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

[supertom]

Our transfer business for me is a secondary issue with Lambert's reign so far. What's far more frightening is how poorly prepared and organised our team always seems to be. Some of the performances have been beyond shambolic. I mean the defeat to Bradford made our performance against Doncaster in O Leary's era look world class.

I still think he needs to go. We're too far in the shit at the moment.

[eastie]

Our transfer business for me is a secondary issue with Lambert's reign so far. What's far more frightening is how poorly prepared and organised our team always seems to be. Some of the performances have been beyond shambolic. I mean the defeat to Bradford made our performance against Doncaster in O Leary's era look world class.

I still think he needs to go. We're too far in the shit at the moment.

No question he needs to go asap.

[ozzjim]

Our transfer business for me is a secondary issue with Lambert's reign so far. What's far more frightening is how poorly prepared and organised our team always seems to be. Some of the performances have been beyond shambolic. I mean the defeat to Bradford made our performance against Doncaster in O Leary's era look world class.

I still think he needs to go. We're too far in the shit at the moment.

I am with you now. I think he is playing games too, and I am sure there was more to spend than he is claiming. I think he is arse covering for some reason.

He is out of his depth, and I am starting to think it is all a nasty conspiracy between him and his mentor.

[Merv]

What was the budget?

[brian green]

His departure is the only thing which could inject enough of a shock to make us scrape out of trouble.   For what it is worth I think Lambert's mind set about Villa is the same as Ireland's or Bent's or Given's.  He is going through the motions.    He has has copped the nark to Lerner and Faulkner and if we get relegated it is their fault.  As I commented a month ago, his career path is going along precisely the same route as McLeish's.   He is looking after his own interests.

[Chris Smith]

I just don't buy all these conspiracy theories. People are coming up with ideas and then trying to find ways to fit them to the limited facts available. So "We can't afford player X" becomes "I can afford player X, but don't want to buy him because I want us to get relegated and blame it on somebody else".

It just doesn't stack up.

[Damo70]

I can't believe Lambert is just going through the motions. A high profile failure can turn the hot new thing in management into yesterday's man very quickly. It can be a long way back to the top if you ever even make it back. Unfortunately I think he appears to be going through the motions because he just doesn't know how to put things right. If he fails with Villa it will be a TSM situation where he would have to drop down and take a club up and succeed with them. Big clubs would always be put off by his Villa record.

[Risso]

I don't really care why we didn't strengthen this January, the fact is we didn't, and whether that's down to the inadequacies of either Lerner or Lambert, who knows?  I suspect it's a combination of the two to be honest.

[django]

Why is it so hard for people to believe that we haven't got any money? Because Eastie and Greg say we did have?

Why didn't we sign Upson on loan? I imagine his wages were pretty high to get him to move to Stoke.
Why not Scott Dann? Maybe he didn't want to come here? or his club didn't want him to leave?

Is it really easier to believe that someones taking bribes to send us down or that Randy is deliberately trying to miss out on next years TV money so that the club can be run more cheaply?

Brian, in the middle of your post you said  "The chasing of the game against Chelsea, going gung-ho at four nil down and not limiting the damage of a game which will go down in history as the one which made all our four wheels fall off."

This I'd agree with, we'd be in a far better situation now if we'd lost that game 5-0 rather than 8-0.

The next bit i'm not so sure about...

"Letting the Chelsea massacre innocents take the field against Spurs on Boxing Day clearly shell shocked with no known or visible attempt made to help a young and inexperienced squad come to terms with the biggest defeat of our 138 year history."

We don't know what efforts were made in the 2 days between those games, it's pure speculation, but we didn't have much choice regarding the team we put out. There wasn't long to work with the players though and whatever we did the players would be low on confidence and laying a team on good form. The game before we'd had a great away win at Liverpool playing the same players. We were battered in the first half against Spurs and barely created anything, and were lucky to come in at 0-0. If I remember correctly, it was when we put Albrighton on for Westwood in the second half that things really went wrong. We dramatically improved, started to create opportunities, and Defoe scored on the break for their first.

In retrospect Lamberts mistake was the same as the Chelsea game, not keeping the game tight enough, and hoping we could grind out a win (or even a lower scoring defeat). It might have been the wrong decision but it wasn't one so crazy that I suspect there is a secret conspiracy at work. Last year McLeish was rightly castigated for trying to play for draws too often, this year Lambert has gone too far the other way.

