Lambert's Vision for Villa

[Smirker]

Cheers mate, bit of a surprise that one.

Why are you surprised our wage bill is lower than spurs? They have made several big signings in recent months.

I'm not, I suspected sarcasm so I decided to fight fire with fire.

Nobody can elaborate on our finances then?

[Tugby Villain]

I thought we were going to do well this season - the opening day filled me with confidence.  However, since then I've done nothing but head scratching and wondering as to where we're going.  This is not a long term plan, just a load of hyperbole.

[saunders_heroes]

I must admit when I see a Martinez being interview , my ears pick up and enjoy listening to what he says , very knowledgeable , like able  always enthusiastic and this  obvious rubs off onto the team ,  now when Lambert comes on now , I normally walk out the room , dour man and now dour team .

What I find interesting is that Martinez has now become too big for us when last year, many on here said they didn't want him because of this or that.   Whelan sounded like a complete dick when he talked him up, yet, now I know he was right to do so.  Now, I would swap them in a heart beat.  Although, to be absolutely fair, last year, I also wanted Paul Lambert.

I think we offered him the job and he turned us down after being informed of what kind of transfer budget and wage structure he'd be given. That's just my opinion what I can only back up by the kind of players we've signed for the last few years.
Until this changes we're going to struggle at the wrong end of the table whoever is our manager.

[Villa in Denmark]

Presumably somewhere between completely and mildly rubber ducked.

Sorry that was in response to smirker

[Legion]

I must admit when I see a Martinez being interview , my ears pick up and enjoy listening to what he says , very knowledgeable , like able  always enthusiastic and this  obvious rubs off onto the team ,  now when Lambert comes on now , I normally walk out the room , dour man and now dour team .

What I find interesting is that Martinez has now become too big for us when last year, many on here said they didn't want him because of this or that.   Whelan sounded like a complete dick when he talked him up, yet, now I know he was right to do so.  Now, I would swap them in a heart beat.  Although, to be absolutely fair, last year, I also wanted Paul Lambert.

I think we offered him the job and he turned us down after being informed of what kind of transfer budget and wage structure he'd be given. That's just my opinion what I can only back up by the kind of players we've signed for the last few years.
Until this changes we're going to struggle at the wrong end of the table whoever is our manager.

He wasn't given permission to speak to us if I remember correctly.

[eastie]

I must admit when I see a Martinez being interview , my ears pick up and enjoy listening to what he says , very knowledgeable , like able  always enthusiastic and this  obvious rubs off onto the team ,  now when Lambert comes on now , I normally walk out the room , dour man and now dour team .

What I find interesting is that Martinez has now become too big for us when last year, many on here said they didn't want him because of this or that.   Whelan sounded like a complete dick when he talked him up, yet, now I know he was right to do so.  Now, I would swap them in a heart beat.  Although, to be absolutely fair, last year, I also wanted Paul Lambert.

I think we offered him the job and he turned us down after being informed of what kind of transfer budget and wage structure he'd be given. That's just my opinion what I can only back up by the kind of players we've signed for the last few years.
Until this changes we're going to struggle at the wrong end of the table whoever is our manager.

He wasn't given permission to speak to us if I remember correctly.

I thought he declined an interview?

[Toronto Villa]

I must admit when I see a Martinez being interview , my ears pick up and enjoy listening to what he says , very knowledgeable , like able  always enthusiastic and this  obvious rubs off onto the team ,  now when Lambert comes on now , I normally walk out the room , dour man and now dour team .

What I find interesting is that Martinez has now become too big for us when last year, many on here said they didn't want him because of this or that.   Whelan sounded like a complete dick when he talked him up, yet, now I know he was right to do so.  Now, I would swap them in a heart beat.  Although, to be absolutely fair, last year, I also wanted Paul Lambert.

I think we offered him the job and he turned us down after being informed of what kind of transfer budget and wage structure he'd be given. That's just my opinion what I can only back up by the kind of players we've signed for the last few years.
Until this changes we're going to struggle at the wrong end of the table whoever is our manager.

He wasn't given permission to speak to us if I remember correctly.

I just thought it was like Liverpool where he could have accepted an interview if he wanted to but chose not to and stayed at Wigan. I know he actually met with them though at a resort or something but nothing official. Whelan was just a lot of noise in the background. The Everton job came at the right time with Moyes moving on, and Wigan going down having won the cup.

[TYLER DURDEN]

I normally post more on another site and on that site one particular poster is holding on for dear life concerning his opinion on Lambert.

He has spent most of this season with the exception of the last few games (obviously) defending Lambert with the 'but we've more points at this stage than last season).

Since that points tally has closed to one he has now reverted to the wage v performance debate.

