AstonMartin82

You should try heroin. It's the best thing ever for the short term. Just a shame about the longer term and is certainly no foundation to build a life on.

LMAO. You haven't seen Bannan play at all. He is still as bad as he has ever been. Check out his stats and ratings. Poor to say the least.

Brilliant. You're gonna have a go at people on here and your best argument is keep the faith, we did it in the past. Great stuff. Good to see you read my post properly before vomiting. No doubt you were calling for Lamberts head at the same point last season before we turned it around. History shows that he has turned things around before and this is a better solution than "Sack the manager" with very little thought about who is out there ready to replace him who could do a better job (until they lose a couple of games and then you want them sacked as well). I don't care if he's sacked or stays, I have little faith in the owners finding better. You seem to dismiss any negative comments or comparisons with what went on previously because we've had one small good blip in a shocking 18 months I don't dismiss any sensible comments at all. Personally I am not really either for or against Lambert as much as that may not be apparent from this thread. If he is sacked tomorrow, which he won't be, I wouldn't be upset I'd just be a little frustrated that he wasn't given the time to see out his rebuilding job and we would be back to square one yet again but this time another year and a half down the line. I sympathise entirely with peoples frustrations at the lack of quality football being played, the lack of competitiveness which we are showing in games and the lack of entertainment. However, I do buy into the youth for the future policy and I think if Lambert can buy a couple of hard bastard midfielders with some leadership qualities in January to assist Vlaar in heading up the team then we are not too far away from a very talented squad with the correct blend of experience, youth and brute force. It's plain to see to me that we are amiss of a lot of this leadership and brute force. These are the ingredients that are missing not the employment of the wrong manager. The fact that Agbonlahor is Captain when Vlaar is out is an absolute joke. The guy is a fantastic Villa servant but he is as much as a leader as I am a bluenose. I weep before every game when I see him as Captain and I am sure a number of the Villa squad do the same. For these reasons I am willing to put up with the current regime to see what they can do over the January and summer transfer windows. I'm sure we are not far away from a very good squad and I'm even more sure that changing the management would only delay our progress even further. The fact Lambert has delivered this previously gives me hope that he will do it again in the future.

Brilliant. You're gonna have a go at people on here and your best argument is keep the faith, we did it in the past. Great stuff. Good to see you read my post properly before vomiting. No doubt you were calling for Lamberts head at the same point last season before we turned it around. History shows that he has turned things around before and this is a better solution than "Sack the manager" with very little thought about who is out there ready to replace him who could do a better job (until they lose a couple of games and then you want them sacked as well).

Semantics in that McLeish isn't capable of producing an entertaining team and Lambert is. Just not with any of the attacking players in form.

The main reason why we are not playing decent football and picking up results is as other have said already on this thread. The loss of form of 4 of the main 11. No team can cope with that... especially not one the size of our club. We will come good again. Keep the faith.

Semantics. The point being that McLeish wasn't capable of playing entertaining football. Not even for a game. If I recall correctly he played 7 defenders against Spurs 2 years ago? Lambert has produced it before and is capable of producing it again. The football hasn't been good enough but to compare everything to McLeish is a step too far. Things can and will improve under Lambert this I am sure and fans losing the faith this early on does nothing to help the club.

It is a lazy argument to compare Lambert to McLeish and is only done to tarnish Lambert in the debate. The fact of the matter is that McLeish's Villa team scored more than one goal on only THREE occasions. Lambert's Villa team won praise last season for the entertaining football that was played. Going from McLeish's dire football to entertaining football was a job well done. Absolutely no one is arguing that the last couple of months have been dreadful with the football boring but the fact of the matter is Lambert has produced entertaining football in the past unlike McLeish and is capable of doing so again. If you judge over a longer period of one month you wouldn't have the same view point. The only problem with doing this is that it doesn't suit your argument.

