How would you feel....

[Rudy Can't Fail]

What I don't understand is why clearing the dead wood and lowering the wage bill means that Lambert has to play such a soul-destroying style of football

We're by and large hard to beat, unless you're one of the top six and even then its not always easy. I think he is afraid that we have another six weeks like we did from December through to January and the style is reflecting that.

We know we can play a lot better, we have seen these players do it.

We're by and large hard to watch, Ads. I agree with you about the players, they can play a lot better. I think you're kidding yourself if you think Lambert is afraid of us having another bad run like last season. Surely the best way to develop the team is to get them playing and winning games. Good habits breed confidence and success. Bad habits and we have so many breed the type of football we've had to suffer watching after the Chelsea game. I started to be concerned way back against bloody Rotherham and nothing since has convinced me Lambert has a game plan.

I can be as patient as the next man providing I know where it's all heading. Right now I see us having another lower half, struggling season, getting worse not better, unlike last season. If you or anybody else can explain Lambert's tactics I'd really like to hear it as I can't for the life of me see what he's trying to do.

[Monty]

Were we underwhelmed by Sylla? I thought (and still think) he's fine as a dynamic presence in midfield.

Also, we've needed this midfielder for about a decade, not January, but your tirades against Lambert's poor form betray a poor long term memory.

I too thought that the money could have been better spent than on Kozak, and perhaps I still do, but I also understand that the quality of players of this type who would both improve us and like to come and play for us is very small, and so choice within this playmaker market is limited. So, if it turns out that there's only one who fits those criteria and also the other discriminations which need to be made (such as whether  or not the player runs off the ball enough, or if they have or have not burned down an orphanage), and that player is not available, well, what do you do then? You have to wait. I'm fairly Konvinced that Kozak was not bought instead of a playmaker type, but that the plan is to have both.

[Monty]

I think it's quite clear that Lambert is improving us and is trying to improve us in stages. So, last season we needed to get through the savage austerity the club needed to impose, and we have. The second stage was to make us less defensively porous this season, and he's had to sacrifice a bit of the fluidity of the end of last season.

Now, this is not a 100% positive prediction, but I get the feeling he was really displeased with the Fulham display and has decided it's time to to focus on our fluidity up-front, and we actually passed the ball pretty well against United, they just happen to be pretty good even when they're shit. One game is nowhere near enough to base that prediction on, and Stoke away will be very interesting with regards to this, but it did seem to be a huge change of emphasis yesterday.

[Dave Cooper please]

One thing is certain when you hear that just over the last couple of days alone,the Albion ,Spurs and Watford have parted company with their managers for bad results ,Lambert is very lucky to still have his

West Brom have a worse record than us not only this season but over the calendar year.
AVB spent an absolute fortune and his team have been thumped by two of their rivals.
Watford are spiralling into oblivion now they can't have half of Serie A on loan.

We are 11th.

[Monty]

One thing is certain when you hear that just over the last couple of days alone,the Albion ,Spurs and Watford have parted company with their managers for bad results ,Lambert is very lucky to still have his

West Brom have a worse record than us not only this season but over the calendar year.
AVB spent an absolute fortune and his team have been thumped by two of their rivals.
Watford are spiralling into oblivion now they can't have half of Serie A on loan.

We are 11th.

11th? Fuck it then. I'll get the cyanide.

[Dave Cooper please]

The question has been asked of his supporters.

Let them respond to that question.

It's pointless. You've made your mind up. It doesn't matter what anyone says now you won't listen!

[supertom]

One thing is certain when you hear that just over the last couple of days alone,the Albion ,Spurs and Watford have parted company with their managers for bad results ,Lambert is very lucky to still have his

Why would a manager be lucky to still have his job when his team are eleventh?

Well Spurs are in 7th and have sacked their manager. They're hardly out of sight either. Granted a couple of bad results, but this is the nature of the game. AVB actually had Spurs finish on their best points haul since football began last season. He's had to bed in 100 mill worth of new players and has only been given 4 months to do that, as well as having sold their best player. I think Lamberts lucky to still be in this job, but I base that on last season around January time. A lot of chairmen would have pulled the trigger then.

I would say there's an element of fortune. Randy to me seems to be a Chairman who would only sack a manager midway through a season as an absolute last resort. That may well be a better way of doing things to be fair.

[PaulWinch again]

He's not lucky to still have his job, but what he needs to do is start showing firstly that he understands we haven't been playing well for a while and secondly that he's actually going to do something to address it.

[eastie]

One thing is certain when you hear that just over the last couple of days alone,the Albion ,Spurs and Watford have parted company with their managers for bad results ,Lambert is very lucky to still have his

West Brom have a worse record than us not only this season but over the calendar year.
AVB spent an absolute fortune and his team have been thumped by two of their rivals.
Watford are spiralling into oblivion now they can't have half of Serie A on loan.

We are 11th.

Zola resigned and I wouldn't be at all surprised to see him pop up at the hawthorns.

