GENTLEMAN

Which style of football do people want us to play?

There were rumours that Lerner wanted Mark Hughes to replace MON. It was strange MON left the club shortly after Hughes joined Fulham a week or so before. 

"Villa never made contact with any of my representatives as far as I'm aware, so I was out of work for seven, eight months after leaving Man City [in December 2009] and there was talk then that I might have replaced Martin O'Neill [when he left in August 2010]. But nobody contacted me then either so I didn't hold out much hope for getting the job to be perfectly honest. Aston Villa is a good job for any manager, I would suggest. But I was never in the frame for that."

 

Maybe not then. I like the bit in bold 

If it improves and is all part of a big plan of Lamberts then I'll be as happy as anyone and I'll eat, but I don't see how anyone can argue that the football is anything other than one dimensional and dire.

 

It depends if you view a football game solely as entertainment and disregard the competitive aspects attached to the sport. Do not take this the wrong way but maybe you do not enjoy watching football as a highly competitive sport. We are all guilty of ignoring the opposition and only focusing on the qualities and inadequacies of our team but there is still another team competing against us. 

I have enjoyed the majority of our games this season and I do believe we try to win each match regardless of opposition (as is evident by the victories against Manchester City and Arsenal). People will find it hard to dispute that Lambert has not made us a competitive side or that we have made no progress this season. That is not to say that we cannot improve further.

The majority of top flight matches this season can be considered  "one dimensional and dire", it is not exclusive to Aston Villa. The best example has to be Manchester United vs Chelsea earlier this season. That was horrendous entertainment considering the players that were available to both teams and the so-called magnitude of the match. For me, a lot of teams this season have compromised style over substance, we certainly have adopted this mentality in an attempt to fix the glaring problems of last season and give us a competitive advantage.

We've been luckier than this time last year.

 

You could argue we were unlucky against Everton and Tottenham. It is a pointless exercise.

I do feel for Benteke in a way, It must be horrendous wanting to play with your feet in this team, but the only way we can get the ball to him is up in the air. 

No offense but Benteke has been the biggest culprit in losing possession and wasting chances when passed to.

Think £25-30m will be enough to price him away unless he goes on an insane scoring streak during december.

We received £20 Million for Ashley Young when he had a bad season and one year left on his contract.  

If Tottenham is involved im sure there will be a player + money deal

That will not happen for obvious reasons.

I think a bid of around £30m would be accepted to be honest.

And clubs have to be willing to part with that sort of cash for him.

I fear that Benteke and his advisors will go all out to force a move in january.

 

He's getting no support playing for us atm and he doesn't look dedicated to the cause anymore. He must be getting sick of wrestling 2 or more defenders alone hoping to pull down one of Guzans hoofballs. I don't blame him.

Lukaku is playing with better players around him and have (partly because of Bentekes injury) passed him for Belgium.

 

If Tottenham sell Defoe and/or Adebayor in january i can see them coming for him again, same goes for Liverpool and probably some other top teams like who might lose their strikers, Dortmund maybe?

It will take a massive fee to sign Benteke in January. 

Who could realistically replace Lambert? 

As for Kozak, a half bit Benteke is still better than him. 

 

I disagree, I think Kozak is better based on recent matches and form. Kozak is really unlucky not to be starting games, though I understand why he does not.

Kozak goes entire games without achieving anything of note at all.

 

The same can be said of Benteke unfortunately. 

If we had signed Barry (or similar) we would not have brought in the majority of players we did in the summer.  I believe Lambert is trying to get the most out of his budget.

Lambert wont manage a premier league top 4 team. 

 

I think he has the potential to do so, I would not rule him out yet.

No you (or anyone) probably can't think where he would go at the moment - there aren't any vacancies - but that changes quite rapidly. Given the funding he gets at villa - a club which looks a sideways step - may actually appear to Lambo.

 

The board attracted Lambert to the club with the understanding that it was a long term project. I also think PL has been given decent funding and backing by the board. PL has been given the autonomy (within financial reason) to change the entire footballing side and build a team that supports his vision, I think this is quite rare for a premier league club and the board deserve some credit for taking the club in this direction. 

It will be interesting to see what transfer money will be given to PL and more importantly the type of player that will join us after this season. You can also assume that Lambert will spend more of the upcoming transfer funds on less players compared with the vast recruitment over the last few transfer windows, hopefully it will allow us to attract more established players. I do think we will be ready to show some ambition in the future.

It would be illogical and a bad decision for Lambert to join a similar club; any vacancy would likely be vacated because of failure, Lambert would most likely have to start again under financial restrictions and rebuild another club. What is the point of him joining our club? Directly moving to a similar club would just prolong PL's career development and ruin what he has already started here. I do not see this occurring, I would be hugely shocked if it does happen. 

Lambert will leave for two reasons in my opinion. I can see Lambert leaving us, after a long tenure, for a perennial top four team with the resources to win major competitions, which would mean he has steadily transformed us into a successful outfit that is competing regularly at the top end of the league and for domestic trophies, similar to David Moyes' tenure at Everton. Or PL will be sacked or resign for failing with us. Which scenario is likely to transpire? We will begin to find out in the next eighteen months. I have faith PL can turn us around and get us back to where MON left us, maybe better than that.

