The Paul Lambert thread - poll reset after our capitulation to Hull

[supertom]

To be honest the sell on value of these players is largely irrelevant. Obviously we don't want to buy the amount of unsellable donkey's O Neill did, definitely not, but the club cannot forget a little thing called the here and now. As Brian's analogy suggests, we've taken punts on a lot of cheap players in the hope that most, or some will cut it in the long run. You could call it the moneyball game, but it's a dangerous game to play at a club that's been stripped of so many prized assets in recent years and been decimated of most of its best players. Since O Neill fecked off we've lost Milner, Downing, Young, Petrov, Carew, Bent, Dunne (to a lesser extent). Some through misfortune, some through sales, some through a lack of chemistry with whichever manager was in charge at the time the player went.

Whether we make a profit on Tonev or whoever, I don't really care. The problem is that the majority of these signings just aren't good enough, and it's not like we can see enough potential in some of these to suggest they'll ever make the grade.

Lambert in his defense has had a tight budget. That's for sure. However whatever figure he's spent, he's spread that money thinly on 16 or so players. That's a lot of players to have to bed in, to make adapt and to step up a great deal to become Prem players. Most of them have been first team players too. Even Bowery, coming from Chesterfield has played a lot more and figured on the bench more times than we might have thought. But I look the squad and with maybe 4-5 exceptions, it's the worst I've ever seen in 24 years of being a Villa fan. Quite easily the worst too.

We've tried to change too much too soon IMO. Perhaps we'd have been better with 4-5 signings in both summers, who were slightly surer bets. How much was down to the board or Lambert we don't know, but we probably cast off a lot of the senior players in our side a little too rashly. Coker might have proved useful for another year or two. Collins may have helped last season. Even as bad as Hutton was, he was never as bad as Lowton has been this season. Okay that's all very questionnable, though ridding yourself of all that experience in the space of a couple of years, and not bringing in some more to replace it, has definitely not helped us. 

That said, transfer dealings haven't been our biggest problem. Lamberts tactical inefficiency has been a major source of our problems.

 

[PeterWithesShin]

Not irrelevant though when aj keeps making the statement we would lose money on nearly all of them. A number of replies have said the quality isn't there.

[Villafirst]

17 home defeats out of last 32 home games is shocking. Lerner & his dumb side kick Faulkner haven't a single clue about football. 3 year contract? What a joke that it's even being considered!!

[saunders_heroes]

17 home defeats out of last 32 home games is shocking. Lerner & his dumb side kick Faulkner haven't a single clue about football. 3 year contract? What a joke that it's even being considered!!

Can't argue with that!

[supertom]

Not irrelevant though when aj keeps making the statement we would lose money on nearly all of them. A number of replies have said the quality isn't there.

Hopefully we won't get relegated in the next 18 months. We'd struggle to make a profit on any of them if that happened. So I really hope we turn our attention firmly to quality over quantity this summer. We cannot go on buying players like Tonev. That'll only take us in one direction.

[PeterWithesShin]

Not irrelevant though when aj keeps making the statement we would lose money on nearly all of them. A number of replies have said the quality isn't there.

Hopefully we won't get relegated in the next 18 months. We'd struggle to make a profit on any of them if that happened. So I really hope we turn our attention firmly to quality over quantity this summer. We cannot go on buying players like Tonev. That'll only take us in one direction.

So if we get relegated we have to start watching shit boy bands? Sort it out Lambert!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[supertom]

17 home defeats out of last 32 home games is shocking. Lerner & his dumb side kick Faulkner haven't a single clue about football. 3 year contract? What a joke that it's even being considered!!

Can't argue with that!

Certainly not. There's no excuse for that. Budget, whatever, at any level of football you can't expect to keep your job with a record like that. It would look bad even if we won every single away game, but our away record is okay, nothing more.

[Legion]

Might get us more fans...

[supertom]

Not irrelevant though when aj keeps making the statement we would lose money on nearly all of them. A number of replies have said the quality isn't there.

Hopefully we won't get relegated in the next 18 months. We'd struggle to make a profit on any of them if that happened. So I really hope we turn our attention firmly to quality over quantity this summer. We cannot go on buying players like Tonev. That'll only take us in one direction.

