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

[eastie]

I think if we finish midtable randy will stick with him - if we finish the season poorly and in the bottom 6 then I believe lambert will go.

[Ads]

We won't be relegated and so Lambert won't be sacked. I still think we will finish 11th or 10th on 46 points.

Hull, Swansea, Palace, Fulham, Southampton, Man United, Spurs; all beatable on our day.

[eastie]

We won't be relegated and so Lambert won't be sacked. I still think we will finish 11th or 10th on 46 points.

Hull, Swansea, Palace, Fulham, Southampton, Man United, Spurs; all beatable on our day.

On our day we can beat anyone and off our day we can lose to anyone .

[supertom]

We won't be relegated and so Lambert won't be sacked. I still think we will finish 11th or 10th on 46 points.

Hull, Swansea, Palace, Fulham, Southampton, Man United, Spurs; all beatable on our day.

On our day we can beat anyone and off our day we can lose to anyone .

And we're off our day more than we're on unfortunately.

[eastie]

We won't be relegated and so Lambert won't be sacked. I still think we will finish 11th or 10th on 46 points.

Hull, Swansea, Palace, Fulham, Southampton, Man United, Spurs; all beatable on our day.

On our day we can beat anyone and off our day we can lose to anyone .

And we're off our day more than we're on unfortunately.

Indeed.

[Mister E]

Over the course of this season, I think I've actually changed my mind on what the issue is. Towards the beginning, I was firmly in the "mostly the players fault" camp, and I think that's to a great degree the case with yesterday, but my faith in the manager has taken a nose dive this season. We've spent way too much of the season so far cluelessly lumping the ball at Benteke, and it is still our default fall back when things aren't going the way we want them to.

This is where I'm at right now.
However, regarding your comment about the Stoke game, even though there were lots of individual errors that brought about our downfall the substitutions and set-up meant that we were always unlikely to get the game back and indeed added to the heaviness of the defeat. As I've said elsewhere on here, bringing Sylla and Albrighton into central midfield with the enforced KEA and Weimann changes was madness when a simple adjustment - Bennett and Albrighton on left and right midfield - would have given us greater protection on the wings and more width.
We could have turned the 1-3 around against a team not used to winning way from home; we didn't because of Lambert's subb decisions.

My faith in him has been severely dented and I wonder whether he will be able to exploit any new recruits brought in over the summer.

[kipeye]

We won't be relegated and so Lambert won't be sacked. I still think we will finish 11th or 10th on 46 points.

Hull, Swansea, Palace, Fulham, Southampton, Man United, Spurs; all beatable on our day.

And how many have we beaten on that list?

[MarkM]

My view has not changed since last season, I think the job is too big for him and at times he finds himself out of his depth on tactics as well as the running of a club the size of Villa.

At times we can play well, but as others have commented these are dwafed by the poor performances:

Man City 5 Villa 0
Chelsea 8 Villa 0
Villa 0 Wigan 3
Villa 0 Spurs 4
Villa 0 Crystal Palace 1
Villa 0 West Ham 2
Villa 1 Stoke 4
Villa 3 Bradford 4 [over two legs FFS]
Millwall 2 Villa 1
Villa 1 Sheffield Utd 2

Not to mention the record breaking piss poor runs we have had and now we are the dirtiest team in the league!

Hardly positive points on a CV

[Phil from the upper holte]

Does anyone think IF Lambert get's bigger money to spend next season will he make us a better side or would we still struggle?

[Toronto Villa]

We won't be relegated and so Lambert won't be sacked. I still think we will finish 11th or 10th on 46 points.

Hull, Swansea, Palace, Fulham, Southampton, Man United, Spurs; all beatable on our day.

On our day we can beat anyone and off our day we can lose to anyone .

And we're off our day more than we're on unfortunately.

Really? Surely if that was the case we'd be lower in the table than we are. Or maybe you're saying we're off more than on, but the teams below us are all off even more than they are on?

[supertom]

Does anyone think IF Lambert get's bigger money to spend next season will he make us a better side or would we still struggle?