 

Which club could Lambert realistically join in the near future? I cannot seriously think of one.

A club that also works within a tight budget but one that wins a lot of trophies and takes part in the Champions League quite a lot - Celtic!

That is not a long shot given the fact he played for them. If he really doesn't like working with big name players, and he got fed up of relegation battles year after year, he would be very well suited to Celtic.

 

It would say a lot about Lambert's ambition if he went to Celtic in the near future, especially leaving a big premier league club to do so.

I really don't see Lambert here for that many more windows. Impressive as his ability to assemble a team on a shoestring is - I don't see him wanting to do it for the rest of his career. I actually think Lambo is a better manager than Martinez or Rodgers - but he will need a degree of funding to prove that - Funding that he won't get under the current regime.

 

Which club could Lambert realistically join in the near future? I cannot seriously think of one.

 

 

 

It has been pretty depressing, especially to watch certain players' contracts slowly running down until we can tell them all to bugger off for good. I predict the next 3 years will be better if Lambert stays.

He won't . I give him 18 months max.

based on what?

Based on lambert needing to protect his career.

 

From what? Surely the objective is to build his reputation? He will not join a bigger club unless he achieves something remarkable in the next eighteen months. 

A bit like O'Neill-lite.

 

You could also argue Ferguson-lite.

Who has blamed MON for the last three years?

I thought it was a bit pathetic that they are still trying to blame MON's departure for the disaster that was 2010-2012. No mention of the appointment of two hopeless managers who dragged us down towards the relegation zone and wasted most of the money they had to spend on high wage players whom we are now struggling to offload, let alone paying precious millions in relation to the managerial appointments. 

It would be fascinating to hear their account of how Houllier, McLeish and then Lambert formed part of a consistent recruitment strategy. They are lucky to have found Lambert, who at least has a clue how to manage a club on a tighter budget, but they should hang their heads in shame at the damage they have done to the club since MON's botched departure.

I get the impression this meeting was a bit of a cosy chat, so I doubt whether any such points were raised. 

 

They have made some mistakes. It is time to move on.

I think in some ways Bacuna could be our new Ashley Young: underwhelming at times, but likely to provide a spark occasionally that changes a game.

 

James Milner would be a better comparison. Watch this near-identical goal (like Bacuna's against Cardiff) - http://www.soccerclips.net/videos/aston-villa-2-3-everton-milner

We on the other hand have been utterly dominated in possession by Allardyce's West Ham.

 

...Yet we dealt with what they had to offer offensively and created the better chances.

I think even with more money to spend, we'd just get more of the same from Lambert.  He isn't magically going to turn away from the style of play that he's based his career on to date.  He liked a big target man at Colchester and Norwich, and that's what we've got now. 

 

I do not agree with that unfair assessment; I think the vast majority of teams in the Premier League and Europe have similar strikers and utilise them to their advantage, it is not a terrible characteristic and certainly should not be used to negatively judge Lambert. There has never been a club that has won the Premier League that has relied primarily on a possession based game, I do not understand the immediate clamor for us to start playing that way when success in our league is attained by a combination of styles, predominately by direct and physical/fast teams.

At best, we'll be looking at effective football, in a similar vein to O'Neill, only without the expensive flops (hopefully).  I'd much rather see somebody with the footballing philosophy of Martinez, Laudrup or Rodgers. Attractive, possession based football isn't what he does. 

 

I do not understand the term "effective football", could you elaborate further?  I think Lambert shares similarities with MON but I would definitely say Lambert is far more modern and less stubborn; I also believe Lambert is on-par with the managers you have mentioned and has made tangible efforts to improve and progress the club.

Interestingly, Rodgers has Liverpool playing a lot more conservative this season and does not seem to be promoting "possession" as much publicly. I also took time to visit an Everton forum recently and it seems Martinez is being criticised for not being direct enough.

Possession is not the be-all and end-all, I would like us to strike a healthy balance in the future.

More time together? I guess 18 months and two pre-seasons isn't enough time for his supposed philosophy to at least be partially coming to the fore... 

 

It is!  We are primarily a Direct/Counter Attacking side, I have no issue with how we attempt to play the game. However, I know we can improve certain aspects though but I genuinely believe we will in the future. Ball retention is not the be all and end all.

Also, I don't buy the injury argument as firstly he bulked up the squad in the summer for just this situation and secondly the injury argument was never used as an excuse for Houllier or McLeish. 

 

It is not an excuse, it is a creditable reason. Lambert did bulk up the squad and this is why we are coping and gaining points during an injury crisis; last season we struggled badly when we went through similar circumstances. I do seem to recall McLeish making a big deal out of injuries and burying the youngsters he had to play by default. 

I wonder why he doesn't address our possession problems now?  If it's a "long term project", he will make it even longer term by setting us off in a direction he doesn't ultimately want to go

 

Improving the defense was imperative this season - it is slowly improving as we have seen recently and this also proves Lambert will look to improve weaker aspects of our game. I also believe it is difficult to address and improve the side a few months into a new season, especially when we have a large portion of players currently injured and have signed a lot of players in the summer who are adjusting.

"Long term" surely must include improving and addressing issues/weaknesses that will obviously occur in a young team?