I don't know if really you don't understand or if you're being deliberately dense but obviously one example does not disprove a rule Quote "The logical conclusion is that the more you spend on wages, the more points you got in the Premier League" http://www.squawka.com/news/2013/07/09/value-index-part-1/2013070912877 Ok I'll give you another example and one which your sarcasm will like. QPR last season. Well, you've had two attempts at this and have spectacularly and magnificently totally misunderstood the concept. To be honest, your lack of understanding here puts the rest of your posts into context In a nutshell, well established rules of economics dictate that in general, the more talented you are, the more you can expect to get paid - this is not in dispute In football terms, there is a massive correlation (statistical relationship) between what you pay your players in wages and how many points you should expect to get back in return Teams to the left of this line have under-performed ie they have not earnt the number of points that the amount of money they have paid out deserves Teams to the right of the line have over-performed earning more points than you would expect The best (worst?) example of a team under-performing during 2011/12 was McL's Villa - given the high wage bill they should have been expected to earn around 12 additional points. The fact that they didn't is clearly a function of bad management and players not performing to the level that their pay would indicate. Using a different metric, McL team was the 7th best paid but finished 16th - the worst differential (-9) between pay and position in the division (the best differentials were Brendan Rodgers' Swansea (+9) and Lambert's Norwich (+7)) It is not really possible to exactly say what % of under or over-performance is due to management and what % is due to players, but in the example that you provide, Bent v Benteke it seems pretty clear that your poster-boy Bent at £65k a week was not returning value and that Benteke at c£25k a week was massively over-performing (this is further confirmed by Bent's contribution at Fulham) Your other example (QPR) shows exactly the same situation as at Villa in 2011/12 - a combination of bad management and players not delivering performance commensurate with their wages. Even your hero Redknapp who overachieved with Spurs couldn't turn it around I would think that Lambert's team are now on something like 50% of the wages that McL's team was on - when you cut wages so dramatically, statistics would suggest that you should see a proportionate reduction in the number of points you should expect. We don't yet have the figures available but I would expect that we have moved from a position of massively under-performing under McL, to a position under Lambert where, so far, we have earned more points than the wage bill would suggest http://www.squawka.com/news/2013/07/09/value-index-part-1/2013070912877 In my day job, I work with companies to improve their customer service - the biggest source of dissatisfaction with companies is where performance does not meet customer expectation. For example, Ryanair is clear with customers that it is a no-frills airline and so customers have fairly low expectations of the level of service they can expect and people are mostly satisfied, but if BA offered the same level of service their customers would be dissatisfied because their expectations are much higher Our problem is that we have, somewhat understandably given the relatively decent performance of a few years ago, the mentality and expectations of a big club, but people who think like this are undoubtedly going to feel disappointed because their expectations are way out of step with what can feasibly be delivered with the resources employed. Personally, I've lowered my expectations and I'm not currently judging Lambert against the same standard that I judged MON, Houllier or McL - if and when Lambert gets more money (to spend on wages not on fees - there is a much much lower correlation between fees and performance) my expectations of him will rise accordingly I've got no particular favouritism towards Lambert but whilst in my opinion he is keeping us on the plus side of the chart I continue to support him Fantastic post Cas. It would be interesting to see the same stats but only using the regular starting 11 wages rather than the squads wages. This I think would highlight just how huge a job Lambert took on last year. The majority of our big earners were not / are not contributing on the pitch suggesting that we probably over-achieved last season using the players which we did. This season was always going to be a struggle and all I was hoping for was less of a relegation battle than last season and thus far we are achieving that, despite the recent downturn in results. If we win the bottom half of the table then it will be a very successful season in my opinion. I find it sad that Lambert is losing some of the Villa faithful after what would have been a pretty ugly job description that he took on at the beginning of last season and one which he has done well at so far. I think he deserves more time to see this job through as in the bigger picture he is only really just started it. That said though I do sympathsise and feel the frustration of the fans who are annoyed at losing games without even competing. This to me is a lot worse than just losing the games but I have faith that we will turn it around soon.

This thread should be called "The Overreaction Thread" and your post sums it up perfectly. Nothing quite like over reacting to a third parties in the know on an internet forum.

I agree with you Con, Rory Delap was World Class.

Same shit different season. Last season it was a statistical anomaly as to why he hadn't got more assists and goals. This season you are going down the same route. Perhaps, just perhaps, if he was able to hit a ball into an empty net from 6 yards out so that Reading chance went in the net, and he was able to cross a ball without floating it straight into the goalkeepers arms he would have actually contributed more goals and assists. But he doesn't and he hasn't.

Can you please prove where Con got "slaughtered"? Can you please prove where anyone is fanatically backing Lambert? It is quite damning that your strongest argument for playing Bannan is because he starts games rather than anything good from what he delivers in those games. Perhaps if Bannan gave a little bit more in the games he plays your argument wouldn't be quite so pathetic.

