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

[silhillvilla]

We have been rather patient with the current Manager. But, yes, we are shit and I'm sick of it too.

We've been incredibly patient with him. He still hasn't had his "Bolton moment" yet, which is remarkable.

Burnley away was close

[Clampy]

We have been rather patient with the current Manager. But, yes, we are shit and I'm sick of it too.

We've been incredibly patient with him. He still hasn't had his "Bolton moment" yet, which is remarkable.

Burnley away was close

Only up until they equalised.

[claret and blue blood]

It wasn't MON making (yet again) shit substitutions after 60 minutes against Palace which my 16 year old son and I both predicted before the game,not out of any sense of football no how but borne out of the tedious predictability over the last 2 years.This debate is about Lambert who has had enough time ,support and control of things to be 100% to blame for how bad we are playing.

[pauliewalnuts]

Is anyone using it for an excuse, though?

I don't know about anyone else, but I don't think it is an excuse, in no way does it excuse the mess we are in today.

It does strike me as a pretty big contributing factor, though.

There are lots of others, the chairman, his appointments, his disengagement etc etc.

My main problem with Lambert is that, even if you accept he's working with less money than other Villa managers have, he still repeatedly fails to get the best out of what he has - he gets nothing near it, in fact - and keeps making the same mistakes.

That, isolated from other factors, is purely the fault of Paul Lambert.

Other problems, some of which go back several years, can be traced either to the MON flounce or to the fallout of his reign (particularly the financial one).

Maybe 'excuse' is the wrong word possibly but his name does seem to crop up whenever we go through a bad patch. If in two years time we're still going through the same problems, will his name crop up then? You know what, I think it will.

We'e been on a near continual bad patch for four years now, though. I certainly can't remember anything in that period suggestive of a good patch - maybe, at a push, the end of the Houllier year, but that's about it.

If we were still (emphasis on still) going through the same problems we have now in two years, then yes, MON would still crop up, and rightly so.

It is a contributing factor to why we are struggling now, and if we struggled for another two years, it'd almost certainly be for the same reasons.

On a massively simplified level, our major problem now (in my opinion) is the lack of interest of the chairman. That lack of interest, I believe is a direct result of his experiences with MON. If he then continues to remain hugely uninterested for another two or ten years, it will almost certainly still be for the same reasons.

Are you really suggesting, if for the sake of argument we were on manager no 4 in two years time, 6 years down the line, we should still be pointing the finger at MON if we were still not progressing?

It depends what you mean by "pointing the finger at MON". That to me still sounds like you're thinking I am saying "this is MON's fault". I am not.

If you mean "allocating a large portion of the blame to him", then, no. If you mean, "still seeing his time here as a contributing factor to our ongoing shitness" then yes.

If we get knocked out the cup by Blackpool tomorrow, I won't be pointing the finger at MON, not at all. I'll be pointing it at Lambert.

If in four years we are still here with a chairman who has had his fingers burned and doesn't give a shit, then, yes, of course MON will have contributed to that. His departure left us with a chairman who quite clearly had lost his love for it - and that is something he admitted in his weird "shummanite" press release.

There is no statute of limitations when you're talking about something like that.

We won't be able to point at the players on the pitch and say "that front line is shit and it's because of the shit players MON bought to play there", because those players won't be there anymore, of course it would be absurd to blame MON for that.

If we're still suffering under a couldn't-give-a-shit-any-more chairman who has decided to just park us and hope we don't go down because he's lost the love of the club after all the grief of the hangover of the MON era, then yes, of course MON will still be a factor.

I don't see how he can't be in circumstances like that.

[pauliewalnuts]

It wasn't MON making (yet again) shit substitutions after 60 minutes against Palace which my 16 year old son and I both predicted before the game,not out of any sense of football no how but borne out of the tedious predictability over the last 2 years.This debate is about Lambert who has had enough time ,support and control of things to be 100% to blame for how bad we are playing.

I don't think anyone has suggested otherwise.

[LTA]

O'Leary was just a prat.

Most football managers are one part politician, one part PR guru and only one part actual football boss.

O'Leary's problem was that he did have talent as a manager, as evidenced by his early stint at Leeds and with us. But then he just kept on talking.

All that pish about "high tempo attacking football,"  was more for his journalist mates (Holt, Winter et al) than the saps who actually attended Villa games.  "Villa?   They play high tempo attacking football.  It must be true, because David O'Leary keeps on saying it."

I don't buy into the theory that O'Neill's departure was calculated to cause maximum damage, and I never did.  I think the realisation just hit him on the eve of the season that Brand O'Neill could take a battering.  Up until that point, he still probably backed himself to get around Faulkner and bring in the likes of Robbie Keane and McGeady. Despite Davies, NRC, Luke Young, Shorey and all the other surplus stock still being on the payroll.  When Lerner actually put his foot down for once, that was that.   Not getting the Liverpool job despite his mate Dalglish putting him forward for it earlier in the summer was also a blow to his delicate ego.

