Raymond

Can't believe Verlander was rocked like that.

No i'm the kind of person who after watching our club getting rid of the worst manager we ever had, exercising his opinion on the next manager appointed presiding over our worst start ever in the Premiership by spunking our budget on absolute dross, some of which aren't even good enough to get into our first team as poor as it is. If you want to dress that up as someone who plays Championship Manager then go ahead but the last time i looked at the current Premiership table we were in the bottom five unless you now want to explain that by a new story line in Dallas?

Secondly, since you have again avoided my question on who the fans or indeed our chairman would have preferred which would indeed substantiate my point concerning Moyes more than anything else, i'll leave you to enjoy whatever fantasy world you choose to live in.

Avoiding a question by accusing someone else of avoiding a question that was designed to not have to debate the original point.

We might have fallen into some kind of time warp.

The O'Neill appointment was fine. The failure to have a shared understanding of the club's investment strategy, the sudden slamming on of the spending brakes(and indeed going into reverse) after three seasons of crazy spending, and the failure to sack O'Neill at the start of the summer of 2010 when it was obviously all unravelling, was not so fine.

I am sure sacking Oneill in summer 2010 would have gone well.

We really need to start playing with 5 in midfield. It's so painfully obvious and players such as Ireland, Bannan and KEA would really improve us if they were all on the pitch together.

In pre-season and at the start of the season we were playing this system and it looked quite decent. Playing 2 upfront is useless cos our midfield isn't strong enough as a 4 to offer them much.

-------- KEA ------ Bannan -------

Albrighton -- Ireland -- Holman/Zog

-----------------Bent --------------

That team is capable of creating chances, much more than the 4-4-2 diamond narrow formation.

I think that's the only position Ireland is capable of doing any damage whatsoever.

I like it, but I would switch Holman and Bannan's position. Holman is such a workhorse he would push forward from the deep lying role, which is something we desperately need.

I agree about the plan. He has a philosophy that has worked in the past and he is going to see it through.

On the transfers. I always find it amusing that people say we should has signed x player or y player. This is not FIFA. Players have to sign off on a move just like their clubs do, and a lot of players do not want to live in Birmingham.

Morpheus bangs on about Berba. He wanted to live in London. No way we would have signed him. Same with Carroll or Defoe.

The player PL made the mistake with was Dempsey. PL got butt hurt that Dempsey would rather have signed with the scum and let that affect his decision making process. This is a different team with Dempsey in it. He is exactly the player we are missing, and by all accounts he was there to be had.

Point being, if you are going to criticize the man over signings, at least make them signings that were actually feasible.

Pathetic. We are impotent going forward.

I wish Benteke could find the target.

Fulham dominated without scoring. Good news is we have done that several times this year and then went on to lose. Hope we are on the other side of it today.

Just switched off after watching for a little, we are below average.

Way to show your support.

I understand a bit about the NFL but not really about the owner's influence on the side other than picking the coaches. With the draft system you can't just plow money into a team and expect them to be successful, can you? I don't hear particularly good things about Cleveland as a city, is it hard to attract big name players there?

I expect Randy to invest a bit of the money in the club but only to reinforce the blueprint that he and Lambert are following to turn the club around in a more cost-effective, maybe even German/Dutch way. I'd rather that than blowing £30m+ a season, we tried that and I appreciate Randy trying but it just won't work.

Personnel people are so important in the NFL because, like you say, you cannot just plow money in to the team. They have salary caps, revenue sharing, and a decent amount of control over player contracts (franchise tag, restricted FA, ect.).

So RL's failure in Cleveland had much more to do with who was hired than how much money he spent. That being said, most people viewed the Mike Holmgren hire as a good one and it has not worked out. Do not think you can blame someone for hiring a guy most other teams would have hired as well.

Yankees offense is being too easily found out. Throw every single pitch out of the zone and you'll get more outs than you will give up walks, they just swing at absolutely everything from what I've seen this post-season.

