Paul Lambert

There's only so many times you can play the 'three teams shittier than us' card. It's like a game of a Russian Roulette...for the last few seasons, when we squeezed the trigger, it went 'click'. By the law of averages, one day it's going to go 'bang'. Then it will be who'd a'thought it.

The work is in the mindset. You might argue that Lerner and Faulkner do not have fantastic records of getting the right man for the job (although the very early background appointments were very promising indeed) but assuming they get a DoF or some form of senior advisor in to run his eye over the day to day operations on the footballing side of things, then it's not that big a change.

It's getting that mind-set right. In the beginning they had some very big hitters in who knew all about sports management. Quite why they've all gone is anyones guess. It'd be hard to argue that Randy is a control freak when his absence from Villa Park and the MoN fiasco would point to him being anything but. But clearly something fundamental changed. And that needs to be re-visited because the way this club is run now (footballing wise) is rudderless.

So how hard is it to change your mental approach?

Firestarter wrote:There's only so many times you can play the 'three teams shittier than us' card. It's like a game of a Russian Roulette...for the last few seasons, when we squeezed the trigger, it went 'click'. By the law of averages, one day it's going to go 'bang'.  Then it will be who'd a'thought it.

We have had our fair share of luck, and we all know that sooner or later it will run out.

We HAVE had our fair share of luck. We have also had our share of things like chronic injury problems. And yet, good luck or bad, we're still bobbling about the foot of the table only to "Wigan" ourselves at the last minute.

You're right...sooner or later we will get flushed.

Teams who do what we are doing eventually go down, and we need a change of policy within the club to get in a football man at board level.
Someone like SGT would do the job.

Would or could? I don't think he would. But he certainly could.

Again, I'd opt for a Jurgen Klinsmann type. European, forward thinking, connected, knowledgeable, respected.

lets face it Ronald McDonald would be an improvement on what we have now.

Holtender1982 wrote:

Firestarter wrote:There's only so many times you can play the 'three teams shittier than us' card. It's like a game of a Russian Roulette...for the last few seasons, when we squeezed the trigger, it went 'click'. By the law of averages, one day it's going to go 'bang'.  Then it will be who'd a'thought it.

We have had our fair share of luck, and we all know that sooner or later it will run out.

I tried to argue on Horns how lucky we were that it was such a poor division. The usual suspects came running to counter it. We have been shocking this season. How the hell can we be sitting mid table?

I agree with what has been said so far.

If we continue to play at this level, then it really is only a matter of time before relegation occurs. It has been seen so many times before.

That aside, most of the season has been shocking - but there have been moments when the team has clicked and it has been incredible to watch. But these moments have been incredibly few and far between... I find it incredibly frustrating - the team can play well, but the inconsistency means you'll never know which team turns up.

And that is a management issue there, surely???

I am no fan any more of Lambert. But Culverhouse is trouble at BH, big time.

BillyBleach wrote:I am no fan any more of Lambert. But Culverhouse is trouble at BH, big time.

Oh no, has something else happened?

Not one thing, just general day to day. He's not liked.

I think I might have changed my mind on that new contract, after our last two...

He's such an enigma. Occasionally he sends them out and they play out of their skins and compete as well as any villa side of the past ten years.

Then, they turn in turgid dross for weeks on end and drop points all over the place.

More of the former please Lambert.

It is odd. Lets be honest, we were desperately poor for much of last season, then at one stage we clicked and played well. There's a chance we'll be going the same way after our last two games, so its really frustrating.

The Martinez Wigan team were the same. Shite for most of the season, then clicked towards the end.

And Moyes used to be notorious for that at Everton. What frustrated me this season was the fact that we gave ourselves a great platform in the first two games and never kicked on and in fact were just really shit.

Billy McBingo wrote:It is odd. Lets be honest, we were desperately poor for much of last season, then at one stage we clicked and played well. There's a chance we'll be going the same way after our last two games, so its really frustrating.

The Martinez Wigan team were the same. Shite for most of the season, then clicked towards the end.

Yea, right up until the didn't improve at the end of the season.

I've said for a long time now that when we win, it's usually despite Lambert. The regularity of our wins would point to it being more blind luck/other team having a bad day rather than Lambert being some master genius football manager.

And with 38% possession at home, this was almost like an away much with us prepared to sit and wait for the counter.

Had the handball decision gone Chelsea's way (and let's face it, being a Top 4 side, it was likely) and Delph not scored, we'd be moaning like fuck now.

