We go again

[eastie]

It seems there are quite a few moving to the lambert out camp in recent weeks - I'm still of the opinion we should stick with him and see where we are in the summer but I can understand those that have lost faith - the next two months will tell us a lot about lambert and his team .

[Concrete John]

The big worry some on here is that equally we've seen how we can capitulate as a season progresses. We're strikingly similar to McLeish's side at the moment. It was going reasonably well with him until January, where we looked safe and comfy in mid-table. We'd been poor but ground out results in spite of our horrible brand of football.
Then a couple of injuries to key players and we suddenly looked absolutely awful and should have gone down.

If Lambert takes affirmative action I've no problem with him, but at the moment he seems fine with how things are. But we're playing a dangerous game. We've been incredibly fortunate over our unbeaten run. Our luck ran out yesterday and Vlaar was sorely missed. What if Guzan were to get injured? That's a very scary thought. I'd also hate to lose Delph, Gabby or even Benteke (As poor as he's been of late) for any length of time.

There's a fine line between being a solid mid-table side and fighting for your life at the bottom. If we carry on playing so poorly do I think we'll stay mid-table or fall dangerously near the drop zone? I would say the latter. He's got to get a suitable line up and try and cut out the pub team errors. The players look clueless on the ball and that's his doing.

The bit that gets me about this way of thinking is that there never seems to be an acknowledgement that it could easily go the other way.  We clicked around Jan time last season, so who's to say we won't this time around also?

Ultimately, we're a midtable side, so losing a few key players could indeed see us drop into the relegation mix, but the same could be said for half the league.

[paulcomben]

http://www.birminghammail.co.uk/sport/football/football-news/aston-villa-fan-holds-sway-6386716

"In among the standard discussion about the Premier League’s ‘big clubs’, Aston Villa fan Josh held the attention of the 606 presenters and enjoyed a chunk of national air-time with his call about the claret and blues.

It was rare to hear a fan being given such scope to discuss one of our local teams on the 6-0-6 programme, but do you agree with the way Josh represented the current state of affairs at the club?"

[eastie]

I'm not getting too carried away with this midtable talk because lose the next 2 and we could  be in the bottom 6 or even lower - equally win the next 2 and we will look far more comfortable in mid-table - it is really tight right now with 6 points between 10th and 19th .

[darren woolley]

Fuck me. Some sensitive souls on here today. It was meant to be a light hearted nod towards a well worn Lambert phrase

If you plotted a graph of our league position so far this season, I think you'd see a steady upward curve, other than the large variances from the earliest parts of the season, so I'm not sure how that's '1 step forwards, 2steps back'?

I'm a football fan, not a fucking A-level maths nerd and the day I start plotting graphs to console myself after a shit performance is the day I give up. I was comparing the Southampton result with the Fulham one.

Great to meet Darren Woolley in the pub before the game yesterday, by the way

It was also great to meet you Chico.

[Rudy Can't Fail]

Josh talks a lot of sense.

[PaulWinch again]

We should stick with Lambert, but he needs to start addressing our glaring issues. We have got a few decent results lately, but it's almost been inspite of our performances. We need to start performing well and consistent results will follow from that.

[saunders_heroes]

I'm not a fan of Lambert but there's only so much he can do with the budget Lerner hands to him. All in all we're just painful to watch and it just isn't good enough.

[pauliewalnuts]

Yes, for you two, clueless doesn't come close.

Grow up.

In fairness, and I mean no offence here and I'm not even referring to what you had posted, that was a bit of an open goal you let gaping there, wasn't it?

[itbrvilla]

Yes, for you two, clueless doesn't come close.

Grow up.

In fairness, and I mean no offence here and I'm not even referring to what you had posted, that was a bit of an open goal you let gaping there, wasn't it?

Maybe, but people being childish because others don't agree with them.

[not3bad]

Made me laugh on an otherwise depressing morning. Lambert's post match pearls of wisdom from yesterday - sorry if someone has already posted this:

"I don't think we got going if the truth be known. I can't fault the lads, their effort was there, we had a really tough game on Wednesday and you pick yourself up and go again. ..."

