How would you feel....

[itbrvilla]

Randy needs to appoint a new Project Manager. I fucking hate Lambert.

Agree x 100.

I'm thoroughly sick of this shit.  The embarrassments that are stacking up under his tenure are unbearable. We deserve better than this.   

He's not going to sack him, though.

Lambert has bought into the project, Lerner and Faulkner think the project is viable, and that's the problem.

Honestly, it beggars belief. What you need to do is get rid of almost every one of the high earning players. Then, you replace them with kids from the youth team, or players from the lower leagues in this country or selling leagues in Europe.

So, we have a manageable wage bill, but we also have a squad choc full of lower leagues players. It's all well and good boasting that a player only cost us 1m or 2m, but too often these are players who have demonstrated exactly why they only cost that much.

Still, they persist in this belief that, really, all you need to do is wait for these players to "bed in", for the youngsters to get a bit older, and turn into really good players.

It is absolute fucking nonsense. Paying big wages to a player is no guarantee of success, but paying low wages to a squad full of lower league players means almost guarantees you'll have no success.

Look at some of the absolute dross we've been playing. Luna, FFS, Tonev, who looks utterly out of place. Why is Weimann getting played week in, week out? I just read something on the Evening Mail website where Lambert - this week - was saying Nathan Baker has been "a big player for us this season".

Really? It must be a different Nathan Baker he's thinking of, because the one I see has been fucking rubbish, week in, week out.

The whole upper echelon of the club are absolutely deluding themselves. Randy can sit in Cleveland, or New York, or wherever he is today (obviously, we know where he won't be), and tell himself that they've hit upon a master plan all he likes, but the evidence is that we are failing even to stand still, we are going backwards.

It all takes a certain arrogance - if it was really just a matter of buying kids and waiting for them to click, don't they think *everyone* would be doing this? It hasn't work, it isn't working now, and it will not work.

I just hope that at some point very, very soon, one of them pulls his head out of the fucking sand and does something, because the whole thing is a depressing mess at the moment.

I dont give the first shit that we are 11th right now. That's not the point. Look at the gap between us and the arse end of the table, and look at where the on-field momentum suggests we are heading. We've got Arsenal and Liverpool next, two sides who play actual football. Where do we think we are going to be after that?

The whole situation is a mess, and the people responsible for it should be ashamed of the laughable disaster they've turned this club into in the last three or four years.

Best post of the season in my opinion.

Yes, a superb post.

[danlanza]

Bloody hell. I am getting more depressed by the minute.
Can we have something to cheer about please Lerner, Lambert ? Just a little something ?
No, thought not ya feckers.

[supertom]

I also don't buy into the whole argument that a new manager has to start from square one to be honest. Lambert is still at square one himself. Lambert is no better off with 18 months of his squad under him. He still doesn't know what system to play, or how to keep the football. He's been very fortunate thus far this season. The game against Sunderland we may have won, and we had more clear cut chances, but we still scraped by with an absolute gift of a goal. Off our own back we never looked particularly like scoring. Their disallowed goal could easily have been given. It's one of those 50-50 sort of calls. Sometimes it goes for you, sometimes it doesn't.

For me our squad is as poor as it's ever been. Lambert is as tactically clueless as they come. In recent weeks he's been out thought quite easily by Pulis, Hughes, the guy at Fulham and now Clough Jnr. Most of our signings aren't good enough at this level. We'll probably scrape survival thanks to the will of a few players like Delph and Gabby (who are both average), and hopefully the resurgence of Benteke, and a quality keeper, but most of the rest are piss poor to be honest.

I don't think any new manager coming in now will have much more of an uphill task than Lambert is right now. What we most definitely need is a man who is more tactically astute running the club, and with a clearer gameplan. The players look utterly lost out there. It's inexcusable. We can't play Sunderland every week. If we're talking in video game terms we're at level 1 right now and Lamberts surely on his last life.
Whether we stick with Lambert now, or get in a new man, it's level 1. I say we play this game with another person at the controller and see what they can put into motion to actually push us up the levels effectively, and not, as with this season, quite a lot of fortune among the horrific football.

[Damo70]

I certainly don't think a new manager would be on a hiding to nothing or couldn't improve us. I thought Crystal Palace were the worst team in the Premier League and certainties to go down, but as soon as they appointed Pulis I knew he would organise and improve them and at least give them half a chance. We have a limited squad but to say they cannot improve on performances like Boxing Day and today and play a bit better a bit more often would be wrong.

[supertom]

I certainly don't think a new manager would be on a hiding to nothing or couldn't improve us. I thought Crystal Palace were the worst team in the Premier League and certainties to go down, but as soon as they appointed Pulis I knew he would organise and improve them and at least give them half a chance. We have a limited squad but to say they cannot improve on performances like Boxing Day and today and play a bit better a bit more often would be wrong.

Certainly. We're at a point where we can't perform much worse. If someone comes in and our performances improve the results aren't likely to drop.
The luck Lamberts had will also run out unless he gets some actual performances on the pitch and a bit of a game plan. Which is unlikely.

[ozzjim]

I think the trouble is, with this being Jan 4th now, sack him and do what? We have to sign probably 4 players to be comfortable, 3 minimum really to move forward, all with experience of how to effect a game, help the side do fundamental things like keep the ball etc. If Lambert got say Hollihan, Defour and a loan forward and loan defender in the next 4 weeks, you would have to give him till the summer as recruiting someone else in January and do business would be impossible

[VillaAlways]

Just go. Now

[eastie]

If we are to sack him it needs to be now with a swift appointment of a new manager having at least 3 weeks to bring in 2or 3 players .

[ozzjim]

Just go. Now

No chance.

There is this insipid fulcrum of belief between the 3 men at the top that this will work. Unless that means there will be significant money spent during stage 2 of the project, with some newly found tactics on offer, then we are going to be disappointed.

This tactic worked at Norwich basically because everyone went there and attacked them, so it was like playing away anyway. At Villa that doesn't happen, so some sort of variation in philosophy, not just system, is needed, but just not there.

[bertlambshank]

The project might work at Amazon by bringing in lower paid workers from different countries,but it sure as fuck won't work in the world of football.Our board is on a train ride to disaster.

[eric woolban woolban]

He cut too many experienced players, albeit on big wages, all too quickly.

Drip drip approach would have been better.

[danlanza]

If we are to sack him it needs to be now with a swift appointment of a new manager having at least 3 weeks to bring in 2or 3 players .

agreed mate. But who ? That is the question. Or shall we wait and see what happens in the next few weeks ?
I really do not know at the moment, very confused about this scenario, never saw it coming at the start of the season tbh.

[hilts_coolerking]

If the Albion were being run the way the Villa is currently being run we'd - quite rightly - be pissing ourselves stupid.  I've said it before but ever since the day O'Neill walked out and Randy had to start making big decisions for himself, the club has been a shambles.

[eastie]

He cut too many experienced players, albeit on big wages, all too quickly.

Drip drip approach would have been better.

Bringing in 16 players all who had never played in this league was folly - to be honest if he was given £20m I'm not sure he would make a big difference as his tactical nous seems so poor .
The quality of football is atrocious.

[Monty]

If the Albion were being run the way the Villa is currently being run we'd - quite rightly - be pissing ourselves stupid.  I've said it before but ever since the day O'Neill walked out and Randy had to start making big decisions for himself, the club has been a shambles.

And O'Neill was losing it as well. It was like the coked up lunatic driving the car jumps out the window, and the kid in the passenger seat takes the wheel.