[Jon Crofts]

I think a lot of the people who have a pop at Kozak aren't criticising him for who he is, they're doing it for who he isn't - ie they'd have rather the money was spent elsewhere where it was really needed than on a striker, so take it out on him.

I'm not totally convinced by him yet, but it strikes me that he's scored a few goals so has done at least enough to still be in consideration.

I agree and to me he seems to be a player that would thrive on crosses coming in from wide which isint how we are normally set-up. If Albrighton can keep up the sort of level that we have seen in glimpses then he would be the perfect outlet and creator for someone like Benteke and Kozak.

At home I would like to see Benteke/Kozak upfront with Weimann just behind, Gabby left wing and Albrighton right.

Agreed but for me it would be benteke Kozak and albrighton given a run in the front 3 places, with gabby as an impact sub .

You think Benteke and Kozak can play in the same team though? I'm not sure myself.

I think we'll see on Saturday whether they can or not.

[Clampy]

Then he would be £17 million over budget on trasnfers and probably a lot more over budget in wages.

Westwood and Lowton are good players. The problem is the blend just isn't right at the moment, but it takes time. Delph is an £8 million player, but its taken him a couple of years to look like it.

The less money you have, the longer things take.

Do you not think if he could find an international centre forward for £7m that fits our wage policy he couldn't find a midfielder too?

I'm sure he could but maybe the midfielder he wanted was a lot more than £7m. He did enquire about the Japanese bloke and an enquiry is as far as it went which possibly suggests we were quoted silly money.

A Plan B Midfielder would have been nice. If you can't get your target A midfield Dynamo to improve probably your weakest position I would have thought that signing a 6ft 7 centre forward isn't the best back up plan.

It wasn't a back up plan, he'd been tracking him for months.

So he had no back up to not getting the midfielder we've badly needed since last January's window when we were underwhelmed by Sylla? It was Kiyotake or nobody?

I don't know, i'm just guessing. Maybe he's got a couple in mind. The fact is that a striker he wanted became available and he went for him. I haven't got a problem with that personally.

[Clampy]

I think a lot of the people who have a pop at Kozak aren't criticising him for who he is, they're doing it for who he isn't - ie they'd have rather the money was spent elsewhere where it was really needed than on a striker, so take it out on him.

I'm not totally convinced by him yet, but it strikes me that he's scored a few goals so has done at least enough to still be in consideration.

I agree and to me he seems to be a player that would thrive on crosses coming in from wide which isint how we are normally set-up. If Albrighton can keep up the sort of level that we have seen in glimpses then he would be the perfect outlet and creator for someone like Benteke and Kozak.

At home I would like to see Benteke/Kozak upfront with Weimann just behind, Gabby left wing and Albrighton right.

Agreed but for me it would be benteke Kozak and albrighton given a run in the front 3 places, with gabby as an impact sub .

You think Benteke and Kozak can play in the same team though? I'm not sure myself.

I think we'll see on Saturday whether they can or not.

With Gabby being out, it's likely we will.

[villa `cross the mersey]

One thing is certain when you hear that just over the last couple of days alone,the Albion ,Spurs and Watford have parted company with their managers for bad results ,Lambert is very lucky to still have his

West Brom have a worse record than us not only this season but over the calendar year.
AVB spent an absolute fortune and his team have been thumped by two of their rivals.
Watford are spiralling into oblivion now they can't have half of Serie A on loan.

We are 11th.

Ahhh 11th - the new 4th for our ambitious manager and owner - dont think I could stand the euphoria of reaching a giddy 8th

[Monty]

He's not lucky to still have his job, but what he needs to do is start showing firstly that he understands we haven't been playing well for a while and secondly that he's actually going to do something to address it.

He's very reticent with the media, as he should be. If he has a 'right good go' at the players for playing badly, we shouldn't know. He'd be doing his job badly if we did know. I think, therefore, that we can extrapolate how unhappy he really is if he makes even the slightest criticism in the post match interview, and after the Fulham game he was really quite down on the performance.

So that's knowing there was a problem. Doing something about it? Well, we passed much better against United, and played a more direct and dribbly winger in an attempt to create more. It's a shame we were playing Man Utd, but we'll see if he does the same against Stoke - if he does, then maybe he's decided to work on doing something about our problems.

[dave.woodhall]

One thing is certain when you hear that just over the last couple of days alone,the Albion ,Spurs and Watford have parted company with their managers for bad results ,Lambert is very lucky to still have his

West Brom have a worse record than us not only this season but over the calendar year.
AVB spent an absolute fortune and his team have been thumped by two of their rivals.
Watford are spiralling into oblivion now they can't have half of Serie A on loan.

We are 11th.

Ahhh 11th - the new 4th for our ambitious manager and owner - dont think I could stand the euphoria of reaching a giddy 8th

Can we nail this once and for all. Has anyone - manager, director or supporter - said they ultimately want to finish eleventh or would consider it a success?