Bruce Sacked at last (now official)

[paul_e]

I generally liked Lambert and thought he was a good appointment, but the way he meekly accepted the conditions and uncertainty imposed by Randy was unacceptable.  A decent manager would have kicked up a stink to change it or found a new club.

I think the 'backs to the wall, plucky underdog' vibe suits him more than being responsible for a genuinely big club so he was more than happy to be able to tell everyone how hard a job it was, that's why he never kicked up a stink.

[simboy]

He shouldn't have gone after the eight-nil. He should've been punted after Millwall though. That was a completely unacceptable series of results. Managers who had actually achieved something, Barton and Atkinson for instance, were sacked for less.

he did follow up the ignominy of 8-0 with  a loss to Spurs and Wigwam 4-0 and 3-0 respectively both at Villa Park. Followed by a 3-1 defeat at Bradford who i think were a league 2 side at the time and followed it up with going out the FA cup to Milwall. 


that's ignoring the 5-0 battering we took off Man City, 4-1 against Southampton earlier in the season. 

5 wins at home all season

How he managed to stay at that point is anyone's guess. i suppose that really does show state our board were in at the time. 

knocked out the cup by Sheffield United the following year after saying that the FA cup was a distraction

the man was an utter clown





 

[The Edge]

He shouldn't have gone after the eight-nil. He should've been punted after Millwall though. That was a completely unacceptable series of results. Managers who had actually achieved something, Barton and Atkinson for instance, were sacked for less.

The only problem with that is that, after Millwall, we started to tick.  The next match was the Newcastle game where we lost but things just started to tick and, for me, halftime that day was the turning point of that season and from then to the Liverpool game at the start of the next year we looked a genuinely good team who should've been on course to improve, but for whatever reason Lambert fucked about with the bits that had been working well (he dropped Lowton and Sylla who had been key to our turnaround) and did nothing to strengthen the weak areas (Gabby and Weimann).

That summer he really needed to make 2-3 signings to come straight into the first 11 but instead he picked up 7 signings and only Okore was arguably an upgrade on what we had and even he was very raw.

Okore came with some promising credentials. Good stopper and built like a tank. Which turned out to be an accurate description of his ability. Slow and cumbersome but you wouldn't want to run into him. His calamitous o/g against Luton highlighted all his limitations.

[The Edge]

He shouldn't have gone after the eight-nil. He should've been punted after Millwall though. That was a completely unacceptable series of results. Managers who had actually achieved something, Barton and Atkinson for instance, were sacked for less.

he did follow up the ignominy of 8-0 with  a loss to Spurs and Wigwam 4-0 and 3-0 respectively both at Villa Park. Followed by a 3-1 defeat at Bradford who i think were a league 2 side at the time and followed it up with going out the FA cup to Milwall. 


that's ignoring the 5-0 battering we took off Man City, 4-1 against Southampton earlier in the season. 

5 wins at home all season

How he managed to stay at that point is anyone's guess. i suppose that really does show state our board were in at the time. 

knocked out the cup by Sheffield United the following year after saying that the FA cup was a distraction

the man was an utter clown

Can't disagree with one word of that.

[KevinGage]

What I could never understand about Lambert was that we got out of trouble in his first season by playing football. From memory the last third of the seaosn was solid mid-table form and included some really good performances such as the wins at Stoke and Norwich and the Sunderland 6-1, starring the much-criticised young and hungries. We had a platform to build on then he went backwards.

Our defensive vulnerability during that dodgy run spooked him, it seems.  And he brought in a defensive coach (Marshall?) at the seasons end.

We were noticeably harder to break down after that, but any attacking zip we had (Benteke apart) perished.  Most were prepared to wear it initially: the price to pay for a team in transition.  But we continued with that backs to the wall dour underdog football for the bulk of his tenure.

Had we continued as we had in that latter stage of his first season, or mirrored his 2011/12 Norwich side (defensively suspect, but playing on the front foot and scoring goals)  I don't think there would have been too many arguments.

[adrenachrome]

O'Neill used pace as his weapon though, in turning the defence into attack.

Whereas Lambert used lack of pace as his weapon in turning attack into defence.

Lambo, having studied the works of Karl Marx while at Dortmund, well understood the dialectical process of things turning into their opposite.

[mr underhill]

so much of a disciple that he begs someone to fire him for being a total failure whilst trousering compo payment's the size of Peru's GDP. Total cnut.

[SoccerHQ]

What I could never understand about Lambert was that we got out of trouble in his first season by playing football. From memory the last third of the seaosn was solid mid-table form and included some really good performances such as the wins at Stoke and Norwich and the Sunderland 6-1, starring the much-criticised young and hungries. We had a platform to build on then he went backwards.

I think the big problem there is not getting the funds to back up what was a decent end to the season.

