Morpheus

I'll explain why i'm angry. 16 wins out of 59 games. 6 out of the last 8 games lost. We've lost to Bradford over two legs and we've been outplayed at home by Sheffield Wednesday of all teams. We only secured our Premiership status last season in the penultimate game and we have a run of fixtures coming up that might see us were we are last season, in relegation trouble. The manager having a limited budget to spend has wasted some of that limited budget on players who were no better than we already had with a success rate of 4 out of 16 signings. Some are now excusing those poor signings on budget constraints when in fact it has been just bad signings, poor allocation of funding and a reluctance to try and get the best out of what he had already at the club. A squad of players who even McDuff couldn't relegate. I feel it's desperately delusional to constantly try and excuse Lambert's present tenure with us. It has been nothing short of a disaster when you consider his original transfer policy, the results he has been getting with that policy and the fact he has had to do an about turn to save us and himself from further embarrassment. Thats why i'm angry mate. 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. Albrightons loan wasn't, in my opinion, a kick up the arse. He's been injured for almost all the time since Lambert arrived and it was an ideal way to get him up to speed and get some match fitness. He wasn't however available for selection so to use him as a reason why Lambert shouldn't have brought Tonev, as Morpheus has done, is strange to say the least. Yeah mate Tonev has been a regular in the first team along with Helenius and Bowery.

There's nothing concrete to suggest that Bertrand is now replacing Luna, not least because it's just a loan. Who said Lambert can do no wrong? Well he seems to have no responsibility for poor signings and his main supporters seem to have little issue with performances or results. So I'd be interested to hear what they think he does do wrong as you rarely read it. I haven't seen anyone on here claim he doesn't have any responsibility for poor signings. Not sure what you mean by "his supporters". I wasn't aware that having a different opinion to you on results and performances automatically made someone a "Lambert supporter". It's on here quite a lot, I just think some people choose to ignore it. As a Lambert supporter I'm referring to those who still have faith in him and believe we will succeed in the future under Lambert. Not trying to be funny or insulting. I'm fully aware of the difficult constraints but I don't feel you can continue to use that as an excuse when he continues to bring in players in positions he's already bought at least 2 players for. I think Bertrand is a good signing, not a big fan of loans but now you have to question how money has been spent. Pretty much this.

So Lambert has had just 3m to spend since he became our manager? No thats what he's spent on left backs. Unless you wanted us to blow half of our budget on a leftback and have sod all else to play with. I agree that some of the signings haven't been great, however the real issue here is we do not have the funding to go out and buy Bertrand. Yet we could have brought someone in on loan or indeed left Bowery, Luna, Bennet and Tonev where they should have been left, at their original clubs.

Which still doesn't excuse the fact that at the moment neither of Lambert's previous signings at LB have been good enough when opposing teams have identified that weakness and continually exploited it.

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.

That's completely unfair. Luna doesn't speak much English and is playing in a new country and style of football. He needs a full season before you can judge him. Bennett has spent most of the season injured. May as well change our club's logo to a scapegoat at this rate. By bringing another LB in on loan who will start in the first team I think we can safely say that Lambert has judged him. Or maybe decided that he needs more time? The same as Bennett?

So Lambert has had just 3m to spend since he became our manager?

If he hadn't wasted our limited budget on complete dross he wouldn't have had to bring someone in on loan. Yes it is a loan but could he not have done that when he first came to the club or were we banned from loaning players?

Like I said in the transfer thread an admittance that after signing two players for the same position that money has been wasted. Let's hope it is now third time lucky. This is the type of signing he should have made in the first place and not trying to be a smart ass in buying cheap players with no experience of playing in the Premiership.

Yes but then that's the danger of having a limited budget in the first place. A much higher chance of duds. Unfortunately for us BOF he has proved your point.

It actually speaks more volumes about Lamberts' ability to hold his hands up and say "I was wrong", in my opinion. Rather than stick with our left-hand side getting overpowered game after game in the hope that Luna/Bennett comes good, he's moved to address the issue - acknowledging that the signings he brought in haven't instantly been as good as he'd hoped. I completely respect that. In other words he has wasted more of a limited budget on complete dross and had to do something about it.

