At home but where is the comfort?

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Most of our players are not good enough it's that simple.

Not good enough to do what?

Beat Liverpool, Man City, Spurs, Everton more often than not? I agree.

Not good enough to collect 8-12 more points this season on last? I strongly disagree.

People need to orientate themselves as to where we currently are; that’s a position of mid-table, ironically enough a spot we currently occupy, after two, perhaps three, very difficult seasons. It isn’t the top six, but then for what we have had to spend to completely start a new, with a spend of around £3 million on average over 13 to 14 players, where should we be?

Mid-table is not where you want to be, its not where I want to be and its not where Lambert wants to be. If he had the funds to have spend an average of £20 million per player like Spurs have this summer, then perhaps we would be in the top six or scratching our heads as to why we are losing more times than not to better sides.

This will take time.

[supertom]

It's fairly obvious to me why we are so poor at home and have been for the last 3 seasons.  We simply don't have the quality of players to impose ourselves on good or half decent opposition.  Lambert has to recognize this and has to do something about it in January. 

The main problem with that is getting Lerner to release the funds.

It might be bullpoop but it would seem we had a little more open to us than PL used in Jan, and also perhaps a little more in August that wasn't used. That aside some of his choices in player have been very strange. We've been crying out for a creative midfielder so it made no sense in him spending 7 million on Kozak when we had Benteke still on board and Helenius had also been bought in.

There has been money there. Not limitless amounts that O Neill seemed to get granted but enough. Rather than bringing 7 players in who are all potentially Prem players (ranging from possibly the next 1-3 years). I'd rather have signed 3-4 slightly better quality who might have been readier for this league.
A major problem in Lambert's desire to be a team that plays a quick tempo passing game is that we don't have anyone in midfield who's got a good level of ball control or an incisive pass.

It's been pretty disappointing that our promptness in the transfer market, allowing us to have 6 of our 7 summer signings coming into the squad ready for a whole pre-season, hasn't really paid off. Obviously Okore is desperately unlucky and he looked very good. Bacuna and Luna have settled well and they're fantastically hard working, but Luna's still not great defensively and our system often gives him little assistance at the back. The major disappointments have been the attacking players. Helenius looks a hell of a long way off being ready. Tonev has struggled, though showed promise against Everton.

We might have hoped for some of them to hit the ground running slightly better but it's not been the case. It's been an incredible step up in quality for all our signings, barring Tony Moon who's played (albeit fleetingly) in La Liga.

[Clampy]

Lambert has been given money like every manager has under Randy. To suggest he hasn't is ridiculous.

[eastie]

Lambert has been given money like every manager has under Randy. To suggest he hasn't is ridiculous.

Absolutely , he has spent more in the last 18 months than a lot of other managers have done  and far more than he could ever have dreamt of at Norwich .

He has bought in probably 15 players or more - this is his team and his squad and it is down to him who he decided to buy , to blame randy is wrong.

I personally believe the money lambert has had at his disposal compared to other clubs is enough to comfortably have a side in mid-table at least.

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Norwich have out spent us in the previous two summer windows, without having to re-build an entire squad.

To labour the point. When Lambert took over, we had just finished well behind Norwich. So with a better team and spending more, would the logic not suggest that Norwich should be further ahead of us in the table, especially when you consider we have re-built a squad and they had the chance to supplement theirs?

They will be in a relegation battle, we wont.

[supertom]

Most of our players are not good enough it's that simple.

Not good enough to do what?

Beat Liverpool, Man City, Spurs, Everton more often than not? I agree.

Not good enough to collect 8-12 more points this season? I strongly disagree.

People need to orientate themselves as to where we currently are; that’s a position of mid-table, ironically enough a spot we currently occupy, after two, perhaps three, very difficult seasons. It isn’t the top six, but then for what we have had to spend to completely start a new, with a spend of around £3 million on average over 13 to 14 players, where should we be?

Mid-table is not where you want to be, its not where I want to be and its not where Lambert wants to be. If he had the funds to have spend an average of £20 per player like Spurs have this summer, then perhaps we would be in the top six or scratching our heads as to why we are losing more times than not to better sides.

This will take time.

The current position isn't yet a cause for concern but we are only 2 points off the relegation zone, a place we've spent all too long hovering around in the last 3 seasons.
The main problem, at least for me, is Lambert not really identifying and solving problems that we need to address. We still have no clearly defined first choice system or side. Our most effective side last season, which kept us up, hasn't really been used. Both in the personnel and also the fact we've reverted to playing very narrow again. We opened up the pitch a bit more from feb-march and looked like scoring every game.

