Morpheus

No contact at all on the pen. Cheating sod.

Great effort Delph.

KEA bloody hell.

Oh for **** sake.

Dreadful tackle by Bertrand. Gabby off Holt on.

Brilliant first half performance. Probably the best I've seen us play since Sunderland last season. It's just a pity we couldn't have kept it tight until half time.

Yes big man just **** yes.

eff me you sure the fact that we've been the better team away at anfield for half an hour isn't a sign that Lambert is a knob end and all his signings are shite? I haven't been making that kind of judgement on 35 minutes though.

Plop not targeting our left side as much now. Wonder why that is?

Fantastic game so far.

Don't sit back and let plop back in it.

Movement and pace and plop can't handle it. Just brilliant so far.

**** brilliant what a performance so far.

Jesus sake post.

Got to score when we're playing like this.

At least Weimann had the confidence to have a go.

**** sake we have to take our chances. We have Liverpool on the ropes.

Benteke looks on it.

The so called plan isn't working though is it?

But indignantly demanding that someone you're disagreeing with post the particular stat that supports your own position isn't petty? If you've got an argument to make, make it yourself. The basic disagreement between the "Lambert apologists" and the "Negative Nellies" mostly boils down to their interpretation of what rebuilding entails and what's the best approach in the long run. It's clear Lerner, Lambert and Faulkner all agreed it's best to start from scratch with young (mostly), hungry, passionate players on similar (mostly) wages to bond and get the high-earners out the door. This approach required spreading the transfer kitty and salary funds among more players, with the obvious sacrifice in quality and greater risk of signing flops. It also means risking relegation for a season or two until ther funds can go to quality vs. quantity. But if the plan works, the club is in a good position financially and can start rewarding the players who did well with better contracts and replacing those who didn't with better quality at higher wages without blowing the wages out of the water again. If you accept this approach, then the club's record since Lambert took over isn't necessarily the most important measure of success at this point in the project, as long as the club stays up. At the moment, you could argue that Lambert has been successful, if only by a margin, against this measure. If the rest of the plan plays out (relegation is avoided, money from clearing out dead wood is made available for better players in the summer), next season is the real test of both Lamber and Lerner. Football style and results need to be significantly better and showing signs of continuous improvement. If you don't agree that a total clearout was necessary, as a number of you don't, then of course it's hard to view Lambert as being successful. As you've argued, the transfer funds could have gone to fewer players of higher quality and results likely would have been better to date. The question is whether the club would be better posed for a resurgence after this season under this scenario. You clearly believe so. Team togetherness and the ability to build up from a good foundation, both football-wise and financially, would probably not be as good but maybe results would be similar without having had to go through 2 seasons of relagation risk and unattactive football. We may never know. Lambert was clearly brought on board to do the job in a particular way. Slate him for choosing to go along with the plan if you want, or slate Lerner for hiring a manager to take this approach. But given the job he was asked to do, I don't think Lambert's been too bad. Thanks for the advice but as regular readers of this forum would tell you I have continually put my argument forward and that argument is not exclusive to just the above stat. If however you feel that asking the said poster to be balanced in his argument by producing a stat showing Lambert's overall record with us is petty please avail me of another stat showing Lambert's overall performance which in your opinion, isn't? Secondly it isn't clear at all that the Chief Executive, Chairman and manager made a collective decision on a policy of youth. What is clear though is that the Chief Executive has already stated that Lambert was given a budget and it was up to him how he spent it. That is further substantiated by who we've been linked to and who we've signed this season. The fact is that with one relegation battle behind us under Lambert and losing six out of the last eight this season Lambert has realised that his youth policy has failed and is now targeting more Premiership experience which he should have done from the start. Several posters on this site including myself stated that under this policy we would struggle and I don't think to date we have been proven wrong. playing poor football I agree, looking over a short period of games looks bad but struggling we aren't. Half way through the season which is a fair reflection of us because we had played each team once and we were 11th in the league and that's with missing Vlaar and Benteke for major parts of it. That's improvement on last season and 11th isn't struggling. Yep 11th in the table but we've lost six out of the last eight which would suggest otherwise.