I'm not sure it's entirely a lack of quality that hinders us. It doesn't help having players like Sylla who has no place being a premier league player, but I think as much as anything we looking tactically clueless at times. I'm not sure that'll ever change. Better players might buy us a few more wins, the problem will be if we lose Benteke in the summer. Replacing him will be incredibly difficult.
We could improve our midfield somewhat, and get a satisfactory front man in, but on our budget we'll be very lucky to replace Benteke with like for like quality.

Even so, I don't see Lambert ever finding any semblence of consistency. I think we'll always be too close for comfort with the drop zone. In or around the 40 point mark. The longer that happens, the more chance players like Delph will seek pastures new.

[Toronto Villa]

Replacing Benteke will be practically impossible. But depending on who the replacement(s) are both up front and in support, it might make us play a different way. With Kozak we didn't only launch it up field so I don't think that is Lambert's only tactic. In fact we've see plenty of evidence that we can play it on the ground and very effectively. We need players that are quick and mobile because I find that when asked to press we can be quite laboured. In transition we are as good as anyone, so we need players that are able keep the ball, pass and move better when we are in possession. 

[Concrete John]

Over the course of this season, I think I've actually changed my mind on what the issue is. Towards the beginning, I was firmly in the "mostly the players fault" camp, and I think that's to a great degree the case with yesterday, but my faith in the manager has taken a nose dive this season. We've spent way too much of the season so far cluelessly lumping the ball at Benteke, and it is still our default fall back when things aren't going the way we want them to.

This is where I'm at right now.
However, regarding your comment about the Stoke game, even though there were lots of individual errors that brought about our downfall the substitutions and set-up meant that we were always unlikely to get the game back and indeed added to the heaviness of the defeat. As I've said elsewhere on here, bringing Sylla and Albrighton into central midfield with the enforced KEA and Weimann changes was madness when a simple adjustment - Bennett and Albrighton on left and right midfield - would have given us greater protection on the wings and more width. We could have turned the 1-3 around against a team not used to winning way from home; we didn't because of Lambert's subb decisions.

My faith in him has been severely dented and I wonder whether he will be able to exploit any new recruits brought in over the summer.

I'm always curious why it is that because what the manager did didn't work, we automatically presume that what we think he should have done would have worked?

[Mister E]

Over the course of this season, I think I've actually changed my mind on what the issue is. Towards the beginning, I was firmly in the "mostly the players fault" camp, and I think that's to a great degree the case with yesterday, but my faith in the manager has taken a nose dive this season. We've spent way too much of the season so far cluelessly lumping the ball at Benteke, and it is still our default fall back when things aren't going the way we want them to.

This is where I'm at right now.
However, regarding your comment about the Stoke game, even though there were lots of individual errors that brought about our downfall the substitutions and set-up meant that we were always unlikely to get the game back and indeed added to the heaviness of the defeat. As I've said elsewhere on here, bringing Sylla and Albrighton into central midfield with the enforced KEA and Weimann changes was madness when a simple adjustment - Bennett and Albrighton on left and right midfield - would have given us greater protection on the wings and more width. We could have turned the 1-3 around against a team not used to winning way from home; we didn't because of Lambert's subb decisions.

My faith in him has been severely dented and I wonder whether he will be able to exploit any new recruits brought in over the summer.

I'm always curious why it is that because what the manager did didn't work, we automatically presume that what we think he should have done would have worked?

Good challenge, John.
I can only comment from having watched 45 years' of live / televised football and having an understanding of our current squad of players.

Lambert's response to having to make two substitutions on Sunday was pretty inept and failed to turn around a game that was still salvagable. My response at the time - described above - may not have been the right one, but probably would have been better than that which we ended up with.  It's decisions about tactics and substitutions on which Lambert gets paid.

My real point above was that my view on Lambert has shifted - whereas I believed that once our main challenge was offloading the dead wood and bringing in somee hungry young talents, now I'm beginning to doubt his tactical nous.

[Toronto Villa]

sometimes whatever you do it doesn't work. I think Lambert was hinting at that also. That the players were so lethargic as a group that it was one of those situations that is hard to explain. Similar to Arsenal at the weekend. Wenger's big day, everyone knows and before they even woke up the side were 4-0 down. You know they would have prepared well, the team very much still in the title race, and yet they arrived and got blown clean out of the water. The manager was at a loss for what happened, a bit like Lambert. 1-0 up, everything going really well, and then the sky caved in.