Yes, yes, if my aunty had bollocks she'd be my uncle but it was far from comfortable and whilst Lambert goes up a wrung on my opinion ladder, he's still only on wrung #2.

I just wish we could find a measure of consistency, if this manager can find that then he can build.

Trotters wrote:I've said for a long time now that when we win, it's usually despite Lambert.

It seems harsh to me to lay the blame at someone's door for every defeat and then say that it was nothing to do with them when we win. I'd agree that some of the evidence does make that case persuasive, though. Our customary game plan of playing on the counter attack is obviously going to perform better against Chelsea (one of the few teams who would feel comfortable attacking away from home) and it was a moment of brilliance from Delph that got us the goal so that would support the 'despite Lambert' hypothesis. However, I'd say that we've had periods under Lambert where we've performed well that can't really be pinpointed on external factors, the run we had at the end of last season where we finally got it right being the big one. Yes, Benteke was a standout performer but who signed him (at a time when some people on a certain other forum reckoned he was some kind of Belgian Heskey) and picked him ahead of an £18million player who had been our top goal scorer in the two previous seasons (a decision that many in the media and some of our own fans felt was various kinds of barmy).  

Trotters wrote:And with 38% possession at home, this was almost like an away much with us prepared to sit and wait for the counter.

Had the handball decision gone Chelsea's way (and let's face it, being a Top 4 side, it was likely) and Delph not scored, we'd be moaning like fuck now.

Yes, yes, if my aunty had bollocks she'd be my uncle but it was far from comfortable.

Well yes, but equally  you're not going to see a lower midtable side beating the team who are top of the table by completely dominating the game and being comfortable very often, are you? Against somebody like Chelsea containment and counter attacking is a good way to go. They seek to dominate possession both home and away against teams outside of the top few (where ironically their approach is to sit and wait for the counter). It's when you try that approach against say, Sunderland at home who, being the away team, will not look to attack that that is a problem. And yes, decisions played in our favour today, but only as much they went against us at Stamford Bridge. Had the referee had a perfect game in both matches we'd possibly have lost today and won there and as a consequence been in exactly the same position points wise over the two games. It's trite to say that refereeing decisions balance out over the course of a season but I think our two matches against Chelsea provide some support for that cliche.

He got his approach right, as evinced by how it worked. Problem is that it does seem to be the approach he takes at least 90% of the time, rather than the 10 or 20% of the time that he should try to use it. I do think at the end of the day then that it is a more than a bit unfair to say, after an excellent result that it is in spite of the manager rather than because of him. Though I suppose the adage 'one swallow doesn't make a summer' holds a lot of truth.

I was being somewhat facetious about the new contract comment, problem is that if you want Lambert sacked he hasn't really performed badly enough to deserve that. Most of us expected us to be midtable this season and we are in midtable, which is where we will most likely finish. The only unexpected issue being that the bottom half is weaker (or more competitive) than expected.

"You're only as good as your last result" is an oft heard phrase. I don't buy into it. If that's the case then Lambert and Villa are champions league quality. But we all know that's not the case.

Lambert has to be judged over the term of his contract thus far bearing in mind the conditions he's had to work with. If I'm going to dismiss results like our last one against Chelsea as a lucky high point, then I also have to put shocking losses against Bradford and Millwall to one side. But even ignoring those poor results, the league performances have, largely, been massively shit - this weekend has brought about the first time we've had back-to-back wins in over 4 years. In no way is that even close to being acceptable.

He's had £60m to spend which puts us mid table in the spending charts. Now you could argue that we tend to finish mid table so what's the problem?
And that'd be a fair argument but it's not that we've been top half for most and dropped down a little at the last moment or that we've been comfortably mid table for the last few seasons. We've been very UNcomfortable for all bar a few weeks. And I don't think you'll find too many Villa fans that'll say that, aside from the very odd weekend, that they find Villa entertaining to watch. I suspect the ratio of "Oh For Fuck's sake" to "Get in!" is about 100:1.

I did a comparison of the cost/value ratio of our (average) season ticket price to Liverpool's (most expensive) season ticket price on another thread and they get better value for wins and goals per £ spent - yes, that's a problem you can level at the owner too, and I will - but, for me, I cannot accept the seemingly constant battle at the bottom of the league year in, year out.

If you give an average manager average resources then you should expect average football.
If you give a fantastic manager average resources then you should expect slightly better than average football.
If you give a shit manager average resources then you can expect dull performances, relegation concerns, early cup exits, poor tactics and a lack of goals/entertainment.

