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

[saunders_heroes]

Lambert on SSN this evening:

"look at the match against Everton, we had so many attacking players on the pitch ... and we just let them go and express themselves . and try and score and we had loads of shooting practise, you saw yesterday (referring to open training session) .. the crossing and the finishing, goals raining in"

Honestly, he's fucking clueless. He just thinks "put attacking players on the pitch" = "score loads of goals". "goals raining in in training" = "goals going in in matches"

I am more and more convinced that this bloke is an absolute fucking chancer, he has no idea what he is doing.

I really think we are just going to get worse under him.

Reminds me of the Bradford game at Villa Park when he threw on every attacking player we had with more than 30 mins to go and they ran around like the ant-hill mob cluelessly trying to get something out of the game yet creating practically nothing. It was easily the most ridiculous tactic I've ever seen from a Villa manager in all my years and he should have been sacked immediately afterwards. He truly hasn't got a bloody clue.

[brian green]

Poster Eigentor, whom I respect and whose posts are always balanced and fair, clearly indicates the seriousness of the problem we face, namely that there are those who consider Lambert to be not all that bad and because those who appointed him can point to fans who want him to be given more time they will take the easy short term way out and stick with him.
Comparing McLeish and Lambert I think as far as what they have inflicted on the supporters there is nothing to choose between them.   However, I am firmly of the opinion that McLeish was not and is not the bullshitting chancer I believe Lambert to be and on that balance I make Lambert the poorer manager.

Put another way, if I met McLeish socially I would chat to him.   Lambert I would not.

[saunders_heroes]

For all the criticism Lambert gets let's not forget who the real bad guy at the club is, and that's Randy Lerner. All this mess over the last 4 - 5 years stems from this man's ineptitude at running a football club and his desperation to get out. It's unforgivable what he's done to the club.

[peter w]

Not sure what to make of that. I would chat with either of them. Not sure what personal feelings about them has anything to do with Villa. As for the better manager McLeish must be a bullshitting chancer as he somehow mnaged two teams in the Prem despite relegating one of them on more than one occasion. He was out of his depth. So, it appears is Lambert. I think Lambert could do a job elsewhere and needs to move on. McLeish? A job at Dunfermline beckons.

[Risso]

Poster Eigentor, whom I respect and whose posts are always balanced and fair, clearly indicates the seriousness of the problem we face, namely that there are those who consider Lambert to be not all that bad and because those who appointed him can point to fans who want him to be given more time they will take the easy short term way out and stick with him.
Comparing McLeish and Lambert I think as far as what they have inflicted on the supporters there is nothing to choose between them.   However, I am firmly of the opinion that McLeish was not and is not the bullshitting chancer I believe Lambert to be and on that balance I make Lambert the poorer manager.

Put another way, if I met McLeish socially I would chat to him.   Lambert I would not.

I don't know if "bullshitter" is the right term for McLeish, Brian, but don't forget that interview he gave where he was banging on about how he wasn't a negative manager.  Perhaps 'deluded' would be a better description.

[PeterWithesShin]

Yep 5 v 1 with 3 balls in play.....You get that at most premier league games...

3 v 1 really (until it went 3 v 2) as 2 players were out wide putting in 1 touch crosses, and the attackers were mainly doing one touch finishing. And 3 balls weren't really in play, as soon as 1 ball went dead the next became live.

[Eigentor]

To clarify: I don't think Paul Lambert is so blatantly stupid and devoid of football knowledge that he believes that the team will score goals if he only puts on enough attacking players. But that doesn't mean that he is good enough to manage Aston Villa.

He should probably have been sacked in the summer. But with the ownership situation that was never going to happen. Given that, it would be rash to sack him now. In the same way that it was rash to give him a new contract four games into the season.

[brian green]

Riss, deluded implies that Lambert has some sort of cerebral malfunction, bullshitter, although crude and a word I would only commit to print with long suffering football fans, sums up how I feel about him.   It is one notch down from pants on fire.   At the time of the Culverhouse and Karsa disgrace, when my son Damon summed up Lambert's position as him being told to take Fredo out on the lake and put a bullet in his head, Lambert said he knew nothing about any bullying.   That is only a hairsbreadth lower than pants on fire.   As I see it.

[mr underhill]

why would it be rash to sack him now? I can think of no compelling argument to keep him and if we loose the next three games it renders his position totally untenable imo, irrespective of what has gone on in the pervious two seasons. I fail to see how any manager can survive eight straight defeats, regardless of the contract he has; eventually a tipping point arrives.

[pauliewalnuts]

Lambert on SSN this evening:

"look at the match against Everton, we had so many attacking players on the pitch ... and we just let them go and express themselves . and try and score and we had loads of shooting practise, you saw yesterday (referring to open training session) .. the crossing and the finishing, goals raining in"

Honestly, he's fucking clueless. He just thinks "put attacking players on the pitch" = "score loads of goals". "goals raining in in training" = "goals going in in matches"

I am more and more convinced that this bloke is an absolute fucking chancer, he has no idea what he is doing.

I really think we are just going to get worse under him.

Reminds me of the Bradford game at Villa Park when he threw on every attacking player we had with more than 30 mins to go and they ran around like the ant-hill mob cluelessly trying to get something out of the game yet creating practically nothing. It was easily the most ridiculous tactic I've ever seen from a Villa manager in all my years and he should have been sacked immediately afterwards. He truly hasn't got a bloody clue.

We were still well in that match, too.

All we had to do was keep our heads and continue doing what we did for almost the whole first half, when it was ridiculously one sided, when you could see the gulf in class.

By pulling that insane move, he threw it away. I honestly think that is one of the stupidest moves I've seen from a Villa manager in forty odd years of going.

[pauliewalnuts]

To clarify: I don't think Paul Lambert is so blatantly stupid and devoid of football knowledge that he believes that the team will score goals if he only puts on enough attacking players.

See Bradford game, that's exactly what he did.

He has also used that "we had attacking players on the pitch" line after matches several times before.

[levico]

why would it be rash to sack him now? I can think of no compelling argument to keep him and if we loose the next three games it renders his position totally untenable imo, irrespective of what has gone on in the pervious two seasons. I fail to see how any manager can survive eight straight defeats, regardless of the contract he has; eventually a tipping point arrives.

In the real rational world you are quite right but Lerner has his own version of reality. It's difficult to even visualise what Lambert would have to do to get sacked.

[PeterWithesShin]

I think the Bradford subs gets exaggerated a little. Needing 2 goals we swapped a midfielder (Bannan) for Bent after more than an hour, and then with 20 left and still needing 2 we took off a defender (Bennett) and stuck on Weimann. When you look at the bench from that night there weren't many other options to score or create the goals we needed.

The criticism i'd give was rather than the actual subs, is that players didn't seem to have defined roles after the second sub. That could be down to the manager, maybe panicking or desperation as we had 20 mins to score 2, or even the players panicking and getting desperate.

[Clampy]

The first leg up at Bradford was bad enough. We had four attacking players on the pitch and Delph and Bannan in the midfield and we were getting overran time and time again. He needed to put on another midfielder to shore it up. He threw Graham Burke and Bent on instead.

[peter w]

The fact that we couldn't defend corners to save our lives around the Bradford games time was the biggest problem which directly led to us having to put more forwards on then we'd have liked to.