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

[Rudy65]

I have zero faith in him as a manager. That's nothing new because i've felt that way for about a year.

I literally have nothing positive to say about him with regards what i've seen under him thus far. When he talks i rarely find anything he says engaging, eye opening or even accurate when he talks post match. In most cases the more he talks the less i think he actually knows himself.

I don't get his football philosophy, his tactics, or his plan/project for the club. I don't get his match day demeanor which seems to consist of either clapping his hands together occasionally or sitting down looking lost.

But we're all entitled to a differing viewpoint.

Agreed

[ozzjim]

If we don't sign 3 or 4 higher level, both ability and priced, players this summer it will be down to one person at the club.

I think if you support Lambert then you naturally have that expectation of him in order to maintain that support. This is a critical summer.

It will be completely down to him. This summer makes him or kills him long term at Villa. Signs the 3-4 quality players we need and we kick on, great. Goes off to poundland latvia and comes back with a Tonev mk2 and a few Syllas thrown in, and I think I would give him till Christmas.

[brian green]

I expected you to spring to his defence TV and I respect that but it is not legitimate to point Wenger or Mourinho or any established manager's bad spells and say that this excuses Lambert's lack of progress.   The excruciatingly painful truth lies in the statistics.   As I pointed out the time on the pitch when we are as bad to watch as any time I have ever seen the team exceeds the time when they play well by a factor of at least ten.   Even in the game against Norwich which was hailed as yet another Lambert new dawn we were abject in the first quarter and in the second half we were just like we were against Stoke in the latter seventy minutes except the difference is that Stoke spotted how frail we are and Norwich did not.   Wenger and Murinho have a body of statistics to put on the credit side of their reputations.   Lambert has nothing.   I think it has become pretty clear that blind faith in him is looking increasingly misplaced.   My opinion of him is that he is a flawed manager with a flawed team around him.   Given five years and a bit of luck in the transfer market the bumps and shakes and wobbles which the cause the wheels to be off more than they are on might be smoothed out into mid table security.   I for one could not endure another five years like we have had of late and I am about as die hard as they come.   I genuinely admire the Lambert enthusiasts for their loyalty but like I say, my own personal opinion is that it is misplaced.

[Dante Lavelli]

I also don't think that a change like with the defence this last summer will happen with the midfield this summer. First off I don't think it's a question that sheer personnel alone can solve, at least not at our financial level, and I think the best proof of this is that our midfielders are already pretty good. Indeed, as regards the sheer pass-and-move stuff, Westwood appears to have got worse at it since leaving the Crewe finishing school. He's tougher and better able to keep up with the pace of the game, and you'd expect that with experience (and Lambert's personal management of him, sure), but the lack of practice at the stuff of passing has taken its toll I think.

The guardian had an article the other day where they highlighted that Henderson's average number of passes in each game had almost doubled between last season and this (from 33 to 55 or something like that).  His accuracy had remained the same.  This does indicate that Henderson is following Rodgers' instruction and buying into his tactics (whereas in his first season - when dropped and pretty much in their bomb squad - he may not have been so compliant). 

If Lambert was demanding similar tactics from the players then you'd expect Westwood to have developed in a similar manner, whereas right now it is hard to identify what Lambert's tactic are.  This is my worry.  Arguably I could live with a direct style of football, in which case you would buy players to suit that system.  Westwood is never that player, he is first and foremost a good technical footballer, he'll never be a destroyer that bullies other midfielders.  So why buy and trust Westwood if you do not want to play a passing game?

Lambert is like a woman.  There are so many mixed messages.

[levico]

I expected you to spring to his defence TV and I respect that but it is not legitimate to point Wenger or Mourinho or any established manager's bad spells and say that this excuses Lambert's lack of progress.   The excruciatingly painful truth lies in the statistics.   As I pointed out the time on the pitch when we are as bad to watch as any time I have ever seen the team exceeds the time when they play well by a factor of at least ten.   Even in the game against Norwich which was hailed as yet another Lambert new dawn we were abject in the first quarter and in the second half we were just like we were against Stoke in the latter seventy minutes except the difference is that Stoke spotted how frail we are and Norwich did not.   Wenger and Murinho have a body of statistics to put on the credit side of their reputations.   Lambert has nothing.   I think it has become pretty clear that blind faith in him is looking increasingly misplaced.   My opinion of him is that he is a flawed manager with a flawed team around him.   Given five years and a bit of luck in the transfer market the bumps and shakes and wobbles which the cause the wheels to be off more than they are on might be smoothed out into mid table security.   I for one could not endure another five years like we have had of late and I am about as die hard as they come.   I genuinely admire the Lambert enthusiasts for their loyalty but like I say, my own personal opinion is that it is misplaced.

