bobzy

I find it amusing that you actually think he doesn't have the skills to carry out the Villa job to "even a mediocre level". His remit will have been to stay in the Premier League despite not having the financial resources of even the mighty Hull City. He's done that. He's found us one of the best strikers in the league for only £7m too. He's built a young squad with players now breaking into International teams. Have results been good? No, they've been poor - but they've been good enough to keep us in the league. I genuinely don't know what people have expected other than this struggle for the past few seasons. What's the expectation? Top 6? Top 10? What is it that Lambert should've produced that he hasn't?

I preferred the Premier League without him. The amount of media bumming he gets is unreal too. He also left another game early when his side were cruising to victory, then? What a top bloke. Really, really great guy. Mourinho may well be a better manager, but he's only done well in situations where he can't really fail. I'd love to see him take on a work in progress job, such as Spurs or something - but he's a chequebook manager. A manager that wants to be adored by fans, players and the media alike. He wants to be in a situation where he feels he can do no wrong. He failed at Real Madrid and came back to Chelsea, having just finished 6th, where he knew he could re-enhance his reputation. He's got results, fair enough (and his performance at Inter especially was outstanding), but Ancelotti for one has shown him up at both Chelsea and Real Madrid. Yet we don't hear/see anywhere near the amount of bollocks from that guy. Some people shouldn't be anywhere near Villa - Mourinho is one of them (thankfully, he'll never be here too!). P.S: How many victories at Villa Park? Get in there Lambo.

I find it odd that people outside of Chelsea actually like Jose Mourinho. He moans and whines and, as frequently shown, has no class whatsoever. During his time in Spain, he encouraged Pepe et al to (quite literally) kick lumps out of Messi/Barcelona and poked/gouged Tito Vilanova in his eye. Top bloke, Jose. Paul Lambert is a much better human being.

Ok, decent. Hopefully in line for 10 mins or so against City, which would be nice

Did he get through a full 90 by the way?

Joe Cole (32) scores goal for U21's. Love dat.

Didn't Chelsea employ that exact tactic to nullify our counter attacks? By the way, you didn't once say we should "play aggressively" in your post. What you said was that we shouldn't "sit back" which implies doing the opposite, i.e: go forwards, which is turn would make the game more open and would (in my opinion) see us get absolutely hammered.

I disagree - I think it's exactly how we should approach away games against the big teams. The last thing I'd want to happen in those sorts of matches is for us to play an expansive game and get hammered 8-0 again (by the way, this is more likely than "we may still have lost 3-0"). It completely crushes confidence; not to mention damages our goal difference. There's simply no point trying to match Chelsea in an attacking sense. Our win last season at Villa Park was exactly how we should play (and tried to on the weekend). Sit back, soak up pressure and then break. Doing anything else is just **** stupid to be honest.

Delph has no end product. Much the same way that people berate Westwood for not being defensively strong enough, Delph has the same problem going the other way. Lots of great bits of skill with nothing at the end of them. Edit: Though I agree Delph is important given our style of play. He's the only midfielder with a proper engine on him.

Villa's fault though. LAMBERT OUT!!

Honestly, you're talking about a team that is strolling to the Premier League title. They've put 6 past Everton and 4 past Swansea - both teams who are currently "better than us". I think it's entirely fair to accept defeat against Chelsea at Stamford Bridge as being something that is incredibly likely to happen. Likewise, the only way we'd actually win the game is to sit back, soak up pressure and manage to successfully counter attack. Chelsea are just far, far too strong. You can't assess that game in terms of "style and quality of play", it's ludicrous. Look back to Stoke, Newcastle and Hull to bemoan those things if you want. Personally, I'd take the 7 points we got from those games over some pretty football anyway.

Not really - Bannan did well in the middle of the park holding off a player and exchanged passes nicely (from what I remember?) but the backheel from Benteke and the run from Weimann is what made the goal. Edit: For clarity, at no point have I discredited Bannan here - your comment seems a bit strange in that regard DCJonah. As I said "the whole goal was beautiful in fairness"; Bannan's contribution included.

I know this was Weimann's goal, but dat backheel (the whole goal was beautiful in fairness);

The amount of times Lambert must've been asked about money/transfer windows/Lerner's backing... I reckon he just gives the most vague answers possible (like that one). Might as well have said "The way I see it, we go again and then the bar shuts and that's it, no-one gets a drink. But we're not looking to get drunk, we're just thirsty and we go again like Mr. Lerner. He doesn't reject anything".

"Willing" is an interesting word there. I'd assume we've probably seen the last of him. LAMBERT OUT!!

A certain style of play works for one team but not necessarily another, though. Dortmund are one of the best pressing teams in European football. Barcelona are one of the best possession-based teams in European football. When it comes to playing against a Champions League side, I don't expect Villa to match the abilities of these kind of clubs - it's ridiculous.

I actually quoted that to a Man U friend of mine back in the day. My argument was plain and simple - Keane is a word removed. I don't think anyone is saying the man is a saint. He is however, hard as nails, and he's on our side. Lets suspend our morals for the time being until we get relegated or he eats Tekkers. What? I'm glad he's (presumably) having the desired effect on the Villa squad, but it doesn't change the fact that Roy Keane was an absolute tosser as a player/human being. Personally, I won't be "suspending my morals" and praising him unduly in a funny way simply because he's at our club (see; the contrast between this and the Tonev thread).

Are you honestly comparing Aston Villa to Borussia Dortmund? Honestly? Really?

Whilst this looks crazy, can we actually determine what a "youth graduate" is? For example, Gabby Agbonlahor is a "youth graduate" and would've started quite heavily in our side whereas, for Everton, John Stones was bought from Barnsley(?) and probably isn't a "youth graduate" - just as an example. Obviously, Lambert has had a lot of constraints to work under, but I'm guessing our youth are Agbonlahor, Clark, Baker and Albrighton for the majority of those 260 starts. I highly doubt it means we've started with a load of kids each game.

Those scenarios are basically win/win to the contract extension then. Also, as an aside, is Lerner staying really such a bad thing? The club has been terribly mismanaged and now put back on the right track. If Lerner ran the club properly and gave reasonable funds to spend in the transfer windows, would it be a bad thing? (Big IF, I get that).

But you're not in our squad?

5000/1 for the title? Are they smoking crack?! Right then lads, here's the deal - we all shove £1,000 on this absolute certainly of a winning bet. That gives winnings of £5m each, which is obviously fairly decent. I reckon we've got at least 100 VT posters who are going to take this up... which leaves us with a collective fund of £500m. Then we just buy Aston Villa from Mr. Lerner and, boom, I think the title is ours for another 30 years or so. Right? RIGHT?

If Cleverly works out for us, we could have the future England midfield all playing together, all playing for us. That's pretty good work. I think that's ambitious. I don't think it's ridiculous to suggest that those 3 may all be in the squad at some point in their villa careers (not necessarily at the same time). But they won't be THE England midfield, if that's what you were getting out. You're right. We need to sign Barkley too.