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

[olaftab]

Calm down, petal.

Keep calm, darlin.

Now walk out of your entrenched views and shake hand!

[saunders_heroes]

I guess the point is though at the time of the 8-0 it was his first shocker. We had no idea what some of the joys in store were. At the time he'd just taken us into the LC semi-final and we had lost 3 in 12, to the Manc clubs and Chavski. Why sack him him after 1 shocker? As an example, would you have sacked SGT1 after losing 5-0 at home to Bradford? Which is on a par with the Chavski result to me.

Because we lost 8-0 that's why. He should have been sacked the morning after, perhaps then we'd have avoided some of the many humiliations he's inflicted on us since.
And 5-0 will never be as bad as 8-0 no matter how much you try and dress it up.

That is crazy.  Are you saying that if a great manager like Shankly or Clough had suffered such a defeat then they would have deserved the sack regardless of their records before the match or how long they had been in the job?  Freak results are just part of football even the best manager suffer them.  Sir Alex had two in a row in 96, 5-0 against Newcastle, and 6-3 against Southampton. 

I'm not talking about any of those incredible managers, I'm talking about Paul Lambert for Christ sake. You know, the bloke who has humiliates us for the past 3 seasons.

Yes, but the 8-0 in question came half way through his first season and on the back of a very good win at Liverpool.  At that point none of us believed that we be in such dire straits under him.   Also, you are justifying the idea that it is fair to sack a manager on the back of one freak result, but clearly it isn't.

I was never fooled by Lambert and his (very) occasional wins. That Chelsea defeat was unforgivable and a stain on the club and I wanted him out of the club there and then (and I said it on here as well). As I said earlier, it was a gut feeling, and it's been justified since. It's a pity he's been allowed to stay and fester. If we had a chairman with a bit of nouse and who cared about the club he would have acted and got rid of him, but sadly we didn't, and still haven't. Now look at us - perennial relegation struggling rubbish.

[saunders_heroes]

Yes, but the 8-0 in question came half way through his first season and on the back of a very good win at Liverpool.  At that point none of us believed that we be in such dire straits under him.   Also, you are justifying the idea that it is fair to sack a manager on the back of one freak result, but clearly it isn't.

Which is the precise point a few of us are making, but once again saunders gets into a hissy fit and is unable to debate reasonably.

I thought we were having a perfectly reasonable debate till you started with the "calm down petal" nonsense.

[Ger Regan]

You think your "have a bit of pride in your club" post was reasonable debate? Frankly I think I was more restrained in my response than you deserved.

[saunders_heroes]

You think your "have a bit of pride in your club" post was reasonable debate? Frankly I think I was more restrained in my response than you deserved.

I've had a lot worse said to me on here believe me. If you're gonna make a smarmy remark don't be surprised to get one in return.

[Damo70]

Calm down, petal.

Keep calm, darlin.

Now walk out of your entrenched views and shake hand!

Good advice. There might still be time to edit you both into the Sainsburys Christmas ad.

[Gregorys Boy]

I guess the point is though at the time of the 8-0 it was his first shocker. We had no idea what some of the joys in store were. At the time he'd just taken us into the LC semi-final and we had lost 3 in 12, to the Manc clubs and Chavski. Why sack him him after 1 shocker? As an example, would you have sacked SGT1 after losing 5-0 at home to Bradford? Which is on a par with the Chavski result to me.

Because we lost 8-0 that's why. He should have been sacked the morning after, perhaps then we'd have avoided some of the many humiliations he's inflicted on us since.
And 5-0 will never be as bad as 8-0 no matter how much you try and dress it up.

That is crazy.  Are you saying that if a great manager like Shankly or Clough had suffered such a defeat then they would have deserved the sack regardless of their records before the match or how long they had been in the job?  Freak results are just part of football even the best manager suffer them.  Sir Alex had two in a row in 96, 5-0 against Newcastle, and 6-3 against Southampton. 

I'm not talking about any of those incredible managers, I'm talking about Paul Lambert for Christ sake. You know, the bloke who has humiliates us for the past 3 seasons.

Yes, but the 8-0 in question came half way through his first season and on the back of a very good win at Liverpool.  At that point none of us believed that we be in such dire straits under him.   Also, you are justifying the idea that it is fair to sack a manager on the back of one freak result, but clearly it isn't.

