ArteSuave

Hmm….sadly the very fact you are saying that shows how far we have fallen.

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.

The big difference is that the team at his disposal is good enough for 10th-12th.

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.

We all need to be realistic and recognise that Lambert is out of his depth. We have a half decent squad which is more than capable of keeping us in the PL given proper organisation and management. All the empirical evidence shows that Lambert does not have the right skills. 

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.

I'm seeing the 'keep Lambert' arguments as.

 

- We won't attract somebody who can do better.

- We need to get rid of the owner first.

- We need to support the team.

 

Can anybody share a pro-Lambert argument which is for his ability to manage?

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.

He would have made a big difference to our last two seasons.

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.

 

Westwood has taken shits with a better first touch than NRC.

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.

 

Westwood > NRC

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.

McLeish was supposed to be a blip, a season of poor defensive football, its become the normality.

 

How is that relevant to our wins against them? They weren't patting anyone when we beat them.

there has been no tangible progress especially given the time frame.

There's not been much improvement but as mentioned we win 50% more often (which equates to about 3 extra wins a season ).

confirmed kidney stone - little bugger !  - cowing hurts !

Kidney stone? Urine trouble!

                                     --  You

And we do now?

More so than under McLeish, definitely. Pretending we've regressed from when McLeish was here is ludicrous.

He's assembled a higher value squad?

Not higher value, better value. Massive difference.

The cost of our first team (fees and wages) is much lower and they win more games.

And, the 'lucky' wins. Having watched the majority in the flesh, few were deserved wins. Southampton last season was hilarious.

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.

Lambert has regressed the players and style of play in just under 2 years as manager.

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.

utter dross 

Has anyone ever said this in real life?

a few lucky wins against the 'big teams'.

Ah yes. Start from the conclusion, work backwards and attribute any conflicting evidence to luck.

Westwood > Gavin McCann.

Who would you rather watch Swansea or us?

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.

 People use the budget as a reason to keep him but that doesn't excuse crap football. There are plenty of teams with worse squads that play better stuff. Who's fault is that?

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.

It's not based on the team with the highest possession finished first. But the top half are mainly made up from teams have have the higher possession stats. I believe this has been the case for a good few years as well.

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.

It is not the possession though is it, we have the ball pass it round the middle then back to the keeper or to the other team. The biggest gripe is we can not break a team down who dont attack us.

I agree with this. We need a number 10.

It can be done on little money as most lower league teams have shown us in the cup

Beating our reserves once a season on a Tuesday is a different task to getting good results throughout a Premier League season.

But it's a fact that the top half teams have more possession over the course of a season so it clearly has an effect long term.

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.

QPR scored 2 goals and hit the bar.  While we had a few long range efforts i'm not sure how you can say we dominated the chances.

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.

Sean Dyche? Tim Sherwood? Thank God none of you are running the club.

McLaren is a good coach if not a leader but Tim **** Sherwood is a **** imbecile. Jesus wept.

Not true, really - there were a lot of people concerned about the lack of creativity, possession and chances but they were shouted SCOREBOARD at.

We dominated possession and chances against QPR. Are the a lot of people happier with that or would they rather we protected leads with men behind the ball?

Jorge Sampaoli

This would be my other choice with Pekerman. Some dynamic, energetic South American football.

I'm not sure we could tempt either.

I'm in twice in 17th and 20th places. If you could just add my points together and put me top with 96 points that'd be great.

Newcastle 0-1 Liverpool

Because its not a defense thats why, or is 60m+ and 3 seasons not enough 

Source?

I don't think we've spent £60m gross, let alone net. I don't think we've spent £50m gross tbh. It's more like <£40m net.

SOURCE

Weren't Everton in a similar situation to Villa when Moyes first came in for them?

They finished 15th when he first came in at the end of the season, then he finished 7th then he finished 17th then 4th then 11th.

Moyes has a reputation for being a consistent steadying force but he wasn't one for his first 5 years at Everton.

José Pékerman. Surely we're a more attractive proposition that Colombia.

Right guys?

Guys?

Yes and that seems to be the only defence of him ever, budgets.

So you ask why anyone doesn't want him sacked, you get an answer but seemingly discount because you've heard it before. Fantastic.

How many defences does he need? The last few years have been pure shit and yet he's clearly met his targets as he's still here.

Changing him won't change our budget and it won't change our targets. Survival is the goal and anything more is a bonus.

Edit - If we sack him we'll just have the same shit with a different asshole.

Grealish's leg is thicker than Di Maria's torso. He seems to be coping OK.