Did you trust Mcleish?

I find this bit very interesting. If you thought we'd be in a relegation battle last year you were laughed at and mocked. Now its obvious we were risking it for a couple of years. Don't remember many posts last year saying another relegation battle was expected this year. It just seems no matter what happens a certain group will just change their expectations in order to support the manager. BJ10 I have no problem with people supporting the manager as it is their right to do that as it is my right to criticise him. However it is the selective reasoning put forward that I take issue with which the majority of stats or performances just don't support and then the critics being described as moaners. Every critic of Lambert has substantiated his point of view with performance related stats or just base their criticism on what they have been witnessing on the pitch under Lambert and indeed under previous managers although even though there is some parity between the results under Mcleish and Lambert I certainly don't remember Mcleish being defended so vigorously. To me that lacks objectivity and leaves those posters wide open to the accusation of favouritism.

But indignantly demanding that someone you're disagreeing with post the particular stat that supports your own position isn't petty? If you've got an argument to make, make it yourself. The basic disagreement between the "Lambert apologists" and the "Negative Nellies" mostly boils down to their interpretation of what rebuilding entails and what's the best approach in the long run. It's clear Lerner, Lambert and Faulkner all agreed it's best to start from scratch with young (mostly), hungry, passionate players on similar (mostly) wages to bond and get the high-earners out the door. This approach required spreading the transfer kitty and salary funds among more players, with the obvious sacrifice in quality and greater risk of signing flops. It also means risking relegation for a season or two until ther funds can go to quality vs. quantity. But if the plan works, the club is in a good position financially and can start rewarding the players who did well with better contracts and replacing those who didn't with better quality at higher wages without blowing the wages out of the water again. If you accept this approach, then the club's record since Lambert took over isn't necessarily the most important measure of success at this point in the project, as long as the club stays up. At the moment, you could argue that Lambert has been successful, if only by a margin, against this measure. If the rest of the plan plays out (relegation is avoided, money from clearing out dead wood is made available for better players in the summer), next season is the real test of both Lamber and Lerner. Football style and results need to be significantly better and showing signs of continuous improvement. If you don't agree that a total clearout was necessary, as a number of you don't, then of course it's hard to view Lambert as being successful. As you've argued, the transfer funds could have gone to fewer players of higher quality and results likely would have been better to date. The question is whether the club would be better posed for a resurgence after this season under this scenario. You clearly believe so. Team togetherness and the ability to build up from a good foundation, both football-wise and financially, would probably not be as good but maybe results would be similar without having had to go through 2 seasons of relagation risk and unattactive football. We may never know. Lambert was clearly brought on board to do the job in a particular way. Slate him for choosing to go along with the plan if you want, or slate Lerner for hiring a manager to take this approach. But given the job he was asked to do, I don't think Lambert's been too bad. Thanks for the advice but as regular readers of this forum would tell you I have continually put my argument forward and that argument is not exclusive to just the above stat. If however you feel that asking the said poster to be balanced in his argument by producing a stat showing Lambert's overall record with us is petty please avail me of another stat showing Lambert's overall performance which in your opinion, isn't? Secondly it isn't clear at all that the Chief Executive, Chairman and manager made a collective decision on a policy of youth. What is clear though is that the Chief Executive has already stated that Lambert was given a budget and it was up to him how he spent it. That is further substantiated by who we've been linked to and who we've signed this season. The fact is that with one relegation battle behind us under Lambert and losing six out of the last eight this season Lambert has realised that his youth policy has failed and is now targeting more Premiership experience which he should have done from the start. Several posters on this site including myself stated that under this policy we would struggle and I don't think to date we have been proven wrong.

