It's not Sherwood!

[Monty]

The thing I've noticed so far is that his backroom staff also share Sherwoods enthusiasm.   I barely noticed Lambert communicating with the few staff he had left in the end.

I think the last few weeks, Lambert looked like he was broken, to be honest.

No animation, like you said, not much communication, just sat there on the bench looking like he was enjoying it about as much as we were.

In fairness, Lambert was very animated in the early part of his reign, but that all stopped in the end, apart from occasionally shuffling to the touchline and clapping his hands that is.

Tony Parks in particular really gets involved.  K-Mac seems quite reserved, but I think that's his style.

You need a mix of characters, of course, but I wonder if Sherwood hired them (in part) for their personalities or if his personality is rubbing off on them, because one thing Sherwood does seem to have is that contagious enthusiasm.

[pauliewalnuts]

The thing I've noticed so far is that his backroom staff also share Sherwoods enthusiasm.   I barely noticed Lambert communicating with the few staff he had left in the end.

I think the last few weeks, Lambert looked like he was broken, to be honest.

No animation, like you said, not much communication, just sat there on the bench looking like he was enjoying it about as much as we were.

In fairness, Lambert was very animated in the early part of his reign, but that all stopped in the end, apart from occasionally shuffling to the touchline and clapping his hands that is.  His reaction when the Hull's second goal went in in his last game said it all.  You could tell he was at his wits end and he didn't know what else to do.

Tony Parks in particular really gets involved.  K-Mac seems quite reserved, but I think that's his style.

The thing I don't get about Lambert is how many of the things which were "present" in his early times here, were nowhere to be seen in the end times.

Remember that first season, we were largely crap then, too, but we had loads of energy. If we lost the ball, we'd run like fuck to get it back again, and try to do something. We also scored some spectacular goals that season, as well.

Now look at this season.

Totally stopped trying to win the ball back when we didn't have it (well before his tiki taka experiment), no enthusiasm, stopped scoring goals, let alone brilliant ones.

It all just seemed so negative. I wonder what it was like at BMH, with just him doing the coaching towards the end?

I know a few people "hate" him, but I have absolutely no personal animosity towards Lambert. I thought we'd made a good appointment when he came, but it turned out not to be. What I don't get, however, is how on earth he let it get so bad.

For long spells, we didn't just look poor, we looked like we weren't particularly bothered about looking poor, and that's something he has to take accountability for.

I wasn't bothered when it didn't work out with McLeish, because it just seemed so inevitable right from the start, and although I think Houllier gets a tough deal retrospectively (in some ways), I wasn't that bothered with him, but I really, really wanted it to work out with us for Lambert.

[clash city rocker]

Was it a case that deep down Lambert lost his faith in his own abilities? . Once you start doubting yourself you tend to go back into your shell.

[Toronto Villa]

By the end Lambert was just a walking excuse. Never any accountability. Always hiding behind the mysterious circumstances at the club. Like he was a pawn for some secret society as opposed to manager of a football club. Sherwood has the situation by the scruff of the neck and not allowed the miserable position in which he inherited the club to be an anchor. He has very quickly changed entirely how we play, how we approach games and put in place a coaching staff to share the duties. Something Lambert never did after his mates were fired. I wanted Lambert to succeed and gave him all of my support until I simply couldn't.

We may never win the league under Sherwood but I do know that every game he will go out to win. He will wear his emotions on his sleeve like we all do as fans. He wants goals and entertainment. All of the things that Lambert promised and looked like he was delivering. That it fell apart isn't completely surprising. It's to the extent that it fell apart and the dramatic decline from scoring freely to not scoring at all. Nobody could have seen that coming and I'm glad he's gone.

[PeterWithesShin]

I just think the job defeated him. He looked a broken man and I wanted him to leave for his own sake, as well as obviously ours.

[pauliewalnuts]

Sherwood has the situation by the scruff of the neck and not allowed the miserable position in which he inherited the club to be an anchor. He has very quickly changed entirely how we play, how we approach games and put in place a coaching staff to share the duties. Something Lambert never did after his mates were fired.

To be fair to Lambert, he too changed the way we play and the way we approached games - that's why he had such remarkable levels of support after his first season, in which the results were god awful.

I am pleased with a lot of the things Sherwood has done so far (although, look at the stats, they're not really too brilliant, truth be told) but won't be making any judgements about the permanence of what he has done until we see it over a longer period of time.