That's completely unfair. Luna doesn't speak much English and is playing in a new country and style of football. He needs a full season before you can judge him. Bennett has spent most of the season injured. May as well change our club's logo to a scapegoat at this rate. By bringing another LB in on loan who will start in the first team I think we can safely say that Lambert has judged him.

Not really. Just an admittance from Lambert that his signings for that position haven't been good enough. Good player, experienced in the Premiership and a vast improvement on what we have in that position.

I don't think he will start myself. It would probably depend what wages you would want.

Please not again.

If we concede early I'm not sure Liverpool will take their foot off the gas like Arsenal did?

Would be very surprised if Lambert or his his scouting network haven't already had a look at this player due to the mooted price.

I read somewhere last week Michu talking about the possibility of playing with Aspas at swansea. Not sure if he was just answering a jounos question or if there are any rumours about a possible switch? Edit.

I hope he enjoyed his brief time as the messiah of VT because it cost him his job How do you know this?

Lambert probably thought after watching a few videos of the player that he hadn't enough pace to beat Premiership defenders mate.

He would look a lot better with an AM to hit and a physical midfielder to do the dirty work beside him.

Welcome to the forum mate. Several months back another poster put forward N'Zonzi as someone we should be looking at and was subsequently ridiculed for it so it will be interesting to see if you receive the same treatment? I do agree though with your summation of where we are going wrong at the moment since our midfield is totally unbalanced. We have no creativity or physicality and presently our midfield is too similar in attributes. Its also a pity that Okore picked up his injury because I was so looking forward to see him play alongside Vlaar in what I would believe to be a successful CB partnership so with Guzan that part of the spine would have been more than decent for us. Up front an on fire Benteke would have also been plenty good enough so the obvious weakness has been for some time now midfield where we continue to struggle. I also think that our tactics have contributed to our downfall. Without a AM we should not be playing 4-3-3. Against Arsenal in the second half we got more crosses in from wide areas and the big man eventually capitalised on that. It is only my humble opinion but if we don't have the budget to get that elusive AM then Lambert should bring in at least one other wide man who has a decent cross on him and play 4-4-2 with two holding midfielders. The loss of Young and Downing who were never replaced plus Mcleish's ultra defensive tactics was the reason why Bent's goals dried up. With the purchase of Holt and Benteke scoring from a cross one would hope the penny has now finally dropped for the manager?

