Paul Lambert on Randy Lerner .

[JUAN PABLO]

how has Solskjaer been doing in the last 18 mths anyway?

[Ad@m]

how has Solskjær been doing in the last 18 mths anyway?

Relinquished the league title but won the Norwegian Cup I believe.

[JUAN PABLO]

how has Solskjær been doing in the last 18 mths anyway?

Relinquished the league title but won the Norwegian Cup I believe.

maybe baggies will have him

[yaliekins]

The situation is a paradox. Do you roll the dice and get someone in that can improve performance and results over what would probably be a short period of time that will probably want to go against club strategy and spend money on ecperience? Or stick with Lambert through pure hope that he knows what is going wrong (and can fix it) and put this down to the problems that come along with trying to build a long term project. I completely understand Lambert has one of the more difficult jobs in the PL but I am losing trust in his ability to deliver us a good winning team within the next 3 years.

As other posters on here have pointed out, it's all well and good sticking with the same manager for continuity (as well as the obvious financial costs that go along with it) but if you stick with a manager that doesn't look able to achieve objectives then it is completely counter-productive. He should be given the rest of the season to prove he can progress us a footballing side, and if he can't I think we have to have a look at who else is out there that can help us achieve our aims.

Sorry, I understand my post has almost nothing to do with the OP! Just interested in some of the debate that's come off the back of it ...

[rob_bridge]

how has Solskjær been doing in the last 18 mths anyway?

Relinquished the league title but won the Norwegian Cup I believe.

maybe baggies will have him

Nah - they will get Hiddink, Van Gaal, Capello or Ancelotti.

[JUAN PABLO]

how has Solskjær been doing in the last 18 mths anyway?

Relinquished the league title but won the Norwegian Cup I believe.

maybe baggies will have him

Nah - they will get Hiddink, TSM , Van Gaal, Capello or Ancelotti.

[pauliewalnuts]

I think the home support has been poor this season. I find the booing silly and an over reaction. It smacks of Arsenal levels petulant fans. I want us to be better than that.

Poor?

Given our recent struggles, our truly dreadful home record going back seasons, and the way we have played this season, I'd say the home support is the least of our problems.

Lambert has had a truly unprecedented amount of support from the fans. He's been very lucky. At most clubs, he'd be under truly huge pressure at the moment. Despite the fair amount of concern and disappointment on here, he's under next to no pressure currently.

I don't boo the team myself, but I entirely understand why other people want to (at least at the end of the game, rather than at half time).

The fact is, sometimes it is nothing like good enough, and when that goes on for a period of time, it is entirely understandable people get frustrated and want someone to hear it.

[rob_bridge]

how has Solskjær been doing in the last 18 mths anyway?

Relinquished the league title but won the Norwegian Cup I believe.

maybe baggies will have him

Nah - they will get Hiddink, TSM , Van Gaal, Capello or Ancelotti.

The TSM to pull the same stunt in a slightly different order as Ron Saunders?

As Mr Keegan once eloquently spoke '...I would LOVE it..'

[Ad@m]

The situation is a paradox. Do you roll the dice and get someone in that can improve performance and results over what would probably be a short period of time that will probably want to go against club strategy and spend money on ecperience? Or stick with Lambert through pure hope that he knows what is going wrong (and can fix it) and put this down to the problems that come along with trying to build a long term project. I completely understand Lambert has one of the more difficult jobs in the PL but I am losing trust in his ability to deliver us a good winning team within the next 3 years.

As other posters on here have pointed out, it's all well and good sticking with the same manager for continuity (as well as the obvious financial costs that go along with it) but if you stick with a manager that doesn't look able to achieve objectives then it is completely counter-productive. He should be given the rest of the season to prove he can progress us a footballing side, and if he can't I think we have to have a look at who else is out there that can help us achieve our aims.

Sorry, I understand my post has almost nothing to do with the OP! Just interested in some of the debate that's come off the back of it ...

Good post.

In terms of changing manager I can only see two justifications - 1) a new manager could get more out of the current squad, or 2) a new manager would use a transfer kitty better.

For (1) I don't think a different manager could get significantly better results with the squad we have.  The truth of the matter is they just aren't very good.  You could argue (and I have) that Lambert has cut his nose off to spite his face with the bomb squad but I think this is part of a much bigger strategy to get the high earners out of the club and bring the wage base back to a sustainable level.  I don't think changing the manager is going to get us immediately better results though.

