Chap of Steel

Hopefully he does come on as a sub though Lambert tends to leave them a bit late

For all his obvious quality Albrighton hasn't actually provided an assist this season, though he did do well against West Ham - also might be down to the bad form of the people he's aiming the crosses at.

Sometimes I think to myself... what happens when the owners of Man City get bored?

There's something very annoying about seeing the moneybags team win the trophy.

On the bench today!

The strange thing with Tonev is that I struggle to remember much in the way of his input in games - apart from his notorious long shots. If I'm not mistaken he did put in a useful cross leading up to the second goal against Cardiff in the home win but that's about it in terms of my memory!

Form would dictate that we will draw this - or worse. On this basis and knowing Villa's unpredictability we will have a surprisingly comfortable win.

Aww that's harsh on Sunderland. Doubt they'll get back into it now.

Interesting post with some good points. Find the whole letter to Randy odd though. Why would Lambert read it?

Worrying stat from last weekend: Brad Guzan to Christian Benteke was the most frequent pass combination (16) between any two players during the defeat by Newcastle last Sunday.

Parodies do that though, just thought it was a laugh

Funny impression of Lambo. Sorry if already posted.

For a more recent forum member like me, what happened with Krulak?

We'd probably do alright but I think we'd forever be in the annoying position of around 10-12th. It's a bloody hard league to get out of.

Some things I was made aware of today: Benteke is completely selfish with his chances. Sylla isn't a Premier League player. The notion that we're better away is quickly becoming a myth.

The way I see it is we're currently doing OK. Us fans rightfully expect us to be towards the top of the table but given the last couple of seasons I am reasonably happy at present to see us around 10th-12th. I know there's not many points in it but that's where we are. I would be disappointed if we ended up any lower than that come the end of the season. That said, the football has been disappointing at times and it might be a little premature to offer Lambert a new contract. Replacing the manager can go either way. 17 West Brom 18 Sunderland 19 Cardiff 20 Fulham What do they all have in common?

It may be that Lerner is indeed looking to make the club as stable as possible in preparation for a sale. We can only guess. There is a degree of stability to the club despite us not exactly taking the league by storm. To have Lambert settled with a new contract and a reasonably low wage bill might be quite attractive to a potential buyer.

The only problem with a new attacking approach is that then we could start to concede more. Then we'd all be moaning on here - me included! I agree, the defence has improved, and I think it's because Lambert was fed up of shipping daft goals. Even when we played well towards the end of last season we were winning games 3-2, 2-1 or drawing 3-3 and 2-2. This is why we have been more cautious, I think.