That's probably where I have most sympathy around that time in his tenure. He'd spent minimal the year before on mostly league 1-2 players, found Benteke and we ended that season playing well and finally having some momentum again.

Lerner should've loosened  the purse strings a little bit given there was no talk of him selling at that point and built on it. Instead we this time were bargain basement shopping over europe and came up with Luna, Bacuna, Okore, Helenius etc.

That said all summer we were crying out for a midfield playmaker (linked with Belhanda and Kioyatke) and he didn't help himself by spending 7m on Kozak when Benteke was already staying. And as soon as Kozak got injured he went and got Grant Holt on loan!

[dave.woodhall]

What I could never understand about Lambert was that we got out of trouble in his first season by playing football. From memory the last third of the seaosn was solid mid-table form and included some really good performances such as the wins at Stoke and Norwich and the Sunderland 6-1, starring the much-criticised young and hungries. We had a platform to build on then he went backwards.

I think the big problem there is not getting the funds to back up what was a decent end to the season.

That's probably where I have most sympathy around that time in his tenure. He'd spent minimal the year before on mostly league 1-2 players, found Benteke and we ended that season playing well and finally having some momentum again.

Lerner should've loosened  the purse strings a little bit given there was no talk of him selling at that point and built on it. Instead we this time were bargain basement shopping over europe and came up with Luna, Bacuna, Okore, Helenius etc.

That said all summer we were crying out for a midfield playmaker (linked with Belhanda and Kioyatke) and he didn't help himself by spending 7m on Kozak when Benteke was already staying. And as soon as Kozak got injured he went and got Grant Holt on loan!

There was enough money,  it was the disjointed nature of how it was spent that caused the problems.  First summer from the lower leagues,  the next from Europe and the third from the Premier League's cast-offs.

[paul_e]

That summer he spent about £17m on 7 players.  If he'd spent it on 2-3 instead things would've been different.

[eamonn]

Lambert had more money to spend, (didn't we have a bid turned-down for Clint Dempsey? Fairly sure someone on here with contacts, even if it was possibly Pelty, was adamant there was more for him in the pot).

I think his default position as an underdog manager in the mould of his mentor, the mighty Martin, meant that he got scared of how big the Villa job was and scared that he would get found-out.
The most dishonest man we'd had in charge since O'Leary. He was a chancer and getting frustrated at clubs a couple of rungs lower than us is about his level.

[Mister E]

What I could never understand about Lambert was that we got out of trouble in his first season by playing football. From memory the last third of the seaosn was solid mid-table form and included some really good performances such as the wins at Stoke and Norwich and the Sunderland 6-1, starring the much-criticised young and hungries. We had a platform to build on then he went backwards.

I think the big problem there is not getting the funds to back up what was a decent end to the season.

That's probably where I have most sympathy around that time in his tenure. He'd spent minimal the year before on mostly league 1-2 players, found Benteke and we ended that season playing well and finally having some momentum again.

Lerner should've loosened  the purse strings a little bit given there was no talk of him selling at that point and built on it. Instead we this time were bargain basement shopping over europe and came up with Luna, Bacuna, Okore, Helenius etc.

That said all summer we were crying out for a midfield playmaker (linked with Belhanda and Kioyatke) and he didn't help himself by spending 7m on Kozak when Benteke was already staying. And as soon as Kozak got injured he went and got Grant Holt on loan!

A good coach would have not only got more out of the squad he had: he'd also have blended Okore and Helenius into the squad and made more of their potential. During the Lamberk years, we had the festering culture of toxic attitude which started under Houllier and still seem to exist, to an extent; not solved but left to develop like a superbug.

[john e]

said this before but there is very little difference between Lambert, Mcliesh, Bruce, Moyes and many other typical British managers of the same ilk,
 they have all had a hay day or two in the past but ultimately are not what we need

[Ads]

What I could never understand about Lambert was that we got out of trouble in his first season by playing football. From memory the last third of the seaosn was solid mid-table form and included some really good performances such as the wins at Stoke and Norwich and the Sunderland 6-1, starring the much-criticised young and hungries. We had a platform to build on then he went backwards.

We started the following season well too; battered Arsenal and we're completely cheated away at Chelsea. Then it was diabolical thereafter.

[dave.woodhall]

What I could never understand about Lambert was that we got out of trouble in his first season by playing football. From memory the last third of the seaosn was solid mid-table form and included some really good performances such as the wins at Stoke and Norwich and the Sunderland 6-1, starring the much-criticised young and hungries. We had a platform to build on then he went backwards.

We started the following season well too; battered Arsenal and we're completely cheated away at Chelsea. Then it was diabolical thereafter.

Even then we had that run where we beat Norwich and Chelsea,  we were a goal up against Stoke and playing well,  then they got three in ten minutes and we fell apart after that.