Panto_Villan

He's probably now Belgian Chelsea or something...

I think the contract has been given out too early and is probably a year too long. Let's hope Lambert repays the faith that's been put in him.

I'm glad he's staying, but I do hope he's taken somewhat of a pay cut to do so. It's pretty clear that no other club would be willing to pay his previous wages either, given we offered him for free and nobody showed any interest...so I'd guess he's probably dropped down to a more reasonable level (perhaps from next season onwards).

I don't think we should give him a new contract based on four consecutive good games, despite us looking much better. We had much more than four consecutive terrible games at the end of last season. Let's see how we're doing in early December and if things are still ticking along nicely then sign him up for another 2-3 years. I do like Lambert but four games just isn't long enough for him to prove he's genuinely turned it around here.

It's also interesting to note that Benteke has presumably not yet had to deal with Roy Keane yet - kinda keen to see what effect it has on his performances!

I vaguely know one of the girlfriends of one of the players in our squad, so I am ITK here: apparently Roy Keane is scary and shouts at them quite a lot during training.

I'm not sure Hutton ever needed any encouragement to destroy people with his tackles!

I'm glad he's continuing to do well. If nothing else it's good to see a fairly dismal tale have a happy ending. Who'd have thought we'd all be so happy having Hutton back in the team?

Quote is from RAWK..."Hummels on crack" isn't a bad compliment for our Philippe.

I kinda wish you hadn't said that, as my own observations suggest that that particular endorsement is more of a kiss of death...

I don't think they'll be handed permanent starting places until they earn them, though. I rate Cleverly higher than Westwood, but I doubt Lambert will replace the latter until Cleverly comes on and does something special or Westwood has a shocker. As people say, competition for places can only be a good thing.

Personally I think he'll stick around provided we don't implode this season. I imagine we'll be willing to offer him big wages given his importance to us and I'm not sure he'll be a big enough name (or young enough) for any of the really big clubs to come in for him, and even if they do he won't be getting first-team football there. I hope the experience of playing alongside the other competent defenders we're putting out this season might be enough to make him feel like he needs to move.

To be fair, Lerner could buy us Lionel Messi and some posters would still dream up a way to criticise him for it (or conveniently give someone else the credit instead). I think we've had a pretty decent transfer window from what I've seen so far, with the Cleverly deal being a nice dusting of icing on the cake. Our team looks totally different now and we didn't sell Vlaar.

Good signing imo, structured well for us: If he's unbelievably good, Man United will recall him and we lose him. Unlikely, he's not going to be so good that they'll want him instead of all the attacking players they've splurged on in the last year. If he's decent enough we want to keep him, we've got an option to buy and we'll buy him. If he's a crock of shite, we won't buy him and we'll just send him back to United instead. Don't really see where we can lose out there. Also, I don't really care he was interested in other clubs because in the end he signed for us.

We have played Stoke, Newcastle and Hull - two of the games at home. These three teams scored 45, 43 and 38 goals last season. Let's wait until we have played some proper teams over time before we start celebrating our acquisitions? Why? People are going to leap on him as soon as he makes a mistake, so we may as well enjoy the good times while they last.

The trouble with asking for "proven" players is you're generally asking for players of a standard where their club don't want to sell them and they don't want to come here. Cleverly is no Juan Mata, but that doesn't make him unproven.

Be massively ironic if he carries on playing like this and a bigger club comes in for him in January

This is essentially it, and it wasn't ever intended for the public. There's far more important events going on right now, it's a bit of a non-story. It's not a non-story imo, and if I'm brutally honest I don't think it reflects particularly well on you if you think it is. They shouldn't be making those comments (and he seems to have made a lot of them) irrespective of whether he actually believes them or not.

I love Ron.

I've always really liked Vlaar both as a player and a person (from what I've seen of him rather than direct personal experience) and I was gutted when he missed that penalty. I really hope we keep hold of him, but I wouldn't begrudge him moving on if an offer came in for him...although I think we'd miss him a lot.

Surely the current situation is an improvement on us not being for sale? Even if the news isn't as good as it could be, it's still good news.

No, there'd be a charge of failing to manage a football team well, and he'd be guilty of it. But, bizarrely, the prosecution would also be attempting to have him charged with several dozen utterly inconsequential misdemeanours...and in doing so, only making it more likely the entire case would be thrown out. (To stretch the analogy to breaking point).

I assure you nobody is 'desperate' to criticise Lambert. There is more than enough evidence to underpin the criticism he gets. There's no "evidence" that setting out to attack Man City at home would have ended in anything other than an absolute mauling. Other teams have endured worse results than we did at the Etihad when they did so and I'm sure everyone criticising him for being defensive would have done so even more if we'd lost 7-0 or 8-0. So why not just stick to criticising him for his recent run of terrible results? Why does every little thing have to be criticised, even when it isn't worthy of criticism? I don't even want Lambert here any more. He had his chance this year and he's failed. I just find it hilarious that there's "plenty" of things to criticise him about, yet some posters will still scrabble around in the dirt for the tiniest little stick to beat him with.

I don't think there was any shame in last night's results and those criticising Lambert for his tactics in that game just come across as desperate to criticise, frankly. I really don't get why some posters have to be so over the top all the time. The last few months have been a disaster in terms of our results, so why undermine your credibility by complaining Lambert didn't go out and attack against the best team in the league at home? All it does it generate sympathy for the person you're trying to discredit (who has been doing a more than ample job of discrediting himself lately anyway).

The last 65 minutes would beg to differ