Aston Villa v Stoke City post match thread

[pauliewalnuts]

It was dire stuff but it seems like the Lambert Out brigade were almost hoping for something like this after the last two home games. And some of the biggest vitriol is coming from people who don't actually go to games. I can't defend today but let's at least see how the rest of the season plays out before we get all the knives out of the drawer for him.

Would you have given Alex McLeish any more time? Lambert is totally useless and must go, taking all of his ex-Norwich staff with him.

My opinion of TSM was he should stay until the end of the season as he would grind out just enough points to keep us up. Then for a number of reasons he should go. My opinion of Lambert is he should be given the rest of this season and then a calm and balanced decision needs to be made one way or the other. Which given his contract situation I am sure is what will happen.

I find the suggestion he should be sacked now, or at any point past Christmas really hard to accept. That strikes me as nuts.

To sack a manager at that point in the season, you need to be in desperate straits, which we are not. You're not just sacking the manager, you're committing yourself to finding a new one at a really inopportune time. To lumber yourself in that situation, you've got to really, really want the manager out very quickly.

I do think, though, like you said, that there needs to be a conversation at the end of the season about what happens next. We're not at the end of the season yet, but the way things are going so far, unless something amazing happens between now and the end, I'd be in favour of pulling the trigger, but as you said, let's see how it pans out.

FWIW I don't actually think there's a Lambert Out brigade at all.

I think what we have is a large Pro-Lambert grouping who are finding that their reasons to stay Pro Lambert are getting chipped away at week after week. It's not so much a growing anti-movement as a shrinking pro-movement.

[Ad@m]

The home form is frustrating but the most depressing part of Lambert's tenure for me is the regular utter embarrassments he's led us to.

Biggest defeat in our entire history. Losing a two-legged match to a 4th division side. Regular cup defeats to lower league opposition. And now a total hiding at home to Stoke of all teams.

Lambert's creating a legacy at the Villa for all the wrong reasons.

[Dave Clark Five]

It was dire stuff but it seems like the Lambert Out brigade were almost hoping for something like this after the last two home games. And some of the biggest vitriol is coming from people who don't actually go to games. I can't defend today but let's at least see how the rest of the season plays out before we get all the knives out of the drawer for him.

Would you have given Alex McLeish any more time? Lambert is totally useless and must go, taking all of his ex-Norwich staff with him.

My opinion of TSM was he should stay until the end of the season as he would grind out just enough points to keep us up. Then for a number of reasons he should go. My opinion of Lambert is he should be given the rest of this season and then a calm and balanced decision needs to be made one way or the other. Which given his contract situation I am sure is what will happen.

Once we are safe, which somehow we nearly are, what would be wrong with getting a new manager in? It would give him time to get working with the squad before the start of next season. I know that is unlikely to happen but just hope that Lambert has been told by the board that his card is marked.

[Ad@m]

It was dire stuff but it seems like the Lambert Out brigade were almost hoping for something like this after the last two home games. And some of the biggest vitriol is coming from people who don't actually go to games. I can't defend today but let's at least see how the rest of the season plays out before we get all the knives out of the drawer for him.

Would you have given Alex McLeish any more time? Lambert is totally useless and must go, taking all of his ex-Norwich staff with him.

My opinion of TSM was he should stay until the end of the season as he would grind out just enough points to keep us up. Then for a number of reasons he should go. My opinion of Lambert is he should be given the rest of this season and then a calm and balanced decision needs to be made one way or the other. Which given his contract situation I am sure is what will happen.

Once we are safe, which somehow we nearly are, what would be wrong with getting a new manager in? It would give him time to get working with the squad before the start of next season. I know that is unlikely to happen but just hope that Lambert has been told by the board that his card is marked.

Because finding a decent manager in April is virtually impossible?

[Dave Clark Five]

It was dire stuff but it seems like the Lambert Out brigade were almost hoping for something like this after the last two home games. And some of the biggest vitriol is coming from people who don't actually go to games. I can't defend today but let's at least see how the rest of the season plays out before we get all the knives out of the drawer for him.

Would you have given Alex McLeish any more time? Lambert is totally useless and must go, taking all of his ex-Norwich staff with him.

My opinion of TSM was he should stay until the end of the season as he would grind out just enough points to keep us up. Then for a number of reasons he should go. My opinion of Lambert is he should be given the rest of this season and then a calm and balanced decision needs to be made one way or the other. Which given his contract situation I am sure is what will happen.

Once we are safe, which somehow we nearly are, what would be wrong with getting a new manager in? It would give him time to get working with the squad before the start of next season. I know that is unlikely to happen but just hope that Lambert has been told by the board that his card is marked.

Because finding a decent manager in April is virtually impossible?

We certainly haven't got one now.

[pauliewalnuts]

It was dire stuff but it seems like the Lambert Out brigade were almost hoping for something like this after the last two home games. And some of the biggest vitriol is coming from people who don't actually go to games. I can't defend today but let's at least see how the rest of the season plays out before we get all the knives out of the drawer for him.