Granderson is having one of the worst postseasons I have ever seen. Does he know you do not have to swing at the first pitch?

Haha. So in his mind Rangers would be invited but we wouldn't? What an ass.

This thing that he doesnt have the money is rubbish - Villa have money, enough to compete. It's about spending it wisely. Lots of talk on sunday at spurs that Villa will spend big in Jan and next summer.

Thing with Villa fans is, it's all want want want - yet....empty seats my lord empty seats. We dont put enough back into the club. We should be near sell out every week, but we dont and never have done.

Its a two way street.

And we would freak out if Villa started charging top 6 ticket prices.

Dire? Yep. I am the one that needs to ease up.

Again. No point.

Lambert West Ham away 1-0 loss

Mcleish Swansea (play off winners) away 0-0 draw

Lambert Everton home 1-3 loss

Mcleish Everton home 1-1 draw

Lambert Newcastle away 1-1 draw

Mcleish Newcastle away 2-1 loss

Lambert Swansea home 2-0 win

Mcleish Swansea home 0-2 loss

Lambert Southampton away 4-1 loss

Mcleish Norwich away (promoted in 2nd place) 2-0 loss

Lambert WBA home 1-1 draw

Mcleish WBA home 1-2 loss

Lambert Spurs away 2-0 loss

Mcleish Spurs away 2-0 loss

2012/13 Lambert PL Games 7 W 1 D 2 L 4 Pts 5

2011/12 McLeish PL Games 7 W 0 D 2 L 5 Pts 2

You can draw comparisons to prove whatever you like...

And if you think about how much better Everton were this season when we played them than last, and the abomination of a performance put in at Spurs last season I would say for the same (as close as you can get) set of games we are looking much better. Not sure why I have wasted my time typing all this out because surely it is obvious that we are in a much better position than we were under Mcleish?

If you actually watch the matches instead of simply looking at the table when the weekend is over it is very clear we are a better side, but what is the point in arguing. Let them moan.

Yeah. Damn him for hiring the manager we all wanted and then giving him a heap of money to spend in the way he saw fit. Bastard.

Diame cost nothing and he is not limited at all. Westwood on the other hand...

Sure glad you can judge Westwood's relative ability from 65 odd minutes of work. Maybe RL should hire you for the scouting network. You would save him a lot of money. I bet you could scout 200 players in a weekend.

Some of you cannot see the forest through the trees. No matter the results, we have looked like a much better team this year than last and we certainly have improved since the beginning of the season.

Obviously you have to get results, but those come with playing good football.

That's two. Said last week we would have scored at least two in the first half if Bent had been on when all the crosses were flying in.

Good half so far. They have created chances, but good attacking teams create chances against everyone.

Should be really happy with this performance if we remember last year's trip to White Hart Lane.

I just can see lowton,bennett,vlaar or clark being able to cope with spurs. they couldnt handle shane long on his own

That is not even close to accurate. A guy scores one goal on a flubbed clearance and we "couldn't handle" him. Give me a break.

It would be really fun to see a Nats-Orioles Series. I think the stadiums are 45 miles apart?

Very nice. Only thing that kept me from using Villatalk was the lack of a mobile interface. Ip has one of the best. Love it.

Don't get the negativity. It was a decent performance at the beginning and towards the end and were it not for poor finishing we would've won that. Also showed plenty of fight and spirit to come back from a goal behind.

Agreed. I gave out a lot of sixes but it was one of those "greater than the sum" team efforts. The only really lacking area was obviously the front third, but that sort of performance is going to pick up points more often than not.

Though we were very poor. We struggled to create anything of note and really never looked like scoring until Bent came on for Benteke. Benteke is very quickly looking like a very poor buy along with Lambert's other purchases.

Yet another manager and another 17m spent and we still don't have a midfielder in our team who can create anything.

On the plus side plenty of effort to get a point but effort alone won't keep us up this season!

Unbelievable post.

Happy with the point, but feel like we are not a good enough team to just let three points go when we are clearly the better squad.