What he is stating is that we cannot expect any better from our players because (and this has been confirmed by a validated ITK) that the majority of our new players are earning no more than between 5k-15k per week. That may shock some of you and it may not but that is Championship wages and you can see how the poster's debate could be validated.

However, although Lambert's remit was to reduce the wage bill, my argument has always been with this particular poster did he need to be so abrupt in using the guillotine on the players that were already here before Lambert started his tenure with us and has Lambert's signings improved us in any position on the pitch while spending another reported 43m?

Could we have used Bent more rather than spending 4m-7m on Kozak and could we have used Hutton instead of the dross we have now at FB. Could we have got more out of Ireland which Hughes is now doing at Stoke and is Westwood really any better than Bannan?

Of course the issue has been wages but why buy Helenius if on a limited budget and why purchase Tonev when we had Albrighton. What was the point of purchasing Bowery who gives his all but is quite obviously very limited in ability when we had the Fonz and I could go on.

Very poor allocation of a limited budget and this has been Lambert's choice.

Benteke and Vlaar however have been cracking purchases but the other 14 players that Lambert has signed have been poor even just on a squad basis.

It pains me to say this but we now have the worst squad of players I have ever seen in my forty years as a Villa fan. Absolutely no quality or balance in midfield and we're much too static all over the pitch giving the player in possession few alternatives to pass to. That is down to the manager and his coaches who must in training place the player's feet in bags of cement to stop passes going astray. I have never seen such a lack of movement from any Villa team before and it infuriates me as even in my school days, alas too far away now, my P.E Teacher instructed us all to pass and move to create space and alternatives to pass to.

We did do this to great effect last season against Sunderland and I mistakenly thought it was the beginning of a new dawn for us. Alas that dawn has proven to be false and Lambert cannot continue to live on the memories of that game or his signing of Benteke.

If our poor form continues and Lambert is eventually sacked (please God) what do you think any new manager coming in will do with the present squad?

Personally i feel we'll have yet another bomb squad to get rid of apart from the two aforementioned players and that i fear is going to be Paul Lambert's legacy.     

In your opinion. 

My view would be that we are eighteen months into totally restructuring the club on a very tightly controlled budget.  Whilst, admittedly, we are currently in a run of shocking form we are still in a position to improve on last year's league finish and build again.



Reading other posts here and on other forums it's interesting to observe a set a pattern of responses every time Villa reach a "crisis".  Some people will start resorting to personally insulting the management staff, some will claim the dressing room has been lost, some will claim the players are unfit and never do any training and so on and so on and so on... We've had three years of this type of in the know tittle-tattle that serves no purpose other than to create instability in the club and a sense of turmoil.  Who starts these rumours and "ITK" posts?  Rival fans pretending to be Villa supporters?  Journalists trying to create a story?  I've no idea, but it's amazing that for the best part of three (maybe four) managerial regimes this same pattern of ITK bullshit emerges when we hit a run of poor results.

Lambert hasn't suddenly become DiCanio overnight and he certainly hasn't morphed into David O'Leary on the back of four defeats.  As far as I can see he is the same manager who our away support serenaded at the end of the 11-12 season and he's the very same manager who, for a number of years,  quietly and steadily built up a reputation for himself as being one of the brightest young managers in the game.

People will say:   Look at Rodgers, look at Martinez and see what gifted young managers can really do.  Fair enough, but Rodgers is in a position where he can offer a 200k a week salary for his star player and Martinez walked into a job where a top six squad was already in place.  Lambert is in a completely different position and I genuinely can't think of many managers out there who could turn around our club given the financial restraints.  He needs more time than eighteen months - let's see where we are at the end of the season.

It's not really just my opinion though is it if you look at the stats since Lambert became our manager.

We've won just twice in ten home games this season and we've scored the lowest amount of goals at home in all four divisions coupled with winning just 11 games out of the last 48. We only secured our Premiership status last season with just one game to go and are just four points above the drop zone this season with a very hard set of fixtures to come.

Those are pretty damming stats especially with our current style of football being awful to watch.

A new manager coming in wouldn't have that much to beat would he. 

[saunders_heroes]

I must admit when I see a Martinez being interview , my ears pick up and enjoy listening to what he says , very knowledgeable , like able  always enthusiastic and this  obvious rubs off onto the team ,  now when Lambert comes on now , I normally walk out the room , dour man and now dour team .

What I find interesting is that Martinez has now become too big for us when last year, many on here said they didn't want him because of this or that.   Whelan sounded like a complete dick when he talked him up, yet, now I know he was right to do so.  Now, I would swap them in a heart beat.  Although, to be absolutely fair, last year, I also wanted Paul Lambert.

I think we offered him the job and he turned us down after being informed of what kind of transfer budget and wage structure he'd be given. That's just my opinion what I can only back up by the kind of players we've signed for the last few years.
Until this changes we're going to struggle at the wrong end of the table whoever is our manager.