I was never fooled by Lambert and his (very) occasional wins. That Chelsea defeat was unforgivable and a stain on the club and I wanted him out of the club there and then (and I said it on here as well). As I said earlier, it was a gut feeling, and it's been justified since. It's a pity he's been allowed to stay and fester. If we had a chairman with a bit of nouse and who cared about the club he would have acted and got rid of him, but sadly we didn't, and still haven't. Now look at us - perennial relegation struggling rubbish.

Another thing you need to factor in is that Lambert was our third manager in two years since MON left so what the club needed was stablity.  Based on his Norwich record he seemed a good fit for the Villa job.  Now I think it really is time for a change, but not back then.

[brian green]

Despite our differences I think we can all agree that football is now a business, big business. The most basic skill needed by anybody running a business is the ability to look ahead and plan for the future. No reasonable person could deny that.
At Norwich Lambert looked promising. However, that promise faded and over the months with us he made more and more mistakes. A far sighted football savvy owner spending time at the club would have read all the signs and acted to avert the awful muddle and mess we find ourselves in now.
The action needed regarding Paul Lambert has been sidelined by the ownership crisis. The search for a buyer for the club and how we are kept in the dark about it has all the hall marks of other lesser problems the club has had to face in the ownership of Randy Lerner, most notably the making of knee jerk decisions and the total absence of long term planning.
I want to see Lambert gone, but much more I want to see the ownership issue resolved. Without that things can only get worse.

[Drummond]

Every single club gets a shoeing at some point.

If it comes on the back of a string of results then perhaps it's the straw that breaks the camels back. However, you can look at at even more successful clubs, Man United, Arsenal, Man City etc and they have all been on the receiving end. Should they all have sacked the manager?

[curiousorange]

As terrible as that loss at Chelsea was, I think there comes a point where the fight has been beaten out of you for the afternoon. I'm not saying you should just give in and take a humiliation, but with a team like the one we put out, it's not surprising. At the time, i considered that Lambert was a youngish manager, he was going to take a hiding at some point as well as dish them out.

The mark of a team that is capable is how you bounce back from a defeat like that. I certainly expected us to be over it by the Wigan game, which was the worst of that run for me. Being tonked by Chelsea's multi-millions or ripped apart by Gareth Bale I can rationalise. Allowing Wigan the run of the park I can't excuse so readily.

[Clampy]

Personally I think sacking Lambert after the Chelsea 8-0 would have been ridiculous and unjustified. If he'd have got the boot after being knocked out of the cup by Sheff Utd, he couldn't have had too many complaints.

[Jon Crofts]

Don't let that 8-0 defeat take the gloss off the unremitting garbage passed off as football that's been served up for the past 2 and a bit seasons.  You need to see past that bad day at the office and see that for most of the rest of the time we've been consistently dire under this clown.  Lambert has proven time and time again he is incapable of turning things around or stringing together 3 wins on the trot or any sort of convincing run of form other than poor runs.  Not only is his ability to coach a team in serious doubt, not to mention his ability to change a game for the better with a tactical substitution but also his eye for his backroom staff and for that matter (apart from 1 or 2 exceptions in a bewildering array of turds) an eye for a player or players that would fill the glaringly obvious to all deficiencies in his squad.  And there's the kicker, this really is his Aston Villa he's assembled, granted it's been with limited funds, but he's had more to spend than his 2 predecessors put together and look at what we have, mediocrity at best, simply not good enough at worst.

I'd never wish defeat on Villa to see a manager fired, never, but just what will it take to see him fired and sent packing to where he really belongs, the lower reaches of the SPL maybe or League 1 would be his upper limit I'd imagine.  Good riddance to him whenever that day comes because for me it can't come soon enough.

[supertom]

Personally I think sacking Lambert after the Chelsea 8-0 would have been ridiculous and unjustified. If he'd have got the boot after being knocked out of the cup by Sheff Utd, he couldn't have had too many complaints.

He really should have gone after the Wigan defeat. That 15-0 over three games was atrocious. Not long after of course came the Bradford debacle.

Lambert has lead a charmed life here. He could have easily been turfed out time upon time at another club with the sort of results and performances he's had here.

[silhillvilla]

It wasn't just the 0-8 though it was the following 0-4 then 0-3 then Millwall and Bradford in a week that should have seen him fired.

[Dave]

It wasn't just the 0-8 though it was the following 0-4 then 0-3 then Millwall and Bradford in a week that should have seen him fired.

That's the point. Some people (well, one person) is saying that he should have been fired after the Chelsea game. Not after all the others.

Firing him after that sequence of results would be hard to have argued against, but before that sequence of results is just a tad nutty.