So if we get relegated we have to start watching shit boy bands? Sort it out Lambert!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Well that Tomlinson lad might be worth a punt. He's just the sort of player Lambert likes. Lower league, not really making many waves but we'd see something no other club would.
He can share a hotel room with Gabby on away days.

[Villa in Denmark]

Tom, you're quite right that the whole debate as to whether we can get our money back on Lambert's signings should largely irrelevant.

Regardless of the actual balance, the important thing is that Lambert very early on decided that he pretty much decided he needed to rebuild the squad from scratch. (off the players you've named, only Collins is one we've sold who could have helped last season. NRC left when his contract expired after turning down our offer on new terms)

Having started off down this path, he's actually pulled off a minor miracle rebuilding a squad with 18 new players for ca. £40M, and then keeping that squad afloat.

The debate should be around
1) Have we tried to change too much too soon with the available budget. (and what should we have done otherwise)
2) Why can't we consistently perform to the levels we saw during the last couple of months of last season, and on (all too few) occasions this season.

The answer to 2 probably lies to a large extent in the results of 1.

My hope is that having purged the club of the remnants of the last 3 regimes, we can now start adding a bit more quality to the squad, not necessarily £10-15M, class, but more in the Vlaar class, I don't think we can expect to find another Benteke type deal where you pick a genuine top talent for that kind of money.

If that's actually the plan, then some of these "cheaper" players will become redundant and move on.
In which case we don't want to write off too much at that point.
Think of it like living in a caravan whilst your house is undergoing major renovations.
You could have stopped in a decent hotel whilst the work was ongoing, but you'd have spent a lot of money you could have used later getting the finishing touches done.

Just hope we haven't got a cowboy as the main contractor.

[not3bad]

Might get us more fans...

We'd have to ban Gabby from tackling them.

[mike]

Tom, you're quite right that the whole debate as to whether we can get our money back on Lambert's signings should largely irrelevant.

Regardless of the actual balance, the important thing is that Lambert very early on decided that he pretty much decided he needed to rebuild the squad from scratch. (off the players you've named, only Collins is one we've sold who could have helped last season. NRC left when his contract expired after turning down our offer on new terms)

Having started off down this path, he's actually pulled off a minor miracle rebuilding a squad with 18 new players for ca. £40M, and then keeping that squad afloat.

The debate should be around
1) Have we tried to change too much too soon with the available budget. (and what should we have done otherwise)
2) Why can't we consistently perform to the levels we saw during the last couple of months of last season, and on (all too few) occasions this season.

The answer to 2 probably lies to a large extent in the results of 1.

My hope is that having purged the club of the remnants of the last 3 regimes, we can now start adding a bit more quality to the squad, not necessarily £10-15M, class, but more in the Vlaar class, I don't think we can expect to find another Benteke type deal where you pick a genuine top talent for that kind of money.

If that's actually the plan, then some of these "cheaper" players will become redundant and move on.
In which case we don't want to write off too much at that point.
Think of it like living in a caravan whilst your house is undergoing major renovations.
You could have stopped in a decent hotel whilst the work was ongoing, but you'd have spent a lot of money you could have used later getting the finishing touches done.

Just hope we haven't got a cowboy as the main contractor.

Also hope the council don't say 'what the fuck is that eyesore of a caravan doing here' and tow it away. Leaving you to live in your shitty caravan amongst a load of other shitty caravans.

[Sexual Ealing]

Caravan? Please, the static home.

[Dante Lavelli]

Massimo Maccarone scored loads in the Uefa for Middlesboro, and had a shite record in the league, no one waded in offering £7m for him either.

Well apart from Middleboro who already had:
"Maccarone was signed by English Premier League team Middlesbrough on 9 July 2002 for £8.15 million (€12.7 million)."

[aj2k77]

Massimo Maccarone scored loads in the Uefa for Middlesboro, and had a shite record in the league, no one waded in offering £7m for him either.

Well apart from Middleboro who already had:
"Maccarone was signed by English Premier League team Middlesbrough on 9 July 2002 for £8.15 million (€12.7 million)."

And then he scored lots of Uefa cup goals for Middlesboro, not many in the league and was sold for how much ?

No one judges players by Europa League goals if they can't hit a barn door in the league. A 1 in 6 goalscorer is not worth £7m, face it, Kozak was overpriced.