ArteSuave

Why are so many people so obsessed with pointing out stuff that show how far we've fallen? Yes, we've fallen very far. Nobody is happy about it but its the reality. Very sad. Much crying. Maybe its time to stop wallowing in self pity and get over it. Sacking the manager won't put more money in the transfer fund. I was going to write out a point by point rebuttal but reading through it seems like you've attributed every success he's ever had to blind luck. I've already done that dance, its shit. The rest is just the same nebulous, cookie cutter complaints some fans of every team in history have had. I wouldn't call his time here successful but his transfer activity has been relatively successful and he's finished within shouting distance of mid table both seasons despite having to shop in the bargain bin. I wouldn't mind if he was replaced by a new owner but the mindset of "he needs to go" in our current state without a specific, coherent plan for an alternative is what gets teams into shit. No decent manager is going to want to take a job where the fans expect a lot more than the owner is prepared to fund.

Soo 1 or 2 more wins in either season he's had here then? Not exactly unforgivable underachievement really. Maybe we have been a few wins short of our squads potential but we've clearly budgeted for 17th. If he'd got less value for money in the transfer market would it be more acceptable? I doubt it.

Finally, a sensible suggestion. Count me in.

The right skills for what? The last 3 seasons have shown Lambert is not out of his depth and has the right skills to keep a cheapskate team in the Premier League. He may not have the skills to achieve more than that but to pretend he is incapable of keeping a team in the PL is nonsensical when he's done it repeatedly and succeeded at every attempt in doing it. The empirical evidence (the non relegation of Lambert teams for every season he's managed in the PL) shows exactly the opposite of what you claimed it does.

Based on the fact he's had his contract extended, he's clearly met whatever targets were set out for him. Based on the reported fee's we've paid and contracts we've handed out he's done a good job building a squad of reasonable players that are evidently capable of staying in the Premier League. Based on some of our highlights of the last few seasons he's able to win more than his fair share of matches against some of the best teams in the world. Based on improvements in our goals scored, goals conceded and points earned you'd be hard pushed to argue too strongly in his favour. Then again, he's basically kept us where we were while bringing the first team wage bill down and underspending relative to the rest of the league. Our home form has been **** diabolical though, I can't spin lack of funds into a defence of 10 home league defeats in a season.

If he had anything at all to offer any Premier League club (or even Championship club) over the last two years someone would have given him the relatively tiny salary he's earning to play here. They didn't because he didn't. We paid £8.5m for that **** and he couldn't trap a bag of cement, pass wind, hit a cows arse or any other cliché to describe a player with no ability. Thankfully, Westwood cost a fraction of that and can actually kick the ball in such a way that is at least slightly beneficial to us. NRC's local angling shop had better tackle than Westwood. Sorry, that's poor but you get the idea. Totally different players. I thought it was OK. They are totally different but NRC is absolutely devoid of any skill whatsoever and he'd have to be defensively Makelele-eque to make up for it. He isn't, hence why he's earning less than squad fillers at Championship clubs.

Not for me. Captain of a team at 18, captain of u21 and while a different player to Westwood he's a better player. Westwood would not have got in our midfield when challenging for top 4. Seriously? He couldn't pass, dribble or shoot. His PL career was based entirely around his athleticism and at the age of just 30 he's a million miles from playing in the PL again and apparently earning less than £3k / week in the MLS. Westwood has taken shits with a better first touch than NRC.

Holy ****, you made this hard to quote. So have we regressed or was that bullshit? WRONG. No he doesn't. Why would you bring up something as objective and as easy to look up and compare as win % and then be so wrong? To clarify, 21 ≠ 31. How is that relevant to our wins against them? They weren't patting anyone when we beat them. There's not been much improvement but as mentioned we win 50% more often (which equates to about 3 extra wins a season ).

Kidney stone? Urine trouble! -- You

More so than under McLeish, definitely. Pretending we've regressed from when McLeish was here is ludicrous. Not higher value, better value. Massive difference. The cost of our first team (fees and wages) is much lower and they win more games. What constitutes a "deserved win" in your mind? We're never going to outpass a £300m squad over 90 minutes. We won games without incorrect decisions or freak own goals, that's not luck.

He's been here more than two years, he's assembled a much better value squad than the one that was here when he got here and the previous style of play left no room for regression. We didn't even try to win games. Has anyone ever said this in real life? Ah yes. Start from the conclusion, work backwards and attribute any conflicting evidence to luck.

Westwood > Gavin McCann.

Swansea. They won and scored more than us last season (and conceded less) and their good striker was injured less. But I'd rather watch Atletico than Swansea. I was also happier watching Villa than Norwich, Fulham and Cardiff (all had more possession than Villa). I want to see wins more than anything, then goals, then good dribbling, good attacking play, then good defensive play, THEN passing / possession. To be honest, safe possession when losing is my pet peeve. I hate 17 passes between our back 5 when we're losing. I'd rather we risked losing it trying to dribble past them. I'm not sure there are plenty of worse squads who play better football, not IMO at least. I do agree though that we should shoot and score more than we have done this season, hopefully we will do. The top half is also made up of teams with several players that cost 8 figure sums each. You'd struggle (and we do) to buy players for £3-5m each and compete in terms of possession and results with these teams. Maybe we can and should do a bit better. But realistically, we're almost certainly not going to do significantly better without investment. I agree with this. We need a number 10. Beating our reserves once a season on a Tuesday is a different task to getting good results throughout a Premier League season.

Is that a fact? Swansea were equal 2nd (56%) for possession last season and finished with 42 points (12th). Atletico averaged 49% possesion (10th) and finished with 90 points (1st). Better teams tend to have more possession but they also tend to have more expensive players and we're not a better team. I'm not saying that possession is entirely irrelevant but, depending on your style of play, more possession won't necessarily mean more points.

It was a parody of earlier comments based on the fact we had 15 shots to 11, 6 to 4 on target and had 65% possession. Similar stats but the opposite way around to when we were actually winning against teams like Hull. We didn't actually dominate anything, we went behind early and couldn't claw our way back. Same as Hull.