Just when you think that things couldn't get any worse....

[pauliewalnuts]

It depends on the ambition of the club I guess, we could all throw names in but would they want to come and work under the current financial guides , it could all come down to who would want the job - I certainly can't see anything happening until the season ends so let's see where we are and hope we can survive.

Agreed, Eastie, it depends hugely on the financial ambitions of the club.

Unfortunately, recent experience suggest they are unambitious in the extreme, so wasting another 10m (or whatever, it won't be cheap) pounds on paying off / hiring new teams and lurching from one football style to another yet again strikes me as something we can't afford.

I also appreciate that relegation is something we can't afford, either, but in my opinion, the major contributor to us getting relegated will be the cumulative effects of three years of flogging and not replacing our best players, combined with a dogmatic approach to reducing the wage bill which has been reflected in the players we've got in of late.

That isn't going to go away in a hurry. I too could list twenty managers I'd rather have than Lambert, but they'd all be managers who either wouldn't come here *now* or would never come here.

[Jockey Randall]

I'm still waiting for someone to offer a detailed case as to why they think Lambert is having such a horror show this season. It just seems to be a lot of people saying he's having a shocker but having no regard for the repair job that was needed at the start of the summer.

[KevinGage]

Our goals against record, suffering our record defeat, and losing to a fourth division team over two legs is pretty horrific, is it not? 

When it comes to absolving Lambert of blame for any of the above (and our league position, and our worst ever start to a Premier League season) you have to ask:  would it have been different under another manager?  Or would most of the above occurred regardless?

Based on our squad as a whole, mid table> lower would have realistically been about as good as we could hope for this year.   There were gaps in the squad -gaps he's failed to address. 

His fault, as far as I'm concerned.  The money was there last summer.

The other regular horror shows that have occured on his watch have definitely been avoidable -even with Laurel and Hardy in the boardroom.

[Concrete John]

I'm still waiting for someone to offer a detailed case as to why they think Lambert is having such a horror show this season. It just seems to be a lot of people saying he's having a shocker but having no regard for the repair job that was needed at the start of the summer.

I'd also like to hear which if these other teams above us that spent less than we did needed to spread it around 9 players?

[danlanza]

It depends on the ambition of the club I guess, we could all throw names in but would they want to come and work under the current financial guides , it could all come down to who would want the job - I certainly can't see anything happening until the season ends so let's see where we are and hope we can survive.

Agreed, Eastie, it depends hugely on the financial ambitions of the club.

Unfortunately, recent experience suggest they are unambitious in the extreme, so wasting another 10m (or whatever, it won't be cheap) pounds on paying off / hiring new teams and lurching from one football style to another yet again strikes me as something we can't afford.

I also appreciate that relegation is something we can't afford, either, but in my opinion, the major contributor to us getting relegated will be the cumulative effects of three years of flogging and not replacing our best players, combined with a dogmatic approach to reducing the wage bill which has been reflected in the players we've got in of late.

That isn't going to go away in a hurry. I too could list twenty managers I'd rather have than Lambert, but they'd all be managers who either wouldn't come here *now* or would never come here.

I bet some of them would if a rich Arab took over. If Shitty can do it then i see no reason why we would not have the chance.

[KevinGage]

Did we need nine players though? 

We absolutely needed 3/4 good ones -and two of those positions have still yet to be fllled.

[Concrete John]

Did we need nine players though? 

We absolutely needed 3/4 good ones -and two of those positions have still yet to be fllled.

Given the size of our squad, I fail to see where we're over loaded with players that suggests we didn't?  Fullback if you include Warnock and Hutton.

[Chris Smith]

Did we need nine players though? 

We absolutely needed 3/4 good ones -and two of those positions have still yet to be fllled.

Of course we did, we had a weak squad last season and lost more players in the summer.

[KevinGage]

The players we lost were players we wanted to get shot of, and -in the case of Cuellar- they weren't first team regulars anyway. So it's not as if PL inherited a decimated squad compared to 2011/12.

A left back, centre mid, and centre back were obvious priorities.   Such was his buying prowess last summer, two of those positions still are.

[Jockey Randall]

When you take out the guys unavailable throughout the season through injury and the youth who've hardly featured look at what we started with:

GK - Given, Marshall
Defence - Hutton, Lichaj, Collins, Clark, Baker, Warnock, Stevens
Midfield - Delph, Bannan, Herd, Holman, N’Zogbia, Albrighton, Ireland
Forwards - Agbonlahor, Bent, Weimann, Delfouneso

Surely one of the worst squads in the league at the start of the summer? You'd have be a pretty positive person to say otherwise. In my view they would have finished rock bottom. No depth and little Premier league quality. Look at the form we were in at the end of the season following the loss of Petrov.

We've then got a few more high earners off the wage bill, spent roughly £23m on players who by all accounts are on relatively low wages, yet people still suggest he's done a shocking job by taking us from a squad that probably would have finished bottom to a place above the relegation zone? I just don't understand it.

When you take out Hutton, Collins and Warnock and consider we spent £23m which included finding replacements for them, questioning the job he's done seems even more wrong.

[Risso]

Exactly right Kevin.  Lambert chose to buy the players he did, nobody forced him to buy the likes of Bennett who is clearly years off being ready for the Premier League.  Sacking Lambert would cost a few quid of course, but the cost to the club of him relegating us will be twenty times that, at least.  Lambert taking us down could set us back years, even if Lerner can afford to finance the club in the Championship, which I doubt.

[damon loves JT]

All of our players were performing within a comfort zone. I am struggling to think of  a single one I would have kept out of choice.

[Chris Smith]

The players we lost were players we wanted to get shot of, and -in the case of Cuellar- they weren't first team regulars anyway. So it's not as if PL inherited a decimated squad compared to 2011/12.

A left back, centre mid, and centre back were obvious priorities.   Such was his buying prowess last summer, two of those positions still are.

I reckon you're the only one who thought the squad from last season only needed 3 or 4 players, even before the departures in the summer.

[Jockey Randall]

Exactly right Kevin.  Lambert chose to buy the players he did, nobody forced him to buy the likes of Bennett who is clearly years off being ready for the Premier League.  Sacking Lambert would cost a few quid of course, but the cost to the club of him relegating us will be twenty times that, at least.  Lambert taking us down could set us back years, even if Lerner can afford to finance the club in the Championship, which I doubt.

So you doubt Lerner could afford to finance the club in the Championship? but then say Lambert chose to buy the players he did? So if he wanted to buy experienced Premier League players for more money on bigger contracts, you think Lerner would have said yes to this? Or are you saying we should have gambled the long term future of the club by doing a QPR and staying in the league for the holy grail of the TV money?

[KevinGage]

yet people still suggest he's done a shocking job by taking us from a squad that probably would have finished bottom to a place above the relegation zone? I just don't understand it.

Firstly, I don't think that squad even as was was the worst in the league.   Worse than Reading?  Worse than Norwich, Southampton, West Ham and Wigan? 

Petrov's absence was known from the time he took the job.  The only situation where PL might have been unlucky is Dunne's absence, which was believed to be short-term initially.

That might have impacted his decision making re central defence -but if he was being proactive, he'd have known Dunne's best days were behind him anyway, and would have gone about sourcing a replacement.

As to your last part, after the season we've endured so far, is it any wonder some might think he's done a shocking job?  If you don't get that now, you never will.