He wasn't given permission to speak to us if I remember correctly.

I don't for one minute believe that stopped him or his people speaking to ours.

[danlanza]

We will come good, no doubts.
We are all Villa fans on here, but when was the last time we actually won fucking anything ? 1997, That's when.
Get a bloody grip. Our history counts for fuck all now. Our future does.
We are not getting a quick Man City, Chelsea type fix to sort us out, just bloody deal with it.
We won the European cup, Super cup, the League, beat Manure in the league cup final, 2 years after , thrashed Leeds in the same competition, happy days. FA Cup 7 times, when was the last one ?
Lets just get everything into perspective here, shall we.?
We deserve fuckall, and have deserved fuckall for years.
We might be Villa but can someone tell him upstairs? Cause no fucker seems to listen.
UTV.

[richtheholtender]

We will come good, no doubts.
We are all Villa fans on here, but when was the last time we actually won fucking anything ? 1997, That's when.
Get a bloody grip. Our history counts for fuck all now. Our future does.
We are not getting a quick Man City, Chelsea type fix to sort us out, just bloody deal with it.
We won the European cup, Super cup, the League, beat Manure in the league cup final, 2 years after , thrashed Leeds in the same competition, happy days. FA Cup 7 times, when was the last one ?
Lets just get everything into perspective here, shall we.?
We deserve fuckall, and have deserved fuckall for years.
We might be Villa but can someone tell him upstairs? Cause no fucker seems to listen.
UTV.

I always blame my mum for the fact that we haven't won anything for so long. Her words (in the build up to the Leeds final) and I quote "We have to get tickets because they might not win anything again".

[Louzie0]

We might not 'deserve' it but we are absolutely owned it.

[mike]

I'm no footballing genius, but nothing has seemed more inevitable to me than the slow motion car crash that has overtaken Villa since the O'Neill era went sour.

Houllier and McLeish were patent mistakes and then once Lambert's transfer policy became clear, it was a matter of time before we reached the place we are now with one home win in a billion. It was genuinely touching to see the enthusiasm the first transfer window that he packed us full of the footballing version of Aldi shopping. Paying anyone, let alone people who kick a football around, and especially someone like Suarez, £200,000 a week is immoral. Our refusal to follow that model is admirable. However, there is a reason why some players cost more than others, and you either accept that and the moral sell out that goes with it or start supporting Bromsgrove. Our players just aren't very good and they have no experienced or talented players alongside them to nurture them.

I think the vision/plan was and remains putting great confidence in Lambert being both a scout of supernatural ability and a turd polisher of the highest order. I don't think he is either.

As for our finances, are they really worse now than they were in, say, 2000? I remember lower gates and a tight arse chairman, but we still seemed to be able to pay for players people had heard of who could pass a football.

[ROBBO]

The last manager lost his job because the season ticket renewals were looking to be a disaster the club and Randy just couldn't afford, so it had a lot to do with the supporters. Please stop this Ireland is playing well for Hughes shit, i manage to watch all games over here and take great interest in how Villa players are going at different clubs and to put it bluntly all of what you call senior players are no different to how they were at Villa.
Ireland in the game before last was subbed at half time and in his last game he was taken off just after the start of the second half, they said ha wasn't well. The time he spent on the pitch he seemed to be going half pace. Does Bent start any games? how many goals has he scored?.

[KevinGage]

Paying anyone, let alone people who kick a football around, and especially someone like Suarez, £200,000 a week is immoral. Our refusal to follow that model is admirable. However, there is a reason why some players cost more than others, and you either accept that and the moral sell out that goes with it or start supporting Bromsgrove.

Maybe.

But there is a skill in finding young players on the up and giving them the platform to develop into top class players -rather than signing the finished article.

The question is whether Lambert has this skill.  On balance -taking all his signings as a whole- it would be hard to say he has. I can accept that we are still in the (relatively) early stages of the project.   But when Barry came through, it was clear in his first couple of games that he had that something special.  Ashley Young -who was signed for a large fee for such a relatively unknown- also had something about him, even if he struggled for consistency in his first year. Mark Delaney probably belongs in that bracket too.

Two of those are not ideal comparisons in the sense that PL hasn't inherited a player as good as GB, nor has he been given £10 million to spend on a 21 year old winger (or if he has, he didn't spend it).

But they are clear illustrations of talented -and at the time young and unknown- players who looked like having good futures in the top flight from the very start of their time with us.  I don't think I could say that about any of the current crop.  I could quite easily see Westwood, Bowery and Bennett strolling around the Championship in a year or two, for example.

Where they come from, be it League One, the French Second Division or similar is of little consequence to me.  All players have to start somewhere.  It's quality that counts, and -on that score- it's hard to make a case that our bargain basement gems are up to scratch.