When it comes to spending I'm as disappointed as anyone that we didn't sign a big dominant centre back in the January window. Put simply if you put Samba in our side I would be confident that we could stay up. But I wouldn't want us to sign him if it meant that we put ourselves in the precarious situation that QPR are now in. If they are relegated, as still seems likely, they could be seriously fucked. Not just relegated to the Championship screwed but plummeting through the leagues screwed.

I know that people aren't asking for us to spend Samba type money but it seems obvious to me that we are looking at what would happen to us if we were to go down and, aware that we wouldn't be able to shift players like Given and Ireland, every penny has to be spent carefully. That means that we have missed out on the defenders we needed because, for the same reasons no one would take Ireland from us, we can't afford to take other peoples unwanted players from them.

Lambert is far from blameless, and I can understand peoples frustrations with him and them wanting him out, but the idea that he's sitting with his arms folded while Lerner is chucking money at him just seems absurd. People aren't thinking straight. He's not going to be sacked now, however much he might deserve it. We know that the players that we have are the ones who will have to keep us up, or will be responsible for our relegation. But we are only in the bottom three thanks to our woeful goal difference. Now that we have a bit more time between games we might have a chance for the players to pull themselves together.

[sirlordbaltimore]

Why is it so hard for people to believe that we haven't got any money? Because Eastie and Greg say we did have?

Because our owner, who is already a billionaire recently saw his own personal fortune increase by another 300m.

HE, could put in whatever he likes from that and it'd be like me giving my nephew 50p for a pack of Match Attax. It tells me what kind of man/owner he is when he couldn't even spare say 10m of that VAST wealth to get HIS club a couple of much needed recruits to possibly save us

[sirlordbaltimore]

we spent 20 mill plus in the last window, i think you will find over the last few years we have been one of the top spnders in the whole of the league, look where its got us, in the shit

I'm no Vorderman, but i think you'll actually find our net spend in the last 3 seasons is less than 10m. Do the maths

[django]

Why is it so hard for people to believe that we haven't got any money? Because Eastie and Greg say we did have?

Because our owner, who is already a billionaire recently saw his own personal fortune increase by another 300m.

HE, could put in whatever he likes from that and it'd be like me giving my nephew 50p for a pack of Match Attax. It tells me what kind of man/owner he is when he couldn't even spare say 10m of that VAST wealth to get HIS club a couple of much needed recruits to possibly save us

Ok, but if he doesn't want to spend it on Villa, i'm afraid Villa haven't got any money.

Whether he should give us the money is a different matter. As a Villa fan i feel he should, looking at other clubs who are in our financial/footballing situation i'm not so sure.

[brian green]

Django, I have very good connections at Norwich and I have very strong reasons which I will not disclose to believe what I said about not enough effort or indeed any effort being made on Christmas Eve or Christmas Day to address the damage done by the Chelsea defeat on our young players is true.

As for things stacking up, my other love is horse racing.   In that sport disciplinary proceedings, for example those instigated against Michael Chopra and to which he pleaded guilty, are triggered by what is called "irregular patterns of activity".

I am not suggesting or inferring any wrongdoing by anybody all I am saying is that the sort of inexplicable decisions made by Villa of late, if they were made by, say, a racehorse owner or trainer, they would fall squarely into the category of an irregular pattern of activity.

[Pete3206]

I'm pretty sick of these excuses from Lambert. It's almost the same as when DOL went on about 'The Boltons and The Birminghams' all those years ago. The fact is that Lambert couldn't organise a piss up in a brewery and that's why we know lie where we are. The teams around us haven't exactly got fantastic squads have they? The difference is organisation, bottle and determination*

What sort of message are you sending your squad, when all you do is bemoan your lack of spending clout? Pathetic. Lambert has the demenour of a man that wants out, but waiting to be shoved out the door.

*QPR and  Newcastle have gambled massively, however.

[eastie]

Why is it so hard for people to believe that we haven't got any money? Because Eastie and Greg say we did have?

Because our owner, who is already a billionaire recently saw his own personal fortune increase by another 300m.

HE, could put in whatever he likes from that and it'd be like me giving my nephew 50p for a pack of Match Attax. It tells me what kind of man/owner he is when he couldn't even spare say 10m of that VAST wealth to get HIS club a couple of much needed recruits to possibly save us

Ok, but if he doesn't want to spend it on Villa, i'm afraid Villa haven't got any money.

Whether he should give us the money is a different matter. As a Villa fan i feel he should, looking at other clubs who are in our financial/footballing situation i'm not so sure.

The words said to me last night from someone who would definately know were the board were 'exasperated and bewildered' at lamberts signings and the fact he did not spend the budget .
This has been passed to kendrick and nursey to ask lambert the question why?