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

[Toronto Villa]

The answer is likely somewhere in between. The board have been involved and supported the manager in his decisions. Be it the "bomb squad", the players signed or those that we didn't. To what extent each is culpable is up for debate but both sides need to be held accountable. Thing is Lambert agreed to the direction the club was taking, and until recently it appeared he was. He then shouldn't be suggesting anything different or underhand has been happening behind the scenes in public now.

[bertlambshank]

And watching Hull shows how you can change a game.Lambert will never learn.

[hilts_coolerking]

It didn't take a genius to see the potential for the Houllier and McLeish appointments to go tits up, so Lerner and co deserve flak for that but I wouldn't necessarily blame them for appointing Lambert.  What we needed after McLeish was a relatively safe pair of hands as we tried to rebuild.  He had a good reputation as an up-and-coming young manager and had done pretty well in his one and only season in the Premier League.  It's just that Lambert has sadly proved that he isn't as good as we all thought he was going to be.

More broadly, Lerner and co do deserve considerable criticism for implementing a financial regime that was always going to be fraught with peril, particularly with a young manager.

[ozzjim]

Watching Hull and Huddlestone shows us exactly what we missed last summer. 5 million, and a player we would be so much better off with in the side it is unbelievable.

Steve Bruce is made to look like Jose Mourinho by Lambert. Way better manager than Lambert is. I agree fully with Newby, Lambert has had way more than most managers in the league and consistently made us worse this season. We have some decent players, but too many have regressed. We need a change, and the board appointed the man the fans wanted last time so did not do too badly in that respect. Magath is mad as a hatter but clearly a good manager. Pocchetino looks a stunning appointment y Southampton. We need to find someone who can tactically improve the side. At the moment there is nothing. Had well enough.

[Keeno]

Jurgen Klopp?

[Monty]

You also need a manager who suits the needs of the club at the time. There are clubs, I dare say, which would suit Lambert, who's good at reactive tactics and bargain-spotting. However, we need someone who can get players together to play better than the sum of their parts would suggest, someone with a style and a active vision on how to play. We need an architect, but what we've got is a demolition expert.

[Keeno]

You also need a manager who suits the needs of the club at the time. There are clubs, I dare say, which would suit Lambert, who's good at reactive tactics and bargain-spotting. However, we need someone who can get players together to play better than the sum of their parts would suggest, someone with a style and a active vision on how to play. We need an architect, but what we've got is a demolition expert.

I'd say we've got more of a cowboy builder. An architect is needed, yes.

[Mister E]

Watching Hull and Huddlestone shows us exactly what we missed last summer. 5 million, and a player we would be so much better off with in the side it is unbelievable.

Steve Bruce is made to look like Jose Mourinho by Lambert. Way better manager than Lambert is. I agree fully with Newby, Lambert has had way more than most managers in the league and consistently made us worse this season. We have some decent players, but too many have regressed. We need a change, and the board appointed the man the fans wanted last time so did not do too badly in that respect. Magath is mad as a hatter but clearly a good manager. Pocchetino looks a stunning appointment y Southampton. We need to find someone who can tactically improve the side. At the moment there is nothing. Had well enough.

Not just Huddlestone; Livermore, Long and Jelavic have been good acquisitions, and he's also getting the best out of Curtis Davies.
I never rated Bruce particularly but he's solid and has done a good job at Hull.

Lambert has not developed as a manager at all: the cheap youth approach had one fundamental imperative - that the team selection, coaching and tactics would make the sum of the parts really work. This has simply not happened.

Taxi for Lambert and his coterie.

[Keeno]

I'd really like to see us take a chance on a non-'English' (I use the term loosely) manager that is proven to bring a possession-based style to a club. Someone like Montella at Fiorentina would be perfect - but attracting him would be another thing. We'd have to throw a LOT of money at someone like that to come to us, maybe after the last two years we'd have some in the kitty.

[Toronto Villa]

without meaning to sound like an apologist for Lambert here, but as much as Bruce looks like Mourinho by comparison have a look back at his managerial record and see what he's gone through to get to this point. Bruce had a really volatile managerial career. But he's done really well at Hull to get them up, the FA Cup final and will probably keep them up too. I realize Lambert has done overall very poorly in his two years with us, but making out Bruce is any sort of managerial genius requires closer scrutiny.

[Monty]

We're unlikely to get Montella, though he does speak English from his time at Fulham. But he's got a nice thing going in Florence, and it'd be a tough sell to drag him to Brum to have no money to sell.

[ozzjim]

without meaning to sound like an apologist for Lambert here, but as much as Bruce looks like Mourinho by comparison have a look back at his managerial record and see what he's gone through to get to this point. Bruce had a really volatile managerial career. But he's done really well at Hull to get them up, the FA Cup final and will probably keep them up too. I realize Lambert has done overall very poorly in his two years with us, but making out Bruce is any sort of managerial genius requires closer scrutiny.

I think the point I was trying to make is just that, Bruce is a very, very average manager. Who Lambert is making look a genius at the moment.

[Keeno]

We're unlikely to get Montella, though he does speak English from his time at Fulham. But he's got a nice thing going in Florence, and it'd be a tough sell to drag him to Brum to have no money to sell.

I agree - obviously it's a long shot. He does have yeah - but if a few of his players are cherry picked by bigger clubs (Cuadrado, Rossi, maybe Valero) and they don't get Champions League which looks likely, he might want to try his hand in a bigger league. We are potentially a very attractive project for a manager to come into providing he gets the support he needs.

[SoccerHQ]

Like DO'L before him, Paul Lambert will never manage in the premier league again.

Utterly,  utterly incompetent.

He will because he will promoted a Leeds/Forest type club in a few years time.

[Monty]

I also don't know that much about Montella in terms of how modern he is on the training ground or what his man-management methods are or what sort of players he might prefer to sign. He's a very new manager who appears to have invigorated Fiorentina with a sense of fun and enjoyment, but whether or not he has the rigour to bring that to a doldrum-slumming club in the lower reaches of the English league is another matter.