If we get sucked back into a relegation battle I'm not sure we can keep on surviving with such a young side. Eventually it'll catch up with us. We're not really playing to our strengths at the moment and a lot of our attacking focus seems to be on doing things we're not that equipped to do (playing high tempo and attacking through the middle).

It will take time but we've got to get a move on. We can't be waiting 2-3 years to be a comfortable mid-table side that doesn't have to look over its shoulder. I think everyone from 9th down is in the scrap this season. In terms of quality there's very little between the sides, with obvious exceptions being Palace and perhaps Cardiff and Hull who haven't done too badly thus far.
I'm hoping the players don't see November as an easy run. That would be a mistake. We were disappointingly lacklustre against Hull, coming after a great result. I think we took it lightly in many ways. We're going to have to scrap hard for every point, and we can't afford to close off areas of the pitch to our own attacking players. We need width again. January needs some significant transfer action too. We need to give ourselves a shot of bettering our squad and allowing us to be able to dominate the teams around us.

[eastie]

Norwich have out spent us in the previous two summer windows, without having to re-build an entire squad.

Lambert chose to rebuild an entire squad .
Whereas others may have added 3 or 4 quality players at a decent cost he went for quantity not quality .
I am not knocking him so much as saying those who say he wasn't backed by randy are wrong - lambert has had money.

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Norwich have out spent us in the previous two summer windows, without having to re-build an entire squad.

Lambert chose to rebuild an entire squad .

I have now editted my post above.

Lambert had no choice but to re-build a squad. He inherrited a side that was rotten to the core, failed to reach 40 points and was a hair away from being relegated

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The Pride of the Midlands finished 8th and hit 50 points; epitome of mid-table. They occupy a similar position and the same number of points as us. Should they be worried about relegation, despite havind had an easier start to the season?

There are other sides as well, but are we not exactly where we should be at this stage in time? We are moving on.

You cannot go from the base camp of the Premier League mountain to the summit without climbing through the middle ground. The exception to this being a jet-pack, and we cannot afford no jet-packs to give us instant gratification.

[eastie]

Norwich have out spent us in the previous two summer windows, without having to re-build an entire squad.

Lambert chose to rebuild an entire squad .

I have now editted my post above.

Lambert had no choice but to re-build a squad. He inherrited a side that was rotten to the core, failed to reach 40 points and was a hair away from being relegated

He also inherited a squad with players who had delivered in the past in the premiership- Mcleish played a negative style and houllier tried to play a much more passing game which didn't suit the players.

Lambert inherited a squad that cost huge multi millions - not a pile of shit .
If he had managed to get the best out of the likes of bent , nzogbia , Ireland and others then he may have found things different - he chose to play a narrow system with no wingers when he had a potent striker in bent .
He also failed to get the best out of experienced internationals and bought 15 players none of who had ever played  in the premiership.

Lets not paint him as some super manager here , he has built things his way and I hope it works out for him but he inherited some very good players and chose to jettison them .

The main reason the squad struggled so much the season before was alex Mcleish and his negative football.

[Chico Hamilton III]

Norwich have out spent us in the previous two summer windows

I'm not sure who should be more ashamed of this - Norwich for wasting millions or Villa for being outspent by Norwich effing City.

I am quietly beginning to question myself about some of Lambert's signings.

[sirlordbaltimore]

We are moving on.

Where to ?

[Andy_Lochhead_in_the_air]

The statistics.

For the Premier League as a whole over 21 years the win/draw/lose ratio has remained fairly consistent season on season averaging out at :-

Home wins  46% Draws 27% Away wins 27%.

http://www.pinnaclesports.com/online-betting-articles/08-2013/premier-league-hfa-betting.aspx


Since the start of season 2008/09 to date we have played precisely 100 home league games.
 
Our record over those 100 home games is:-
Won 33  Drawn 36 Lost 31.  (It is 100 games, so you know the percentages ! )

Since the start of season 2008/09 to date we have gained 263 points.
That is 135 points from 100 home games and 128 points from 99 away games.

You can do almost anything with statistics. One indisputable conclusion of this......Aston Villa are not average !


     

[Brend'Watkins]

I can't see why he didn't take Barry when given the chance.  The wages I know would have been big I know but he would be just what we need in such a fragile midfield as ours.  I get what he's trying to do but we are desperately short of experience and desperately short of players our youngsters can learn from. 

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We are moving on.

Where to ?

From being in the bottom six to being in the mid-table.