Spot on yet again, Brian.

[mr underhill]

 I have yet to hear a truly convincing and compelling argument as to why we should keep him. Essentially it seems to consist in buying Benteke, who has unequivocally proved he's a player of real quality, and a couple of others who might have the ability to fulfil their potential,  a snatched few minutes of excellence here and there over virtually two seasons, and retaining his services  for continuity's sake. IMO that isn't nearly good enough; the summer shopping trip is his last chance to impress.

[mallo]

I've been on Lamberts side up until a few weeks ago and it's just got nowhere to go - my only worry is (and I shouldn't have to worry about this) that we have a record of horrific managerial appointments and I simply don't trust the powers that be to get anyone decent. Plus it's not really the biggest draw in football at the moment is it? It's a bit sad really. Until the whole club is sorted I feel there's not much point in changing the manager - Wenger would probably fail here at the moment.

[Concrete John]

If we don't sign 3 or 4 higher level, both ability and priced, players this summer it will be down to one person at the club.

I think if you support Lambert then you naturally have that expectation of him in order to maintain that support. This is a critical summer.

It will be completely down to him. This summer makes him or kills him long term at Villa. Signs the 3-4 quality players we need and we kick on, great. Goes off to poundland latvia and comes back with a Tonev mk2 and a few Syllas thrown in, and I think I would give him till Christmas.

Well, it won't be really, will it?  Not unless we give total control over to him like we did with MON and I can't see that ever happening again.

3-4 quality players is certainly what we need and with a similar spend of around £20m that we've seen in the last two windows that should be achievable, but I think it'll be a delicate balancing act on the wages side of things.  Ireland is gone, so if we can also do something with Given and Hutton, I can't see any further excuses not to step it up a level in the market.

[rob_bridge]

I have so many splinters when it comes to Lambert and was very close to the end of my tether after West Ham (following the Palace and Sheff Utd shite).

Graham Taylor states it takes roughly 2-3 years for a manager to produce his own team. This is now nearly his team. We have improved margainally under him. No more no less. The decline has been arrested. Just.

Let's see what happens over the summer / first 3 months of next season. Underlyingly we should be improving and at the end of next season be at worst the weakest of the 2nd Tier clubs (Everton, Newcastle, Tottenham if you like) and ahead of Swansea, Stoke, Sunderland, Southampton etc.. We should not be subject to anymore abject surrenders to lower league clubs in the Cups. If e.g. an in-form Brighton or Ipsiwch play out of their skins and narrowly beat us I can live with that, albeit misearbly, if we have any more Millwall, Bradford or Sheff Utd then that is unacceptable.

The alternative is to let Faulkner / Lerner pick a replacement which should fill every Villa fan with Dread.
Or maybe they can ask Sir Alex his opinion again. We could end up with Mark McGee this time.

[Chris Smith]

I have yet to hear a truly convincing and compelling argument as to why we should keep him. Essentially it seems to consist in buying Benteke, who has unequivocally proved he's a player of real quality, and a couple of others who might have the ability to fulfil their potential,  a snatched few minutes of excellence here and there over virtually two seasons, and retaining his services  for continuity's sake. IMO that isn't nearly good enough; the summer shopping trip is his last chance to impress.

I have yet to see any sort of coherent argument as to why we should sack him and start the whole process again from scratch, i.e. new man wanting his own players to suit a new system, disgruntled players on the books not contributing etc.

We are not yet two years into a total rebuilding process, these things take time and it would be unrealistic to expect any manager to have got us further than mid table at this point.

Another point to consider is what message does it send to any potential replacement that we are so quick to discard a manager?

[Dante Lavelli]

I have yet to hear a truly convincing and compelling argument as to why we should keep him.