What a load of rubbish yesterday was. 1 step forward, 2 steps back. That's how our season seems to be panning out.

The 'we go again ' line he trotted out all last season made me laugh in the early days but it now has me pulling my hair out in frustration

What would you rather him say?

''I've been sacked because my team plays the most atrocious football since Wimbledon of the late 80's''

Good grief, do you really think this? I know most of us have wiped the McLeish era from our memories as much as we can, but can you actually physically recall it? Or how about the end of last season, where everything clicked and we were one of the best sides to watch in the division?

Yes, I really don't rate Lambert. Mcleish was a disaster but the football this season is no better and in many cases worse. It's ok pick pocketing a few results but that never continues. Eventually this season we will have to play better to continue picking up results and as great as 10th supposedly is we are 6 points and 1 small bad run off relegation positions. You can conversely say we are 1 good run off being in the top 8 but us going on a good run picking up consecutive wins looks more less likely because of our performances, and I seriously doubt if this man if capable of

A. Picking the right team
B. Picking the right formation
C. Drilling the team well on the basics
D. Picking up more players that will improve us on our budget

I'm not a believer in Lambert, In Lambert I don't trust.

Which is exactly what lots of people were saying two thirds of the way into last season and guess what haoppened?  And this season we at least have a solid defence as a better starting point.

The big worry some on here is that equally we've seen how we can capitulate as a season progresses.

What was that stat?  Most comebacks in the league this season?  No points dropped from winning positions?

[LeeB]

Yes, for you two, clueless doesn't come close.

Grow up.

No, I'm content living in an innocent world of fairies and pixies, where we'll find some form over the next few weeks and finish the season strongly.

[supertom]

The big worry some on here is that equally we've seen how we can capitulate as a season progresses. We're strikingly similar to McLeish's side at the moment. It was going reasonably well with him until January, where we looked safe and comfy in mid-table. We'd been poor but ground out results in spite of our horrible brand of football.
Then a couple of injuries to key players and we suddenly looked absolutely awful and should have gone down.

If Lambert takes affirmative action I've no problem with him, but at the moment he seems fine with how things are. But we're playing a dangerous game. We've been incredibly fortunate over our unbeaten run. Our luck ran out yesterday and Vlaar was sorely missed. What if Guzan were to get injured? That's a very scary thought. I'd also hate to lose Delph, Gabby or even Benteke (As poor as he's been of late) for any length of time.

There's a fine line between being a solid mid-table side and fighting for your life at the bottom. If we carry on playing so poorly do I think we'll stay mid-table or fall dangerously near the drop zone? I would say the latter. He's got to get a suitable line up and try and cut out the pub team errors. The players look clueless on the ball and that's his doing.

The bit that gets me about this way of thinking is that there never seems to be an acknowledgement that it could easily go the other way.  We clicked around Jan time last season, so who's to say we won't this time around also?

Ultimately, we're a midtable side, so losing a few key players could indeed see us drop into the relegation mix, but the same could be said for half the league.

I can certainly acknowledge we could go on a good run but the way we're playing is ultimately more likely to lend itself to a bad run IMO. Again some players can drag you through games with quality and experience. To some extent Concrete Ron has been doing that this season in defence.

Lamberts got enough quality at his disposal to put out a side who can string 5 passes together or look like they've got some kind of idea what they're doing. At the moment it's all a bit frantic. The sheer amount of hard work will only get us so far. There's no excuses at Prem level for giving the ball away as readily as we do, even with simple passes.

[BoskoDjembaSalifou]

How long do people think he has before the crowd start to turn on him?

Personally, I'm a little worried but I don't want him out just yet. I want to see some improvement in the performances by the end of the season though.

[Concrete John]

The things we lacked last season were defensive solidity and a bit of character when things weren't going well.  We've got them now.

What we now seem to lack is any form of free flowing attack.  However, we know from last season that this team is capable of that, so I have confidence we'll get back to it.  Injuries and lack of form have hurt our main attacking trio this season.