I always try and look for positives from each game but before they even kicked off I could see how the match was going to play out. If you are going to try and play a possession based passing game building from the back, you do not go into the game with a 4-3-3 formation, particularly if one of the 3 in midfield is Bacuna. To cap it all, Lambert then made the stupid substitution of Grealish for Cleverly. Granted Cleverly is not playing well (but not as bad as many are making out) but at least he is a proper midfield player that knows how to link play. The substitution should have been Grealish for either Gabby or Weimann.
The way Lambert is trying to play is so easy for the opposition to set themselves up for. All you have to do is put a wide player in the space in front of Hutton and Cissoko and we have nowhere to go with ball with the players we have got. You need the extra man in the middle so that the ball can be worked through the middle and draw the opposition wide players in and then create space for the fullbacks.
Going back to the point of possession football, you have to have players that have good first touch. Most of our players have absolutely crap ball control. Players in certain positions where they get more space and time can get away with it but not in the middle. When you see either Gabby or Weimann drop deep to receive the ball you are immediately thinking that we are in danger of turning the ball over. It reminds me of the Atkinson comment about Carlton Palmer when he said "Palmer covered every blade of grass on the pitch today but that was because his ball control was so poor".
No more excuses for the manager. Granted that we do not seem able to field the best team consistently because of injury and suspension, he cannot use the players available to play a system that suits.