Villa, and Sylla, are mentioned. http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/26136614 Thankfully for the many overseas footballers arriving in the Premier League, the support they receive is comprehensive thanks to a growing band of player liaison officers. They will find any new signing a place to live and get them a car, phone and bank account. The liaison officer is also part counsellor for emotional difficulties while keeping an eye on mundane details that can catch someone out - like where to park on your first match day. In the January transfer window, financial experts Deloitte estimated that half of the £120m spent of transfer fees went to overseas clubs. So right now many players will be facing significant challenges adjusting to their new environment. Manchester City's head of performance analysis Gavin Fleig has said it can take about a year for a player to settle in properly. Learning a new language is the first hurdle. Getting their heads around cultural differences is another key task. It can leave them disorientated, as if they are "living in a foreign country", to borrow Ian Rush's - probably apocryphal - comment after returning to Liverpool following two years in Italy with Juventus in the 1980s. As Krkic found after leaving Spain for Italy, homesickness and loneliness is another problem. Diets are different from country to country. Villa player liason officer McClelland deals with a whole range of problems Manchester United's former goalkeeping coach, Eric Steele, said David De Gea arrived from Atletico Madrid with a lifestyle poorly suited to living in Manchester. De Gea was sleeping two or three times a day and, said Steele in an interview in United We Stand magazine, eating "too many tacos". So the coaching staff "physically made him drink" protein drinks straight after training and convinced him to cut back on the habit of eating his main meal late at night. Aston Villa's player liaison officer, Lorna McClelland, says that even the sheer noise of cities and towns in England can cause problems for foreign players. "We had an African player who came to join us a few years ago who had never been out of Africa before, except for a couple of days," she said. "When he came to Birmingham airport, he sat in my car with his hands over his ears because he couldn't bear all the noise from the traffic and the voices. He wasn't used to them." When Les Ferdinand played at Bolton, he tasked the club's player liaison officer with finding him a helicopter pad so he could commute from London. Fulham's player liaison officer once claimed to have got a distressed phone call from French player Alain Goma because his goldfish were swimming the wrong way. However, McClelland said top-flight footballers largely experienced the same anxieties and problems as the rest of society. Ray Haughan, Liverpool's player liaison officer, agrees. "People have this thing about football players, that they're prima donnas," he said. "But I just find that they're normal people who happen to be high-profile stars for doing their jobs." Although Liverpool had an employee to help players deal with relocation issues back in the mid-1990s, Aston Villa were the first Premier League club to hire an official player liaison officer in 2002, when Graham Taylor created the post for McClelland. Today, Manchester City have three full-time staff in its player care department. The role is common across the league. From the moment a player arrives at Villa, McClelland is on hand, greeting new arrivals at the airport and helping to translate at contract negotiation stage. McClelland also helps when players have emotional difficulties. No job too small "I'm a counsellor, so sometimes I will give a player support with problems in his personal life," she said. "If there is a problem between himself and another player, he can count on my support and discretion. Everything said in my office remains within those four walls. There may be family deaths, the loss of a baby is not uncommon, relationship problems. "Over the years, all sorts of problems have come through the door. The manager, Paul Lambert, is very sensitive to players' feelings. He wants a happy camp." Villa operate "a buddy system" which pairs new arrivals with team-mates of a similar age, background and language who have been at the West Midlands club for a while. Malian midfielder Yacouba Sylla, who joined in January 2013, was teamed up with fellow French speaker Christian Benteke. "He spoke for me whenever I got stuck and explained how things worked when I first arrived," Sylla said. "He had been here for six months, so knew a lot. He helped me adapt to the new culture, understanding me, as he had felt the same months before." Sylla said he was surprised by cultural differences between players in the UK and his previous home in France. He found it funny at first that, when players greeted each other in the morning at Villa, they did not embrace or shake hands like they would at French clubs. "I find England more family-oriented," he said. "People here really look after each other. I also find that people don't prejudge you as much as they do in France." Sylla said it took him about four months to settle in Birmingham. One of the first things McClelland did was to take him on a tour of his local supermarkets. And it seems there are certain key phrases that foreign players have to pick up once they arrive at English clubs. "She took me for fish and chips during my first week," he said. "I was learning how to ask for things in my English lesson that week and was able to ask for cod and chips!"

I'm pretty sure that was a stunt sponsored by Lynx.

I'm not sure if you're joking or not, but if you're not, there are absolutely no signs whatsoever he has lost the dressing room. 7 of the players that started last night were signed by Lambert.

I had a picture taken with Barry Bannan!

To be fair £4 million (I believe?) had been shelled out on Okore, but I do think a short-term loan should have been sorted out in January given injuries

Any team knows that they will have to keep an eye on Benteke as he can be unplayable on his day. As a result it does mean that the common attempt to whack the ball up to Benteke and then expect him to knock it down for an approaching forward soon gets found out. It's funny how we only really start playing towards the end of matches when we're a goal or two behind. I posted earlier about what I believe to be caution from the manager in terms of being overly attacking this season.

It is total rubbish. Yeah, you have to remember that a lot of the players have either been given their chance in the Premier League for the first time by Lambert or another chance to prove what they can do (ie Delph). I personally don't think Lambert should be sacked. Should he be given a new contract? Probably not, yet. While a new manager might give the team a bit of a lift I would be worried about yet another rebuilding process. Cue more players in/out and less stability. Despite this, a loss to Cardiff would undermine all the good work shown against Liverpool/West Brom and would be worrying.