I read something somewhere today in one of the papers about Sherwood's job being "easy" because he was following someone who had totally fucked it up. Which struck me as incredibly short memoried, as that is exactly what it was like when Lambert started.

I have no idea about that Karsa Culverhouse situation, though. That's one of the things that makes me wonder what sort of management was coming from above Lambert to allow that coaching situation to be so volatile for so long.

[Toronto Villa]

See I don't think there is anything easy about what Sherwood walked into. That he has been able to lift an entire club in a few short weeks is hugely impressive. Think about how we looked at Hull or even any of the miserable games leading up to it. To think that same bunch of players fought hard and won at Spurs yesterday is almost nuts. The players, fans etc couldn't have been at a lower ebb and we now look like going from guaranteed relegation candidates to where we likely be reasonable comfortable in the end.

Sherwood's big task will be over the summer. There will be so much change and movement and he'll have to negotiate all of that and build a side that never again is in a relegation battle. That's where we will really see what we have.

[brian green]

Trying to be as charitable as I can to both McLeish and Lambert I think they were both victims of their loyalty to the owner.   Because of that loyalty they would not take risks.   Sherwood on the other hand is prepared to take risks and generates self belief in those he is asking to follow his lead.

[pauliewalnuts]

i think part of the problem with Lambert was that he had a relatively short managerial career and had never experienced, if not failure, then severe struggle before.

Up the leagues with Norwich, everything going hunky dory with a club with low expectations. Then he moves somewhere with higher expectations, and it isn't long before he's consistently up against it, a feeling he's not used to.

Basically, he failed for the first time.

[ciggiesnbeer]

Agree Toronto. The downward momentum we had was huge. Many people (including myself and I suspect many of the players) thought we were just down.

Sherwood has taken a risk on his career (So Mr. Sherwood the first job you were hired as a manager you relegated them?) and more importantly he just sets us up without fear. He wants us to win, every game, period. That is infectious.

Someone else said yesterday, I used to dread or sigh when Villa were playing now I genuinely relish it, we are not world beaters but at least we are fun to watch again.

[clash city rocker]

If sherwood was not totally convinced about the passion and level of support Villa have then the albion cup game will have confirmed to him that doing a good job here will mean that he will always be a sought  after manager.I think a few good seasons here will see him bleed claret and blue for the rest of his life.

[Monty]

In one sense Sherwood had a fairly easy hand because things had become so crushingly terrible under his predecessor. On the other hand, he had a very difficult one because of how crushingly terrible things had become under his predecessor. The main change seems to me the mentality of the team, and we're now performing somewhere at par for the ability of the players (capable of losing at home to Swansea or winning away at Spurs). It's not a completely spectacular turnaround, but given the sheer despondency around the club before he arrived it's impressive enough.

[pauliewalnuts]

Someone else said yesterday, I used to dread or sigh when Villa were playing now I genuinely relish it, we are not world beaters but at least we are fun to watch again.

Again, not trying to denigrate Sherwood at all, but that is pretty much exactly what we said when Lambert started.

He has done OKish so far. I hope he'll do much better and am happy to give him a couple of seasons at least, but experience suggests we should probably not get too carried away too quickly.

[Monty]

Someone else said yesterday, I used to dread or sigh when Villa were playing now I genuinely relish it, we are not world beaters but at least we are fun to watch again.

Again, not trying to denigrate Sherwood at all, but that is pretty much exactly what we said when Lambert started.

He has done OKish so far. I hope he'll do much better and am happy to give him a couple of seasons at least, but experience suggests we should probably not get too carried away too quickly.

That's pretty much my view. Well done on steadying the ship, but we'll need to see where he actually steers it long term.

[Dante Lavelli]

Thing is, Lambert sometimes had good tactical ideas as well - why not say 'only a good tactician could have served up such a comfortable win away at Liverpool'? The biggest difference I can see is one of attitude, and if the tactics aren't awful then that attitude will be able to come through. Lambert could have been training the players like Guardiola and it probably wouldn't have made a difference.

There's an article in today's Observer which touches on how attitude can make such a big difference.  The crux of the article is that 3 of the 4 managers of this years chump league semi finals played in the same barca team (the team created many other managers and Mourinho was the assistant).  One of the quotes was that the philosophy of that barca team was to always attack "Every time Cruyff needed a solution, he attacked more".  Another player said that it was so much fun that it was natural for the players to want to continue the fun, coaching being the obvious avenue.

Clearly I'm not putting Sherwood in Guardiola territory but it's easier to imagine the players being enthused and engaged with him involved rather than the broken Lambert which we ended up with.