You should perhaps have a bit of a lie down as you seem very irate! Its no ones "fault" but the buck stops with Lambert. As I understand it Petrov recommended him and Lambert took the responsibility to sign him - he's not been any good so far. There we go. In mitigation of Lambert, I will say that in terms of transfers, like the rest of the finances, I very much doubt that we have an extensive, reliable scouting network so at best I guess we often buy players based on a few tapes and a couple of live viewings. If that's an excuse so be it! I'll answer you yet again - You seem to be on an eternal quest for me to produce some sort of chart for you - I really don't know what you are looking for but again suggest that you post whatever it is you are looking for yourself. In terms of success, I am probably not viewing it in the same terms that you are - getting to a sustainable budget, clearing out all the dead wood, building the foundations of a decent squad, changing the culture at the club and eventually recruiting better quality players whilst retaining premiership status is success enough for me for the first two seasons - depending on finances I will expect a bit more next season In terms of transfers, which is what we are supposed to be discussing, this window again shows the constraints that would make 99% of managers run a mile - two loan signings probably enabled by Ireland's move and (I guess) £1m-£1.5m to spend on fees. I'm hoping that we can still get Hoolahan but am at a loss as to who else could do a job at the kind of money we seem willing to spend Ignoring the usual petty sarcasm I've asked you on four occasions now to produce a simple stat of Lambert's match record during his tenure with us and on every occasion you have refused. I've asked you to do this because previously you seem very willing to pull a graph out of your back pocket to try and prove that Lambert is doing a good job. One would assume that one of the most telling factors whether Lambert is doing a good job or not is our overall match record under him, yet as I say, you refuse to show this. Secondly and more on topic you say that you don't think Lambert has an extensive scouting network yet Lambert has connections in Germany and has signed players from other leagues in Europe so I'm not sure that could excuse his ratio of poor signings. You mention building the foundations of a decent squad. Frankly after signing 16 players currently there has been very little improvement but to try and end on a more positive note the signing of Bertrand on loan is a step in the right direction and if we can get Hoolahan who I mentioned last season then he too will improve us. Holt is a strange signing but I desperately hope a master stroke and I'll tell you why I have changed my stance on this. I was speaking with two Man U supporters today and when I mentioned the signing of Holt they burst out laughing. I was trying to explain why we had signed him but was duly ridiculed for that attempt. So it would be rather nice if Mr Holt doesn't do what many of us expect and score enough to allow me and other Villa fans to actually say that concerning this particular signing Mr Lambert knew exactly what he was doing.

So Lambert has had just 3m to spend since he became our manager? That's very obviously not what was meant. Lambert has a budget and a squad to fill. You take a portion of the budget per position and decide on a player by player basis and judge your most pressing needs at the time. Now that we need less players (arguably) and cover for the left might be nice this makes sense. Having spent less on two previous players in the same position has abso-****-nothing to do with potentially spending more on a player in the future for the same position. If the only gap we had to plug was a LB and given the same budget as before then it would make more sense to portion a higher percentage of it to filling that role. Had he spent more on a LB at the time and missed out on Benteke, for example, then things would be different, no? No, he could have kept Fonz at the club instead of purchasing Bowery or Helenius. He could have kept Albrighton at the club instead of purchasing Tonev and he could have gotten an LB on loan instead of wasting more money on Bennet and Luna who he has now replaced with a loan. Bowery cost peanuts and has given 100% and done ok whenever called upon. Helenius is much more of a prospect than Fonz who is championship standard at best. Both of these were bought as squad players and for the future - we will make money on them if they are sold He did keep Albrighton and loaning him to Wigan was the kick up the arse he needed and no he's back in the first team squad Bertrand is a clear step up in quality to both Bennett and Luna. Bennett started to play well at the end of last season but has been long term injured and is still injured. Luna has struggled defensively but also lacked cover in front of him, so bringing Bertrand in makes perfect sense. It is also possible that Bertrand could play in front of Luna giving him the cover that he has lacked so far Tonev was Petrov's recommendation and I assume Lambert took a punt on him. He has been poor so far and not showing any sign of coming good. You win some you lose some. So now it's Petrov's fault. Anyone but Lambert eh VillaCas? I'll ask you again. If you feel Lambert's tenure with us has been a success show me a stat with one of your graphs showing our results under Lambert.