shaggy

Good post, but no doubt if we are bought out by somebody who's "only" worth a couple of billion (or heaven forbid less than that!) there will still be lots of complaining in a manner reminiscent of a spoiled child at Christmas.

 

You don't like people on here, do you?

 

He's right, though.

 

Personally, I don't care much for the individual wealth of a prospective new owner (as I posted elsewhere; I really don't want Villa to be the next Man City/Chelsea) but I DO care about the club being run properly - kingysilvers post is absolutely bang on.

 

People have slagged Lerner off far too much for, essentially, putting his hand in his pocket to the tune of £100m+ - but because that hasn't happened recently and Villa are struggling, it's his fault.  What we need, of course, is for someone to chuck a load of money at the problem (a la Lerner in the early days), get short term success to an extent (a la Lerner in the early days) and then have that person to blame if over-investment costs us in the long run (a la Lerner right now).  The more short termists amongst us will look at the football on the pitch/results and say it's not good enough - time for a change.  I DO think that Lerner has put Aston Villa Football Club in a good position to move forwards after a period of terrible mismanagement.

 

Thus, it's not about the wealth for me; it's about the ability to run a football club well.

Let's take the point that we all agree on and that is first and foremost the club must be run well internally by the new owners and whoever the manager is irrespective of the investment available.

Now your comment about short termisim. Do those who have criticised the GH, AL and Lambert periods really deserve being labeled with that criticism. It was a poor decision making by Lerner to employ those managers and it was poor decision making again not to have a more balanced investment policy in place rather than too much at the start of Lerner's ownership and then not nearly enough when it was needed.

Lerner also hasn't put the club on a better financial standing due to his love of the club. He has done that with one thing in mind and that is self preservation of his inherited millions so the club is more financially attractable for a sale. In fact you can go one further than that and actually describe Lerner as selfish in that he cut investment for self preservation and in doing that risked the club being relegated. Have we forgotten how close the club has come to that over the last three seasons yet investment was still cut.

So you'll excuse the short termists complaining about three years of relegation battles while still splashing out hundreds of pounds in a recession to watch a team being stripped of their best players and then having to watch absolute shite on and off the pitch with one member of the coaching staff turning on the fans for displaying that short termisim you speak of.

Think it is more an attitude than ability problem which unfortunately affects the other.

Canadians are the most overly proud people on the planet.

Have you met any dutch fans?

We will concede too many and don't have enough going forward to score against the better defences. The expectation level this time is about right though and it won't be a surprise if we don't get through the group stages. 

 

 

Paul McGrath wants him to stay, that's good enough for me.

Merson said on Soccer Sunday that Lambert should have gone with his coaches. Is that not good enough for you?

No, I'll take gods word.

 

Just as long as both were sober when making the statements.

We all knew he would be crap and he didn't disappoint. 

Paul McGrath wants him to stay, that's good enough for me.

Merson said on Soccer Sunday that Lambert should have gone with his coaches. Is that not good enough for you?

He's going to walk.

His reputation has been severely damaged not only with his performance at our club but his chief lieutenants have been put on gardening leave pending an investigation.

If he walks now leaving a club in turmoil because that's what it is after Lerner's statement then no other Premiership club would touch him with a barged pole.

The way I see it he will stick for the time being either using the excuse that the new owners wanted their own man or if given more money he will try to buy himself out of trouble.

The problem is he will still want to play with the big man up top and any better players coming in will still be stifled with Lambert's preferred system.

He is one lucky, lucky man at the moment and really if he plays it right only an idiot would **** it up again.

What affect will this have on summer transfers. Surely we can't buy any players until the sale goes through and in effect the club is in total limbo.

We can only hope that the sale is already in place and it will move to a swift conclusion.

No probs mate. The quote from Lambert was 'I'm responsible for it because it was my decision to pick the players.'

We are too far apart on the other stuff to continue but I do respect your opinion. Hopefully we will all get what we want in the summer?

Why are some people so obsessed with others "admitting" they were "wrong"? Circumstances change and I don't think it's a case of certain people being right all along and others being wrong the whole time. Just smacks of petty point-scoring to me.

Something which I've noted posters doing when we were mid table.

I think the supporters are patient.....I think they are as loyal as it gets.