Would you have given Alex McLeish any more time? Lambert is totally useless and must go, taking all of his ex-Norwich staff with him.

My opinion of TSM was he should stay until the end of the season as he would grind out just enough points to keep us up. Then for a number of reasons he should go. My opinion of Lambert is he should be given the rest of this season and then a calm and balanced decision needs to be made one way or the other. Which given his contract situation I am sure is what will happen.

Once we are safe, which somehow we nearly are, what would be wrong with getting a new manager in? It would give him time to get working with the squad before the start of next season. I know that is unlikely to happen but just hope that Lambert has been told by the board that his card is marked.

Because finding a decent manager in April is virtually impossible?

We certainly haven't got one now.

That's not the major point, though, is it?

I am firmly in the "far from convinced" camp with Lambert, but if we're going to change manager, I can't even begin to see why we'd opt to do it at the end of March when we're very unlikely to go down rather than wait till the summer, when we will have other options.

Too many people thinking in terms of "bloodlust" - they want us to express the degree to which this isn't good enough by getting show NOW rather than at the most sensible time for the club.

[Irish villain]

Today was a huge disappointment.

If he can't motivate them after the last two games and the chance to  pull away from the mire then I don't know when he can.

But, he is just a symptom of the problems at Villa Park under three successive managers. What has been happening on the pitch is as much a symptom of the ineptitude in the dugout as it is of dysfunctional systems at the club headed by somebody who stopped attending games on a regular basis about the same time as our decline started.

[Irish villain]

Was the Holt signing worth it. He can't run.

His signing summed up the lowering of expectations for me.

[adrenachrome]

Lambert's response of 'I expect I'll get blamed for that' would explain why we have such a petulant side. We were pathetic and had no character today.

Yet expecting him to take the blame for 5 and a half years when he wasn't here is fine? It was shit today - but that record isn't all, or even mostly, his. In fact, half of it is with a manager who gave us more 'success' than we'd see n in a long time.

Well of course not, but who's blaming Lambert for our record before he arrived? I don't think anyone is.

The question itself does. The fact that some consiider him refusing to accept the blame for stuff that happened years before he got here is 'petuleant' does. The fact that part of this record occurred whilst we were heading for 3 6th place finishes & a league cup final & an FA cup semi final shows that this stuff means f all anyway.

Again who is blaming him for our home form over the last 5 years or so? I don't think anyone is. If you want to raise questions about our home record since he arrived then that's a different matter, because it's been atrocious.

That's what I am saying - why ask him about 7 years of home form? The relative 'success' during that time show that such stats are meaningless. Why not ask him about the home form under his management? Then judge whether his responses are 'petulant'.

Our home form has been awful, even some of the wins have been hard to watch. Why not ask him about that rather than a set of result s that happened when more when Martin O'Neil was here than him? - which clearly show what a pointless argument this is.

I said this morning that I'd stick by him following what I fully expected to be another Stoke debacle, and I do, but that doesn't mean I just accept today.

In answer to your question, which I have emboldened, the journo is throwing him a bone in the form a question which is really "Have a pop at your fans, why don't you?".  To which he duly obliged.  MoN was not only on a different planet, he was in a different stratosphere to this chap, in this repect.

The substantive question is: how many wretchedly poor home performances before the fans revolt in one form or another. I would suggest we are very near breaking point.

[bertlambshank]

We have become a dull club,I think it won't get any better for a long time.
Get used to it guy's it's been coming.

[Toronto Villa]

'm in the pro Lambert brigade because I want to see him succeed. I'm also finding my justifications for him remaining Villa manager being eroded like the cliffs of Dover every day. It isn't just him. Today wasn't his fault entirely. If it was then the fast start and goal need to be attributed to him along with last weeks win. If he's going to take all of the blame then it stands to reason he should get all of the credit.

In reality the truth is in the middle, and while the buck stops with him the players need to be held accountable also. Today they gave up after our goal, which in itself is just bizarre. Because the way we played after the goal you'd think Lambert sent out new instructions to shut up shop and stop playing which you know he didn't.

[olaftab]

Was the Holt signing worth it. He can't run.

His signing summed up the lowering of expectations for me.

I have never known a more ineffective player in a Villa shirt.

[pauliewalnuts]

That's true, the players are far from blameless, but ultimately, they're his players, he trains them, he sets them up. It's not as if this is a one-off either.

I also think there's a decent amount of evidence to suggest he doesn't know what he's doing tactically. Albrighton through the middle? Really? For most of our really poor performances this season, there have been instances of tactical mentalness.

And that's even before getting to his outbreaks of utter mentalness (5 up front against Bradford, for example).

[pauliewalnuts]

Was the Holt signing worth it. He can't run.

His signing summed up the lowering of expectations for me.

I have never known a more ineffective player in a Villa shirt.

He's a proper man, though.

[PeterWithesShin]

Was the Holt signing worth it. He can't run.

His signing summed up the lowering of expectations for me.

I have never known a more ineffective player in a Villa shirt.

Balaban and Jenas.