So that then brings us to (2).  Would you trust a different manager more with a transfer budget.  Firstly, that assumes there is one, which isn't guaranteed.  Secondly, what's Lambert been like in the transfer market so far?  Yes, some of his signings are crap, but then they've cost us virtually nothing.  The only ones he's spent any significant money on seem to be working out alright.  I don't see any reason to think he'll have less success if he's given more money to play with.

I think we need to give him time to finish the job of sorting the wages out and then give him chance to spend some decent cash.  Only then will we really be able to judge him.

[pauliewalnuts]

Much as it is showing signs of going backwards at the moment (our progress), I think sacking him and appointing someone else at this point would just mean ripping it all up and starting again (uh-oh, internal jukebox springs into action), which is a concept I find every bit as depressing as watching us play at the moment.

Any new manager would have to work with the same constraints, and I've a feeling the major problem is more likely to be the financial constraints than who the manager is at this point.

I don't want him sacked. I do, however, want him to sort it out, as soon as he possibly can at the moment, because watching us play is currently about as far from fun as it gets.

[Ad@m]

I don't want him sacked. I do, however, want him to sort it out, as soon as he possibly can at the moment, because watching us play is currently about as far from fun as it gets.

Oh ye of short memory!

Watching us at the moment is a world apart from the TSM season.  At least now there's the faint glimmer of a light at the end of the tunnel!

[pauliewalnuts]

I don't want him sacked. I do, however, want him to sort it out, as soon as he possibly can at the moment, because watching us play is currently about as far from fun as it gets.

Oh ye of short memory!

Watching us at the moment is a world apart from the TSM season.  At least now there's the faint glimmer of a light at the end of the tunnel!

I don't agree with that.

Whilst I think Lambert is totally different to McLeish, and comparisons of the two as mananger are unfair (Lambert at least tries to get us playing, but fails, McLeish never really tried to do anything other than his usual shtick with us), for the last several weeks, I've found us to be playing as poorly as we did under McLeish.

Don't get me wrong, I am not re-evaluating McLeish, I remember the 87 relegation team, and even given that, given the fact I've seen some truly awful Villa sides in the last 35 years, the McLeish season was the most depressing one I recall.

However, I'm not going to pretend we've been anything other than truly awful of late, because that'd be pretty hard to argue against

There's far more hope under Lambert, of course, but fuck me, we're truly terrible to watch of late and seem to be getting worse. I don't like watching a Villa side just drop back and defend and lump it long hoping to hit Benteke every now and then, whoever the manager is.

[Ads]

No date with live longer in my memory than the evening of the 21st and morning of 22nd November 2011.

The longest drive back from London I have ever had, capped off by blue flashing lights as I hit junction 20 of the M6 at half 1 in the morning.

[Pat McMahon]

Much as it is showing signs of going backwards at the moment (our progress), I think sacking him and appointing someone else at this point would just mean ripping it all up and starting again (uh-oh, internal jukebox springs into action), which is a concept I find every bit as depressing as watching us play at the moment.

Any new manager would have to work with the same constraints, and I've a feeling the major problem is more likely to be the financial constraints than who the manager is at this point.

I don't want him sacked. I do, however, want him to sort it out, as soon as he possibly can at the moment, because watching us play is currently about as far from fun as it gets.

I was about to post and luckily saw pauliewalnuts post just in time. This is pretty much what I was going to say - except for the Edwin Collins reference.

In delusion, I am hoping this is just a bad run of form, not a reflection of the best we are capable of. Sadly I also felt this way in 1987.

[Mister E]

Much as it is showing signs of going backwards at the moment (our progress), I think sacking him and appointing someone else at this point would just mean ripping it all up and starting again (uh-oh, internal jukebox springs into action), which is a concept I find every bit as depressing as watching us play at the moment.

Any new manager would have to work with the same constraints, and I've a feeling the major problem is more likely to be the financial constraints than who the manager is at this point.

I don't want him sacked. I do, however, want him to sort it out, as soon as he possibly can at the moment, because watching us play is currently about as far from fun as it gets.

That's it in a nutshell. I don't believe that RL is going to go through the same get-rid-and-start-again loop as has happened with GHou and TSM: he'll want to see whether Lambert can deliver on his long-term strategy of producing a winning squad from a bunch of untried youngsters.
My main concern is not what RL does: it is much more about whether Lambert can develop his approach with more flexibility, bringing in players that offer more experience and resilience, who can support the development of the young / untried players. At the moment, the sink-or-swim approach is very binary and does not offer the young / untried players the benefits of being in a mixed group.