How would you feel....

[ozzjim]

I think when he was interviewed yesterday we saw a much bigger insight to his feelings on the Stoke and United games when he said we were nowhere near good enough. He comes out with the same lines to the press, but he is not a stupid man and clearly has a lot more football knowledge through playing and management than most of us, and can see what we see. I think he tries to protect a young squad as much as he can.

[Colin B]

I don't think we are going to sign any "quality" or "experienced" players this January simply because any agent of such a player will look at players such as Bent, Ireland etc and say that their player is better and therefore deserves a higher salary than them.

It may well mean a season or two more of "transition" football but hopefully it will also mean that our club is not seen as a soft touch

[avfcpg]

Still think he can do a good job for us...although he seems to have lost his way somewhere this season. Needs to find it pretty quickly if we are not to get drawn into a relegation battle....starting next week. All of a sudden it looks a massive game for not only Villa but also for the manager...

[SoccerHQ]

Still needs  more time but he really needs to get us playing better football soon otherwise he'll lose more of the goodwill he still has amongst a lot of the fans.

If we can play exciting football in a horrible relegation battle, why is it so difficult to do it in the relative safety of mid table?

People are knee-jerking. Not give him another penny?! How many managers find world class strikers for 7m? I know he's been poor for what seems like years but just remember how good he was last year.

I gave him stick for signing Kozak but again he seems a solid striker who'll chip in with goals, think it's 4 goals from 12 prem games (not all of them starts) so a decent enough 1 in 3 striker there.

He was unlucky we lost Okore in September as I'm sure people would be raving about him now. Oh yeah that Vlaar bloke who's been excellent this season particularly as our defence has now gone to pieces, what's that an international centre half for 3m?

I'm sure he wants a decent number 10 as much as anyone else but these cost a bit more than 3m. If not it's more of a long term project like Tonev/Helenius and we have too much of those in our squad really.

As for the alternatives people are saying...with respect Malkay Mackay is a decent young manager but all he's done is promoted a club to the premier league and look like keep them there. That sounds very much like Paul Lambert 18 months ago at Norwich. I thought Cardiff were incredibly negative at VP aswell considering how poor we are on home turf.

For me he needs this season and probably half of next before I make a proper judgement on how much more he can take us forward long term. I think he needs a bit of help from the board now personally. We have shed so many high earners from the squad over the past two seasons and I think a couple more will go in the summer. The board need to allow him to sign a player or two on a decent wage as the first 11 needs to be improved significantly.

This will have to be done eventually, I can't believe Faulkner and Lerner are that naïve to think he can get us back challenging the top 6 on 1/2m, 30k a week budget players. Surely the situation we want to avoid is signing too many average british players coming up on 30 on high wages/Habib Beye.

Lambert has shown he has no problems signing from abroad so I don't see it as a problem.

[Ian.]

I think when he was interviewed yesterday we saw a much bigger insight to his feelings on the Stoke and United games when he said we were nowhere near good enough. He comes out with the same lines to the press, but he is not a stupid man and clearly has a lot more football knowledge through playing and management than most of us, and can see what we see. I think he tries to protect a young squad as much as he can.

He aint daft that's for sure. I don't believe his press conferences, why beat a team when they are down especially a team as young as ours.
If he has a bit of cash to throw around and the wage cap is lifted I'd be quite excited in who he would go for.

[Lizz]

There's a vast difference between what managers (in any walk of life) say in public and what they say in private.

[Gareth]

My question about Lambert, as a high quality midfielder by trade how on earth has he failed in THREE transfer windows to find any midfielders with any quality!

I've been pissed off with him since Barry came back and walked all over us, as things stand I have no affinity with him & could not care less if he wasn't our manager come Monday morning, sad but true!

[aj2k77]

Out of his depth unfortunately.

[Pat McMahon]

[/quote]
Can someone explain what 'winnable games' means.
For about 3 years people keep saying 'the next few winnable games' but I don't know what that means.
I don't recall us going on a run of 3  or 4 wins on the bounce for many years.
Why is now any different ?
[/quote]

The last really good winning streak I recall was this time in the 2008-9 season when we were in cracking form.

[PeterWithesShin]

Rather than constantly resetting the poll, I have edited it so as anyone can change their vote. Just click the 'remove vote' option and you can then vote again.

[Toronto Villa]

I think when he was interviewed yesterday we saw a much bigger insight to his feelings on the Stoke and United games when he said we were nowhere near good enough. He comes out with the same lines to the press, but he is not a stupid man and clearly has a lot more football knowledge through playing and management than most of us, and can see what we see. I think he tries to protect a young squad as much as he can.

Completely agree. He has to say what he says even if it sounds like a broken record. I've said before that I cannot believe that he is settling for this. Someone with his hunger and background in the game isn't going to want to fail and while right now, at this minute it might feel like shit, I don't believe we will always be like this. It is going to improve even if it kills some of us on the way.

[Isa]

I dont want Lambert to go. I want him to get better.

He should have reacted to the Adam substitution today. He did not.

Better yet, it would be nice if he himself took the initiative more often and made the sort of substitution that Hughes did at H/T and attempted to change things when the game is at a stalemate. It is almost always the opposing that makes the first move when the match is level.

[Ian.]

My question about Lambert, as a high quality midfielder by trade how on earth has he failed in THREE transfer windows to find any midfielders with any quality!

I've been pissed off with him since Barry came back and walked all over us, as things stand I have no affinity with him & could not care less if he wasn't our manager come Monday morning, sad but true!

It probably is our weakest are right now and has been all season. I thought at the end of last season Westwood and Sylla were looking pretty good together and I was more concerned about our defence which was where he really tried to fix. From the start of the season it looked like he had too. It's only since the loss of Ron that we now look really vulnerable.

[supertom]

Shake him all about. See what position we're in come the summer. If we've got something to build on, good. If it's same old, same old, with Benteke also departing to pastures new, then it doesn't look good for next season.

Honestly though we need a tactician at the club. Be that a good right hand man, or a good D.O.F to help Lambert out, he does need that help. My hope is that he sorted out the defensive side this season when he recruited Marshall. We're struggling a little at the moment because of poor fullbacks and missing our best two CH's through injury (one long term). That's no surprise, but we still haven't capitulated as badly as last season, which was probably the most horrific period I've seen at this club.

Again though, Lambert's got to work seriously hard on our basics. We make far too many unforced errors, really basic ones, and we lack any composure whatsoever. Are players look frightened and frantic when they have the ball, like they're playing with a live hand grenade. It shouldn't be difficult to match a team like Stoke for passing, but they looked better on the ball than we did, and we hoofed it twice as much as they did. What I will say is that for periods against Utd and Stoke our passing wasn't as horrendous as the previous 3 games before that. Although the second half against Stoke was bloody awful.

Jan is key. We don't want players who might be good in 2 years if we're lucky. We need first 11 players to step in. I appreciate some people still feel like we're comfortable, but we're playing a dangerous game at the moment. We could easily get sucked into a scrap. We've won 5 games in 17, which isn't far off relegation form. The worst thing I can think of after 3 defeats on the bounce for us, is two home games in a row to follow up.

[Drummond]

One of our biggest issues by far is that our number one striker hasn't scored for months, if Benteke had been in any sort of form this conversation wouldn't be happening.