1-0 down and chasing the game and they take off the all creative and all match winning Bannan? Bannan did start most games for Villa last season. Doesn't mean he was good in any of those matches. Just means we had limited options and as soon as that got resolved he got dropped.

Not really. It is called protecting the lead. Unlike Lambert, Pulis realises he isn't a defensive player. As I said, whether they are winning losing or drawing he comes off. In fact when they played Newcastle if I remember correctly he came off at half time when they were 2-0 down. It seems odd that you would take off your match winner and most creative player when you are chasing the game... either that, or he isn't a match winner or creative player. You would do well to not bring Lambert up in your argument as it only significantly weakens it. It only shows you are acting out of emotion rather than sense and reason.

Plus he is subbed every single game, whether they are winning, losing or drawing. For this to happen Pulis must see him as the weakest link.

He is constantly the worst player on the pitch. With Palace being my local team I see, hear and discuss a lot about them. This view point is backed up by whoscored.com also... if you check out Bannan's ratings you will see he is nearly always the worst if not second worst player on the pitch: http://www.whoscored.com/Matches/720347/Live

Failed.

Yes because it's not like we actually watched the full-match is it? It was only a game involving Aston Villa... He isn't when played in the wrong position, no. Con never watches Villa though he vomits his opinion on everyone every week. Bannan is not fast enough to be on the wing. Not strong enough to play behind the front. So his best position would be a deep lying midfielder which is exactly where Lambert played him to get the best out of his strength - passing. Unfortunately his strongest attribute is still no where near Premier League quality. His passing is still better than Delph, Sylla and KEA'S. Maybe Westwood is a more consistent passer but not this season because without Bannan he's the one that has to play the killer ball. That's highly debatable. He passes the ball sideways as you would expect any professional footballer to do but when it comes to that killer through ball he constantly fails. He hasn't once played a ball like Westwood's assist at Norwich last season for example. Incredibly limited player in every which way you look at it.

And he failed under Houllier and is failing under Pulis. Doesn't exactly prove your point does it? I dropped and smashed a glass earlier... should I blame this on Lambert also? It seems to be the in thing at the moment.

Yes because it's not like we actually watched the full-match is it? It was only a game involving Aston Villa... He isn't when played in the wrong position, no. Con never watches Villa though he vomits his opinion on everyone every week. Bannan is not fast enough to be on the wing. Not strong enough to play behind the front. So his best position would be a deep lying midfielder which is exactly where Lambert played him to get the best out of his strength - passing. Unfortunately his strongest attribute is still no where near Premier League quality.

You've made this joke twice. Its stupid. Not as stupid as half the posts on this thread. Sometimes the only way of not letting stupidity affect you is by laughing.

Let's get Sherwood to be Aston Villa's manager for next month. We can decide who can manage us for February towards the end of January.

Nobody thinks that this is acceptable and no Villa fan would ever want it. The question is the response to the poor performances of recent. Personally I think Lambert has earned the right to be given more time, another transfer window and the opportunity to turn things around. Changing managers now might have a short term impact (there is a good chance it won't either), but ultimately it will put us back another year in a half into building something sustainable for the future. I like what Lambert has done in his first year and a half as a whole. He has made some bold decisions in dropping Bent and Given and these gambles have pulled off spectacularly well. He has reduced the wage bill and got players into Villa who actually want to prove a point rather than see out their humongous contract before retiring. Along the way there are going to be rocky patches as we have a young and inexperienced team. Last season we had a rocky patch and we saw it through. This season we are going through a rocky patch and we will see it through. The players and the manager will be better after this experience. I am willing to give Lambert the chance to see out what he started and reserve judgment on him until at least the end of the season. Lerner has a vision, Lambert has a vision and I see what they are trying to do. The fans who think everything should be replaced after a couple of bad months have no solutions to the problems they just want to make someone a fall guy without knowing what is good for the long term future of the club.

So you want to get rid of a mid table manager and replace him with another mid table manager? Seriously, what is the point? You are too short sighted. In a couple of weeks if Stoke lose, Palace lose, and Villa win then all of a sudden Lambert will be a much better manager than the other two. I wish the majority football fans would think longer term than 2 weeks ahead.[/ No! I was pointing out that quite often a different manager can get better results with the same set of players. I don't want Pullis. I want a manager who can get us winning at home; who can get us playing good football and not the dour shite were used to under Lambert. I think I understand what you want. You want the manager who has always had the best results over the last month to be Villa manager for the next month? Good luck with that.