On the surface, McLeish was more affable and seemed to be more of a straight shooter than the above pair. That didn't stop him coming out with some very O'Leary-sque dribble about "Villa not having a divine right to finish top 10 despite winning a European Cup back in the 80's" when the pressure was on in the latter stage of the season.

He made sure that Charlie Nick, Jeff Stelling and even Rambo were able to dig him out too "Villa fans never gave him a chance"  becoming the catchall excuse for that dismal season.  How much more of a chance should a manager who delivered the lowest amount of home wins in the club's history been given?  As it was, we gave him far more of a chance than those 'proper' Liverpool fans gave Hodgson.

Unlike all of the above, for all his many faults, Lambert is at least respectful of the club's history.  Whether that is genuine respect, or just toadying to preserve his job I'm not entirely sure. I do think a point an earlier poster made is pretty close to the mark.  Essentially, it seems he has a free pass.  Do well, and he'll have turned the club around against the odds. Do badly, and it will be a case of "well, what can any manager do there with the current budget constraints."  It's that PR aspect again:  Thanks to Charlie Nick and co, he'll be able to walk away with his reputation largely intact.

The London press have always looked down their noses at us in fairness.  This attitude of  "Aston Villa fans are ungrateful and nothings ever good enough for them".

I get fed up of this myth peddled out by uneducated halfwits like Mick Quinn that we don't give managers a chance.  We may not have agreed with the appointments of Houllier, McLeish and Lambert, but thats not the same as not giving them a chance.

Lerners left himself so open to criticism, and these managers are backed up by their mates in the press to the tune of, "their being let down by the owner and fans".
.

[OzVilla]

You cannot blame MON for the way Lerner has reacted for the last 4 years.

Maybe very early on but not years down the line.  This is now and has been for quite some time 100% Lerner.

[cdward]

Randy earned  £46m in 2009 finishing 6th with MON, he earned £74m in 2014 finishing 15th with Lambert. No wonder he had a change of heart with how MON was doing business, was happy to let him go, and cut our massive wage bills. As it stands if we finish 12th Randy will earn approx' £80m from this season.
Lambert is doing what the chairman wants. Modern football is all about the profit and loss.

[dave.woodhall]

Randy earned  £46m in 2009 finishing 6th with MON, he earned £74m in 2014 finishing 15th with Lambert. No wonder he had a change of heart with how MON was doing business, was happy to let him go, and cut our massive wage bills. As it stands if we finish 12th Randy will earn approx' £80m from this season.
Lambert is doing what the chairman wants. Modern football is all about the profit and loss.

Earned?

[cdward]

Acquired?

[Leighton]

I think others have suggested that if you let Lambert have a decent budget and do the recruiting for a better manager we'd be in a really decent spot. Some of his signings on not too large an outlay have been outstanding. He just doesn't know how to recruit and then put them together cohesively. It's all very haphazard and we go from one style/plan/theory/ideology (choose/delete as desired) to another.

It's a pretty big limitation, though, innit.

Like being a portrait artist who can only paint people with beards.

I'm going to commission him to paint my missus then. One of Walsall's finest.

[dave.woodhall]

Acquired?

You really think Randy saw a penny of that money?

[cdward]

Acquired?

You really think Randy saw a penny of that money?

Yes

[Villa in Denmark]

I think others have suggested that if you let Lambert have a decent budget and do the recruiting for a better manager we'd be in a really decent spot. Some of his signings on not too large an outlay have been outstanding. He just doesn't know how to recruit and then put them together cohesively. It's all very haphazard and we go from one style/plan/theory/ideology (choose/delete as desired) to another.

One of my former colleagues referred to this style of management as balloon squeezing.

Identify one problem area, apply some pressure to solve the problem and then be surprised when something else is out of shape. Apply pressure to the new problem and what a surprise, the first problem area is a problem again.

As others have said, 2 1/2 years and he still doesn't know how he wants to play.

The current alterations to our "style", aren't tweaking with an  established system that works, it at least the third attempt to find something that works in those 2 1/2 years.

Fair play for (finally) recognising that something needed to change.
Pity that 
1) it took so long
2) it still doesn't look like it's going to solve anything. (even allowing for it still being early days.)

We might not be significantly higher in the table with a better playing style, but we would at least stand a chance, we'd look a bit better proposition for potential signings and it would be a hell of a lot more fun.

[dave.woodhall]

Acquired?

You really think Randy saw a penny of that money?

Yes

In that case please tell us how, because every year the accounts say different.