Sigh. I've been over all of this before but... ...we've reduced our outgoings significantly which has quite obviously held the club back (weren't we spending something crazy like 90% of our revenue on wages alone?). A lot of this has revolved around getting rid of players that were initially signed up on silly contracts (entirely the club/Lerner's fault). As these have been shipped out, we've needed to replace them with cheaper options on nowhere near as high wages to get the basis of a squad (which is what you bemoaned) in place. Due to the age of most of these players, most would have some sort of resale value further down the line if we needed to sell. This is essentially an added bonus as we're currently losing older players for nothing. Once this squad is in place, as it pretty much is now, we should be looking to add quality players into it. All of this can't be done within 18 months and, naturally, replacing an entire team or even a managerial set up (Man Utd, Tottenham, Watford, Wigan) will likely mean a decline in performances and quality until this comes to fruition. If you think you're getting a quality squad and first team by spending £40m on 16 players you're on a drug that I'd love to get hold of. More insults doesn't make your argument right homie as you like to call people. He didn't have to replace an entire team though did he and he certainly didn't have to replace those already at the club with lower league and inexperienced players in what could only be deemed as a cull all at once. He was given a budget and as the Chief Executive has already stated it was up to Lambert how he spent that. Interesting to find that now after a record of 50 games under Lambert with only 12 wins he has now decided that we need experienced players and before you go into the same tiresome and boring well used excuse of not being able to afford experienced players we have signed one on loan and been linked to another who's value is somewhere in the region of 1m which isn't far off in what we paid for several of Lambert's failed signings. Ok homie? I haven't insulted you once in there - just addressed what I saw fit r.e: your squad concerns. I don't understand what you're not getting here though. We've purchased a new squad. A new squad! The underpinning of this certainly seems to have been buying cheaper, younger players who have presumably been deemed to have certain qualities that could see them improve at a higher level whilst their age means they could be sold on if the situation arose. You seem pretty fixated on the young issue, though. Almost holding it to Lambert's head like a verbal gun. Lambert has said previously that he prefers players who are "young and hungry" (or words to those effect) but I don't remember him ever saying that these are the only players he'd ever sign? Indeed, Vlaar and KEA seem to go against this - along with the loan signing of Holt. In my mind, once you have the makings of a squad in place, you can then assess where the weaknesses are and address them accordingly. To me, this is roughly where we are now and a lot will depend on what budget is given to Lambert/whoever is the manager next during summer. We need some reinforcement this month in my eyes, but I think summer will be the main hive of activity - and in many ways that makes sense. Anyhow, we are now in a better position as a football club than we have been in a long while - the only thing lacking is quality on the pitch. Perhaps this your sole concern and we should spend our way into oblivion purely to maintain a certain level on the pitch? Fair enough if it is, too. For me, I'm glad we've addressed a major fault in the ownership and running of the club and can see exactly how we're on a much better footing for going forwards. Am I saying everyone of Lambert's signings have been brilliant? No. Am I saying our squad is the best squad in the league? No. Am I saying Lambert has worked absolute wonders at the club? No. What I am saying is that we are now heading in the right direction with an easily maintained squad that only needs quality players added to it. Be this under Lerner, under a new owner, under Lambert or under a new manager, the club is setup in a sustainable manner which is hasn't been for years. This isn't good news for you though homie? Nevermind, keep moaning. Edit: I forgot to mention that, obviously, any signing for around £2m or less has a certain gamble factor surrounding them. I can't believe that anyone would have thought that all "bargain" players we've signed were going to be awesome. Someone who refers to posts as idiotic and then implies posters taking drugs is in anyone's book offensive. You mention my fixation with Lambert's youth policy and state I am using that policy as a gun to his head. Wouldn't have put it as blunt as that but your understanding of my issues with him are nevertheless correct because it hasn't worked and was always doomed to failure. Why? Well when you consider that no other team in the Premiership has chosen such an policy then that should have given our manager an insight to what lay ahead. Teams in the Premiership are usually built with a balance of youth and experience and Lambert went too far in one direction and not enough in the other. I see you've mentioned KEA and Vlaar as experienced players yet they hadn't played in the Premiership before so that point is pretty irrelevant. Now Lambert is targeting experienced players who have Premiership experience and that has not gone unnoticed, even by you. So you think we are now in a better position that before Lambert came to the club. His current and past results have parity with the worst manager this club has seen. If you mean wages then yes the wage outlay has come down and we have replaced high wage earners with players on Championship wages. The problem with that though is if your average in signings points to unmitigated failure then as a consequence your team and policy will struggle and ultimately fail which we have now seen. It is no surprise to me that even while still on an apparent limited budget Lambert has now realised that we need to sign experienced players. Currently there has been no improvement at all in footballing terms from the Mcleish era and although we're placed eleventh, after our next set of fixtures we will probably be back in the relegation mire again so I don't think there has been that much improvement at all. You have also picked up a bad habit and become yet another poster who can't define the difference between opinion and moaning. If you are all things positive about the Villa even when there is currently little to be positive about at the moment you are nevertheless deemed as putting forward an opinion. However if you challenge that opinion with another opinion substantiated with stats you are deemed as a moaner. Try realism and objectivity which seemingly you haven't grasped yet but keep trying.

With the unexpected chance of top flight football again under a manager that wants him hopefully Holt will be motivated enough in training to lose the excess weight and actually benefit the team in the run in but i suppose we'll see soon enough?

I know exactly what you're referring to and I responded accordingly. If somebody continues to make absolutely absurd comments in a certain style then what is wrong with bringing it up? And anyway, you bringing it up drew more attention to it than it was likely going to get (and I know exactly why you did it) so I'd advise we drop this. No you didn't respond accordingly and if you hadn't responded in the way that you did to the poster in the first place then we wouldn't be having this conversation. In furture if you have a problem with the poster then take it to PM.