in 20 games shows.

[Concrete John]

Yes, it was always going to be the case that he would be out for all of August and most of September at the very least.  But given his injury history and general attitude/fitness, it was always going to be a risk relying on him to come back sooner than that.  Especially when that left us with such an inexperienced pool of central defenders, as I said before.  Lambert has only go himself to blame on this one.

I don;t think they were relying on him to come back sooner, but what is Lambert supposed to do other than take the advice of his medical staff on matters such as this?

Signing A N Other centre back with Dunne still on the books would have been an unwsie use of resources, given what they knew at the time.

They thought he was going to be out for at least 6-8 weeks, with then added time to get match fit.  It was hugely risky, which is fine if it works out, but it hasn't, as 40 goals conceded in 20 games shows.

But the risk was not just 'what if Dunne takes longer to get fit?' but rather 'what if Dunne takes longer to get fit and then we also lose, Vlaar, Baker and both LBs?'  Surely you can see that the secound scenario was much more likely and is what happened.  You can't account for an injury list like that.  Houllier couldn't 2 years ago and Lambert couldn't this summer.

[pedro25]

The defence stats speak for themselves with regard to how the defence has performed.

It was a gamble and it has gone terribly wrong, only one person to blame for it.

The defence are exposed far too often by a weak midfield providing little or no protection .

Quite, I bet Lambert would have liked to use Petrov, Makoun and Gardner at times this season, as well as Dunne, to lose 4 players for an entire 1st half of the season is rank bad luck, to lose half a dozen on top for several weeks has compounded this massively.