It's clear which one we have.

I agree with a lot of your points there, I don't think he is doing a brilliant job. That said, I wouldn't go as far as to say that he's doing a shit one either, for that matter. And I don't think tonight is the time to be discussing this...

Two points I'd like to raise though, his spend is said to be £40million, rather than £60million as you say, and that has been spent on 17 players or almost two thirds of our current first team squad, at an average of little more than £2million a player. Other teams seem to be able to spend less, bringing in 2 or 3 good players a window. We have rebuilt our squad, mostly with cheap ('young and hungry') players in contrast with that. I'd actually rather we had spent more as we might have brought in better players with the money. Was it necessary to bring in that many players? I'd argue yes, as I've been saying that our squad needed to be rebuilt since the cracks starting to show in the O'Neill squad under Houllier. What I'd love to know but never will find out is whether the scorched earth policy in regard to high earning players is Lerner's doing or an idea of Lambert's. Maybe it is a consequence of seeking to bring in so many players.

As for your point about good and bad managers, I'd ask just how many good managers there really are. On another site I remember someone linking this article: http://espnfc.com/blog/_/name/bundesliga/id/159?cc=5739 which puts together a really interesting point of view in regards to this. I think quite a few of us on here would have a high opinion of Martin Jol as a manager, but if you look at what is said here you find that idea gets shattered. Jol is not alone and neither are the other managers namedropped in the article. Michael Laudrup's reign at Swansea was supposedly similar with him tending to spend a lot of time away from the training ground and not giving as much input into things as you would expect. I also think we all will recall the stories about Martin O'Neill and how he tended to leave training to Steve Walford and John Robertson before breezing in on match day to try and psyche up the players for the game. Then you have utter charlatans like 'Tactics' Tim Sherwood (nickname shamelessly stolen from 'The Fiver').

Something that grinds my gears about us is our longstanding inability to do some of the basics. We louse up throw-ins, our players often seem reluctant (with the noticable exceptions of Benteke and Delph) to move off the ball. We don't press and our defensive players seem to dive in for the want of reading the game. Most of these issues are not unique to Lambert. I'd say we weren't doing these things well enough under O'Neill. And each subsequent manager (perhaps with the exception of Houllier, who the established players mostly seemed to hate) hasn't succeeded in altering this to any great level. Sure, there have been players who haven't suffered from these issues. Petrov and Gareth Barry always had a superb reading of the game that Delph and Westwood could still learn from, and there have been players that have worked well in areas but only to the extent that you suspect that the player in question is working on their own initiative. It stands to reason then, that something has been lacking under each of the previous three managers as well.

Billy McBingo wrote:I agree with a lot of your points there, I don't think he is doing a brilliant job. That said, I wouldn't go as far as to say that he's doing a shit one either, for that matter. And I don't think tonight is the time to be discussing this...

Goes on to discussing it for three more paragraphs.   

It's tomorrow afternoon for me anyway, so I'm over the euphoria

A successful team is not solely down to the manager. It comes down to a mix of the manager, his back room staff, the scouting system, the funds made available by the owner and the checks and balances in place.

At Villa, you could put a case forward to criticise each of those in isolation. And addressing each in isolation won't fix the overall problem. What's needed at Villa is a wholesale change. If not of staff then at least in approach and attitude. In fact, a wholistic approach to that would probably be far more efficient than anything else at this point in time.

Squad wise I think Lambert started from a pretty low base and although 40 million sounds a lot he has had to make it go a long way.  The problem with that is an inability to get players of real quality and experience.  For me it's that extra bit of quality and an couple of senior players who would have steadied the ship when we needed it this season.

You have to balance it with the money that he's wasted. Bennett/Luna/Bertrand's wages. All of that could and should have been spent on one quality left back.

Helenius, Kozak, Bowery (plus Bent's decline in value) could and should have all gone on either a quality striker or a creative midfielder.

There are more, of course but the point being that whilst he's not had an awful lot to spend in the grand scheme of things, he's frittered a rather large percentage of it away that could have been far better utilised.

He's used a machine gun approach in an attempt to "do an Arsenal" but whilst Arsenal do tend to have a lot of players go through their books, I suspect they use a far more accurate system of selecting players. And whilst shooting Benteke with that machine gun has been the big success story, it's not something that should be done when trying to stay in the premier league. Such speculation should be going on in the background whilst our regular team are maintaining an upper mid-table league slot.