I think a good arguement is that 'not sacking him now' does not necessarily mean keeping him forever.  Sitting on the fence is a perfectly acceptable stance when there are so many good and bad points to factor in.  From here we could get worse, but he's shown enough to suggest it could also get better.  It's not as if the players are in mutiny and we're deep in a relegation battle.  However as a club we should be aiming for above that and therefore any progress needs to be maintained.

[Concrete John]

I have yet to hear a truly convincing and compelling argument as to why we should keep him. Essentially it seems to consist in buying Benteke, who has unequivocally proved he's a player of real quality, and a couple of others who might have the ability to fulfil their potential,  a snatched few minutes of excellence here and there over virtually two seasons, and retaining his services  for continuity's sake. IMO that isn't nearly good enough; the summer shopping trip is his last chance to impress.

If your mind is made up that he should be clipped, that's hardly surprising!

For me, it's not a case of seeing what we have over the past two seasons and being any happier with it than that 'Lambert out' contingent, but rather making allowances for the difficulties he has had to face, given the state of the club when he came in.  He's got some things right and some things wrong, but on balance I guess I'm just accepting of the fact that there are no quick fixes and anyone that came in after TSM would have had similar ups and downs.

The real question is will we now see things get closer to what this club and it's fans are more used to? 

The argument for him to go seems to revolve around a series of embarassing results, poor home form, regression in the style of play and doubts about him tactically.

Yes, we've had 8-0 drubbings and woeful cup exits, but we've also had days like Anfield away (twice) Arsenal away and Chelsea at home this season, plus Man City away in the cup last year.  A week or so ago someone posted a table of results against the top 4, which we were top of.  Possibly there's been more bad than good here, but whilst in the process of a rebuilding job is that any great surprise?

Our home form has been bad since before he arrived.  Even in MON's time, it was midtable-ish and not in keeping with the overall league position or budget being spent.  We're seeing similar now, just to a different scale further down the league.  To me it's down to a lack of a genuine midfield creativity which Lambert does need to sort this summer.

The style of play is a baffling one at times.  I think Lambert isn't the true footballing purest some would like him to be, but that doesn't mean he's Tony Pulis either - there is middle ground.  SAF's Man Utd sides always had variation in their play and I think that's what he's trying to bring to us.  We always bang on about plan B, but what do we mean by that?  To me, it's having more than one way of playing.  People may not like the direct option to be one of the weapons in our armoury, but I think it's something we need.  Yes, too much of it has happened this season, but we've also seen some better stuff on the deck.  I think this also harks back to the midfield as we're so static at times there aren't many options for the back players.

The tactical thing always makes me smile a bit.  Every time we lose it'll be brought up, as if we know exactly what he was thinking, know better ourselves than a Champions League winner and had he asked us first we would have won, no matter who we were playing.  No, it's massively down to players also.  That's not to say I agree with all his substitutions and team selections, but I do think for too much made of it.

I've gone on a bit here, but what I'm ultimately trying to say is that my 'Lambert in' stance is based upon trying to add some realism to the debate.  I don't think changing managers would see us get what we want straight away, so we need to have patience regardless.  He's started a process that has seen better results this season and I think he deserves a chance to finish the job.  A big summer ahead.

     

[passitsideways]

Graham Taylor states it takes roughly 2-3 years for a manager to produce his own team. This is now nearly his team. We have improved margainally under him. No more no less. The decline has been arrested. Just.

I doubt that sort of quote takes place in the context of producing your own team while having not a whole lot of money to spend (in terms of both fees and wages) and while cutting the wage bill.

I agree that this summer and the start of next season is absolutely critical, but I don't think the point where a manager should have produced his own team is the same in every circumstance.

[Brend'Watkins]

The one thing that makes me feel a little bit sorry for Lambert is the early season injury to Okore.  With him in the side I think we'd be about 5 or 6 points better off making us comfortably mid table at this stage.

[Dante Lavelli]

The one thing that makes me feel a little bit sorry for Lambert is the early season injury to Okore.  With him in the side I think we'd be about 5 or 6 points better off making us comfortably mid table at this stage.

Both of this year's big signings have spent more time injured than fit.  It's probably worth factoring that in when it is claimed he's spent £40m in the last two years.  Probably a third of that has been injured, and not to niggles which he could have'managed' better.