The board have told Paul Lambert his job’s safe – contrast that with events at Reading and Sunderland – while the manager has carried on with his philosophy of trying to play football and placing his faith in the players he has either signed or nurtured. Some of them may ultimately fall by the wayside, but there’s a semblance of a plan at Villa Park now, in contrast to the boom and bust days of Martin O’Neill or whatever the idea was last season.