As I've seen written elsewhere, if your lamp doesn't work with three different bulbs it's the lamp that's the problem, not the bulbs.

Maybe the batch of bulbs are faulty and not the lamp!

You are right though about expectations however I don't think anyone expected miracles, just get the basics right. Which hasn't been delivered. And lets be fair you dont need messi, ronaldo etc to get the basics right do you.

I think people expected us to finish higher than 15th, but to be quite frank, do we have even the 15th best squad in the league? Not without Benteke and Okore IMO. Us our squad better even than Fulhams, who finished bottom? Not sure.

Who built the squad.

How much did the squad cost?

What are the wages for the squad?

We can talk about issues with tactics and substitutions but assembling a squad on the cheap and then dealing with significant injuries isn't really something PL can take so much blame for.

How much do you think Agbonlahor, Delph, Weimann and Benteke are on and hasn't our wage outlay increased.

Did Lerner purchase the players or did Lambert and look at my sig which highlights a comment from Lambert.

Our squad is probably the worst we've had for a generation, but can you honestly say that without Benteke/N'Zogbia we'd have been worrying about relegation? I doubt it. Lambert does not inspire much confidence, and has been inconsistent for us, but he's done a much better job than his two predecessors considering the circumstances (and that's coming from somebody who thinks Houllier was alright).

 

Our main problem is an owner who gave us a lot of money but didn't really know what he was doing with it. I respect Lerner's motives but his execution as our chairman has overall been very poor. The truth is we are still suffering from an almighty hangover from the O'Neill days, who let's be honest, pretty much ran the club on and off the pitch during his time.

 

Our supporters. Well, they can be good, as shown today. Our away fans by and large are one of the best sets in the league.

 

Our home fans are probably amongst the worst though. You can try and justify it, but the atmosphere the young Villa players play under is toxic. It is not their fault if they are not good enough. The likes of Joe Bennett getting dog's abuse on Twitter displays the complete and utter lack of understanding some fans have. We will not get better if our players are made to play in such a negative and pressured environment. We will continue to regress. The players look completely abject of confidence and you can tell that the biggest contributor to that is the fans.

 

Our home record since since December 2011 reads:

 

Played 51, Won 12, Drawn 13, Lost 26. Think about it.

 

We do well against big teams because the pressure is off (as well as the fact we are good on the break), but when expectations are high at home when we play a bottom 12 club, the support (if there was any in the first place) completely switches off after 25 minutes if we haven't had a dominant spell. You've got to understand how limited our team is. Without Benteke or Kozak and N'Zogbia we probably genuinely have the least creative midfield in the Prem and the worst striking force beyond perhaps Cardiff and at a stretch Fulham. Our defence is hardly something to shout about either. We are still in a period of transition believe it or not because our books still need to be massively balanced. Lambert has not been brilliant in his transfers by any means, but look around at other clubs and there are few who have been much better.

 

I'm afraid that people need to accept that we are not a big club anymore, we fulfill absolutely no criteria. If you can't attract big players to the club, you are not a big club. You have to be realistic. If our fans got behind the players at home we'd be nowhere near relegation, our results would improve, and so would our opinion of the players/manager. It is a scientific fact that people respond better to support than criticism, Villa fans are living proof of this.

Some people don't get how the psyche works

Watched the game yesterday. Our fans cheered all afternoon. What was the result.

We get how the psyche works. Defend Lambert at all costs instead of admitting you were wrong about him.

I think the supporters are patient.....I think they are as loyal as it gets.

As I've seen written elsewhere, if your lamp doesn't work with three different bulbs it's the lamp that's the problem, not the bulbs.

Maybe the batch of bulbs are faulty and not the lamp!

You are right though about expectations however I don't think anyone expected miracles, just get the basics right. Which hasn't been delivered. And lets be fair you dont need messi, ronaldo etc to get the basics right do you.

I think people expected us to finish higher than 15th, but to be quite frank, do we have even the 15th best squad in the league? Not without Benteke and Okore IMO. Us our squad better even than Fulhams, who finished bottom? Not sure.

To be fair I expected better than last season too. But then I expected Benteke to be fit and firing and Okore to be playing ahead of Clark and Baker. Suffice to say that if both of those had happened we would be sitting pretty comfortably, perhaps even in the top half.

