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

[SoccerHQ]

Our best hope of creativity is giving Grealish a run of games and hope he catched teams off guard like Albrighton did a few seasons ago.

Says it all for squad building that. Goalscoring was a major issue last season even with Benteke in the team so I don't see it suddenly evaporating with him back now.

[ChicagoLion]

How many more excuses are people going to allow him really?  He should have gone after Chelsea.  He should have gone after Wigan at home.  He should have gone after Bradford.  He should have gone after Millwall.  He should have gone because of the bomb squad fiasco.  He should have gone for the comments in the lead up to and including for Sheffield United.  He should have gone because of Karsa and Culverhouse.  He should have gone after last season.  He should have gone after Orient.  He should go now.  What happens instead?  He gets an extension simply unbelievable.

Bravo. Well done mate UTV

[Chris Smith]

Sacking a manager is the easy part of the process, finding a better replacement is much more difficult. When a club has had 4 years of turmoil and is up for sale, attracting the sort of quality we need becomes even more of a problem.

Getting players back from injury and new signings up to speed could, and I emphasise could before I am shouted down with the usual clichés, see an upturn. Particularly as our run of fixture is now a little less daunting than the past couple of months.

Given both of the above I think for where the club is right now changing the manager again would increase our chances of relegation. If we are sold then clearly everything is once again up for review but, the way I see it, at the moment stability is more important than punishing the manager.

[rob_bridge]

The good thing about sacking the manager is that this time Paul Faulkner wouldn't be involved in the recruitment of the replacement.

The bad thing about sacking the manager is that Lerner still will be.

Stick or Twist?

I honestly don't think it would make much difference.

What I would like to hear from Lambert is an end to the bullshit about 'being excellent, creating enough chances to win x games etc....;

[Ads]

We're currently mid-table and I think we'll end up mid table. I don't think too many managers would do much better having spent £7 million in the summer.

[paul_e]

For me it's not that I want Lambert sacked it's that I want him to do something about getting the team to play how he says he wants them to.  He talks about creating more chances but we've seen very little evidence of work on the training ground targeted towards that.  I just find it very difficult to not get frustrated with him when he must see the same issue we do.  I can live with 35-40% possession against the top sides, I can't live with 1-2 shots on target being the norm.

[villasjf]

Something has changed badly since he arrived, When he first games we had energy the football was exciting and although we lost a lot we mostly had faith in him. He seemed to have an attitude of we will score more than them. Then all the bargain bucket buys who are now out on loan came in. The amount of bad records he has since arriving and the absolute dross that he calls or mumbles about football. He has lost me as a season ticket holder together with 1000s of others. He has to go but no lets give him a new contract after a couple of results. Worst goals scored worst shots on target, poor possession stats.

[villasjf]

The good thing about sacking the manager is that this time Paul Faulkner wouldn't be involved in the recruitment of the replacement.

The bad thing about sacking the manager is that Lerner still will be.

Stick or Twist?

I honestly don't think it would make much difference.

What I would like to hear from Lambert is an end to the bullshit about 'being excellent, creating enough chances to win x games etc....;

If you can understand Mr. Mumbles you do better that most of us.

[PaulWinch again]

For me it's not that I want Lambert sacked it's that I want him to do something about getting the team to play how he says he wants them to.  He talks about creating more chances but we've seen very little evidence of work on the training ground targeted towards that.  I just find it very difficult to not get frustrated with him when he must see the same issue we do.  I can live with 35-40% possession against the top sides, I can't live with 1-2 shots on target being the norm.

I agree.

[Risso]

We're currently mid-table and I think we'll end up mid table. I don't think too many managers would do much better having spent £7 million in the summer.

He plays the worst football in the division, by a long way.

[JUAN PABLO]

The football is awful .    the new contract is an absolute shocker of a decision, nearly as bad as employing Mr mcCleish.

[brian green]

In my experience of life which is extensive, you get what you are prepared to put up with. You put up with a man drinking, you get a falling down drunk for a husband. You let a woman be lazy and slatternly you get a slut for a wife. You allow a manager - of anything - continually make mistakes and you continually make excuses for him, you will get an incompetent manager.
I don't think there is even the basis of a debate about Lambert. His record is there in black and white. He is only there because his employers have not had the guts to do anything about it when they should have. We are now in the worst if all situations of being stuck with him.

[Monty]

I don't think sacking Lambert would do much good. He's not a brilliant manager, but he's about as good as we could get with the club's current position. He's not faultless, but he's not entirely without his merits (as McLeish pretty much was). Besides which, he knows the players and the players know him, and this kind of stability can count for crucial amounts against other lower-half clubs going through two managers a week.

[supertom]

We've not addressed any of the problems from last season really. We looked tight in those first 4 games, but our defence actually wasn't too shabby in the opening half of last season as Vlaar found form and so did Clark initially. But as we saw in the last four games, it doesn't take much to turn our defence into a shambles. And for me, camping 10 men on the edge of your own box is a tactic for defences that aren't actually that well organised. It's stuff a wall around your keeper to try and frustrate your opposition into submission. Arsenal in the mid 90's is an example of a well drilled defence. We are not. And our way merely invites pressure on ourselves, meaning that all we're doing, camped in our own box, is delaying the inevitable. The one game I felt we got it really right, and seemed to have a decent plan, was Liverpool. We countered quite well, started brightly, but our plan didn't begin and end in our own box, we took Gerrard out the game, it started in their half. We also always look better pressing teams in their own half, but we don't do that enough anymore. We haven't done that at all in the last four games, and look what happened? We basically said to four sides, "We're gonna let you score, but we're not going to let you score that many."
 
Our ball retention, chance creation and goal scoring is still woeful. Those are the biggest problems. We've got better attacking players than we have defensive players really. We should be building our sides success around them, not relying on our defence. Delph and Benteke are far and away our best players. Gabby, on his day, is still one of our best. Westwood and TC have ability, but neither is remotely defence minded, or competent defensively. Same with Delph. He's better going forward than back. We'd have more success being a bit more gung ho, and playing a high line than we will just parking the bus. But it takes guts to play the former.

Until those improve then we're not looking at mid-table, I think we're looking at finishing around the 38-40 point mark again. That'll keep us up but it's not good enough. Finishing 15-16th every year isn't where we should be. Granted it could be worse, but the problem is, how will we keep the few decent players we have? We won't. Were Vlaar, Benteke and Delph all to be gone by next summer then we'd be getting even closer to relegation the following year, if not going down.

[Chris Smith]

In my experience of life which is extensive, you get what you are prepared to put up with. You put up with a man drinking, you get a falling down drunk for a husband. You let a woman be lazy and slatternly you get a slut for a wife. You allow a manager - of anything - continually make mistakes and you continually make excuses for him, you will get an incompetent manager.
I don't think there is even the basis of a debate about Lambert. His record is there in black and white. He is only there because his employers have not had the guts to do anything about it when they should have. We are now in the worst if all situations of being stuck with him.

So, by that reasoning we have an owner who we are prepared to put up with and who consistently backs the wrong horse when choosing a manager.

How would sacking Lambert at any point in the past 12 months have helped?