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

[PaulWinch again]

Well that's fine you can look at this season then, in the first 4 games we played three teams we'd expect to be struggling and not scoring a great number of goals and we played Liverpool. Now the Liverpool result was a good result, but since then it's been shown Liverpool are not exactly the free scoring, impressive side they were last year. So maybe those first four games were partly down to decent defending and partly down to those sides being pretty inept going forward.

The last 6 games we've been back to being just as bad as we were last year regardless of who the personel are. The difference is that we now look set up to defend and carry virtually no attacking threat.

[brian green]

We were not unlucky yesterday. Brad Guzan kept us in the game in the first half and there was no bad luck about the red card. They set out to make Benteke do something stupid and he duly obliged. There was no bad luck about a referee wanting to keep the London media on side.
I happens all the time and you either accept it or do a Peter Withe or a John Carew and keep up a stream of bellyaching at the ref to make him aware that there are two teams in the game.
That game for me was the worst of the six because it gave Lambert so many stones to hide under.

[Holte L2]

The last 6 games we've been back to being just as bad as we were last year regardless of who the personel are. The difference is that we now look set up to defend and carry virtually no attacking threat.
[/quote]

This sums it up perfectly.

[Rudy65]

Lamberts league stats make grim reading since he arrived in 2012

Won 23
Drawn 20
Lost 43
GD -55

Win rate is 26%

Goal difference minus 55!

Shocking all around

His position should be untenable, but it isnt

[Rudy65]

My expectations are managed by the relative budgets of the teams. You go on in the fantasy world where we should be challenging the top six again, and I'll pay attention to the reality. Villa are one of those clubs who feel that, if we're not competing, it must be completely our fault. Certainly the club has buggered up, but the state of the game somewhat prohibits teams from entering the top tier without some form of gigantic upheaval, and that's not our fault.

Paul, I don't look at before this season because three out of the four players were different! It's a new defence! Roma and Brazil are good defensive teams, but they conceded fourteen goals between them in one game each against the Germans. Nobody can really defend these days, and we're really not as bad as all that.

You must be on the clubs payroll.

[Ads]

I don't think Spurs set about to get Benteke sent off.

Mason is young lad who lost it after being bullied off the ball, he then puts his face in Benteke's and should have been sent off. Why the 4th official failed to inform the referee, I have no idea. He saw Benteke push his face away, so he must have seen Mason put his head in there in the first place.

It was an appalling decision not to send Mason off and I think he was wrong to only book Vertongen.

[Monty]

My expectations are managed by the relative budgets of the teams. You go on in the fantasy world where we should be challenging the top six again, and I'll pay attention to the reality. Villa are one of those clubs who feel that, if we're not competing, it must be completely our fault. Certainly the club has buggered up, but the state of the game somewhat prohibits teams from entering the top tier without some form of gigantic upheaval, and that's not our fault.

Paul, I don't look at before this season because three out of the four players were different! It's a new defence! Roma and Brazil are good defensive teams, but they conceded fourteen goals between them in one game each against the Germans. Nobody can really defend these days, and we're really not as bad as all that.

You must be on the clubs payroll.

Yeah, God knows I've been easy on the club for the last few years.

[Ron Manager]

I don't think Spurs set about to get Benteke sent off.

Mason is young lad who lost it after being bullied off the ball, he then puts his face in Benteke's and should have been sent off. Why the 4th official failed to inform the referee, I have no idea. He saw Benteke push his face away, so he must have seen Mason put his head in there in the first place.

It was an appalling decision not to send Mason off and I think he was wrong to only book Vertongen.

Quite. The fourth official could not fail to see exactly what had happened.

[brian green]

You are a lawyer Ads, it depends on your definition of "set out to get Benteke sent off". I believe that even without malice aforethought a Spurs player running thirty yards to wave an imaginary red card at the referee tells me everything I want to know.

[Ads]

After the incident has happened they're all chucking their oar in, especially Lamella who had to be told by Kane to wind his neck in, but I don't think prior to that there was any tactic to get Benteke off. I just think Mason lost it and couldn't believe it when he wasn't even booked, he was their best player yesterday and a very lucky boy.

He was lucky in two senses, one to stay on the pitch and two that he acted like a hard man with somebody twice his height and twice his weight in the sanitised safety of a Premier League pitch.

[Tom_Mc9?]

I think that when we passionately believe something - in this case that Paul Lambert should be sacked - it is easy to blame him for the downfalls of everything. I know that the buck stops with the manager, but also the players must take responsibility. I think that Lambert was unlucky yesterday. He ticked a lot of boxes that people wanted ticking: he dropped Gabby; he played N'Zogbia centrally; some width was used for the first time in months through Lowton and Weimann. What Lambert could not account for was a tired Sanchez giving away a needless and dangerous free kick, Benteke losing his head and whoever it was (Gabby? Westwood? I don't know) losing his player for a corner.

There are lots of times to be angry with Lambert - our chronic lack of creativity and ultimately goals, our leaky defence,our continuous losing run - but today wasn't one of them for me.

[Ads]

It was Gabby who lost his man. As I said elsewhere, it would have been Benteke who took up the fourth man position on the six yard line for the zonal marking, so him being sent off had a direct contribution on the result, as if that wasn't obvious enough.

I am with you Tom, I was furious after QPR, but I wouldn't have done things too differently myself yesterday.

[not3bad]

I don't think Spurs set about to get Benteke sent off.

Mason is young lad who lost it after being bullied off the ball, he then puts his face in Benteke's and should have been sent off. Why the 4th official failed to inform the referee, I have no idea. He saw Benteke push his face away, so he must have seen Mason put his head in there in the first place.

It was an appalling decision not to send Mason off and I think he was wrong to only book Vertongen.

Quite. The fourth official could not fail to see exactly what had happened.

I think Mason was lucky to get away with what he did, but to say his provocation of Benteke was "calculated" is nonsense. Both players clearly lost their heads.

[SamTheMouse]

I can't understand why none of the Spurs players got so much as a booking in that incident. You've got Mason headbutting Benteke (very gently, but then Benteke's 'slap' was equally gentle yet still deemed violent), you've got Soldado sprinting from the other side of the pitch to push players around, including shoving Benteke three times in the chest, and you've got Lamela waving an imaginary card in the ref's face, which is also now supposed to be a bookable offence.

Yet the officials ONLY saw Benteke's misdemeanour. To me, that's dodgy.

[Tony Erdington]

I never classed myself as anti lambert, but imo his an unlucky manager (im being as kind as i can) to me he talks as though he can get it right, but as youve pointed out above the results dont lie. Time for parties to go  separate ways, No I dont have an idea who should come in, and Im aware Randy's just give him a 4 year contract it makes this mess all the harder to resolve.