As it is it's been a dismal campaign. Lambert's not blameless, but all things considered it's not a total failure on his part to have kept us up.

As to his signings, his main two suffered long term injuries after looking decent, and Bacuna has been useful for £1m. Luna, Helenius and Tonev have flopped but cost less than £5m between them.

That's some ascertain to make concerning Okore since he hasn't played many games due to injury and you can't possibly tell either way how good or how poor he would have been.

Price paid for players especially when purchased within a limited budget should not excuse managerial choice when they flop as badly as three quarters of Lambert's signings have.

You are right in one respect though that it has been a dismal season made worse by the fact that there has been absolutely no improvement.

Christ just catching us on MOTD. We really are a totally woeful football team.

And that's just the, eh, highlights.

The players didn't even look as though they were bothered today. For all Lambert's faults I didn't think he had lost the dressing room up to this point, but today I thought otherwise. That, or they knew he is off.

 

That has been the case in a numbers of games recently. Against Stoke, Fulham and Palace they simply wanted it way more than us. I can excuse a lack of quality but a lack of effort is unforgivable and suggests a deep rooted issue.

If he goes then whilst I won't be shedding any tears, there will be an element of regret. I still think he's the man for the job in the long term.

One thing is for sure, if he does go, he will leave behind a far better squad for the next incumbent than the previous four managers did.

It's a results games and lambert's haven't been good enough, simple as that. I just think there is a lot more to it than that.

He is leaving one outstanding individual. A far better squad? Not really.

I disagree. He is the one manager who at least tried to build a squad that could improve and grow. A squad built around youth and energy, not overpaid journey men or players on the edge of decline. The previous mangers bought for the moment regardless of future potential and value and many of them were acts of desperation.

If he goes then he leaves a spine of; Guzan, OKore, Vlaar, Delph, Westwood and Benteke. You put good good players alongside those 6 and we've got a good side.

Bacuna has clear potential, Lowton could yet still come good, as could the likes of Tonev, Helenius and Kozak.

He's built a nucleus that can be added to, not something that needs dismantling.

Delph was already here and he didn't exactly pick up Guzan from nowhere. Okore we really don't know about since his injury and Westwood is part of the reason why our midfield has been continually over run.

Tonev has been a disastrous signing and will follow Lambert out through the door in the summer while Bowery has been preferred to Helenius in the last few games which should tell you a lot. Kozak has been nothing more than average as has Bacuna while Lowton has been a complete liability defensively.

He has actually built a nucleus that rather than being added to with the exception of Guzan, Vlaar and Benteke will rightly be demolished by the next manager coming in unless you think the nucleus you speak of had nothing to do with two battles against relegation.

It really doesn't matter though does it. What matters is where we finish and going by that we haven't improved. So much for the mid table position which was always build on sand.

So far Daren your post is the one I agree with most.

Last two months have been awful, lots of promise going into the season, key injuries did not help at all but spending jack all money has cost us and if continued we are down this time next year

Being on a limited budget he did not utilise the loan system enough and thought he could transfer championship quality players into Premiership players.

He also did not make better use of what was here when he first arrived and decided to take a hatchet to the squad when less was needed.

Even if his remit was to reduce wages his choice of player and organisational skills must be questioned with no improvement at all from last season in performance and who would you really keep from Lambert's purchases. Guzan, Benteke and who else?

I also wonder if Lambert does receive his p45 will he again employ Culverhouse and Karsa elsewhere?

Irrespective of all that he must be judged on results Richard and those results have been dreadful. At any other Premiership club with those results he would have been sacked a lot sooner than the end of this season.

The majority of his signings have failed. His motivational skills have failed along with his tactical nous and his legacy will leave our club with yet another major clear out of players with the next manager coming in.

He has been a complete failure.

That's on a par with Moyes comment about Man City.

The evidence is damming though Richard but as you wish.

And take yet another disastrous managerial appointment with you.

Change the manager as often as you want, give him shit money to spend and he can't do too much. Yep mistakes made, yep last few months have been dreadful , yes not much progress on last year. But what did the useless owner we have spend? Lerner is useless and worse than Ellis in my opinion

Best manager since saunders eh richard?

yes he is and pity he was not afforded the monetary tools to show it

Is this thread still open.?...thought it would be closed by now.

Hopefully no later than by the end of next week.