DelboyVilla

OK to a certain extent you're right but not completely. Arsenal and Liverpool were both there for the taking and for most of the first 4 years under Lerner we out spent Spurs and had a higher wage bill? What Everton and Spurs both had was proper football people at the helm not some silly kid from a credit card company's customer service department. Also remember that every time Lerner has changed manager we have changed the clubs ethos! This has caused constant unrest and chaos in the club and therefore the side. Then the one time Lerner seems to put some thought to may be consistancy is a good thing he chooses to do so with the manager with the worst record since he brought the club. Anyone would think he is trying to wreck us on purpose?

The voice of reason again Mark! Spot on! There are only 7 teams who have been ever presents in the PL and six of those finished in the top seven spots in the league last year. Only one ever present finished outside of the top seven and guess what that was us! You're right Mark if we sit back and say this level of performance is OK then we have no one else but ourselves to blame. No one else is going to complain! Lerner claimed to know the histroy of our great club? Well all he has picked up is the bad management we have seen all too often over the past 30 years! I don't want to be another Forest or Leeds stuck in the championship missing out on the big time every year. Under Lerner and Lambert we will get to see how frustrating that is. Lambert is an awful manager, We have a half decent team now and we still can't score goals and must be the most dire team in the league to watch. Lerner biggest mistake is giving that loser a new contract it certainly worse than MON's free reign with the piggy bank at least that got us some success. Lambert OUT!

Just opened this expecting it to be about Lamberts style of play but there is actually Ruggers at VP then?? This should go in OT as it has nout to do with the beautiful game? A bit like Lamberts tactics actually!

Lambert has never gone gung ho with us. The only difference being 8-0 last year and 3-0 this year was that last year we defended like a bunch of clowns and this year we were less comical. Even in the 1-0 win at VP we were hardly having a go until the sending off which changed the whole game. Lambert only does dog turd boring football! I am sick of the bullshite every week from him making out he wants to play differently if it wasn't for ......(please insert lame excuse)....! I am sure he is managing Dortmund on FIFA 15 and has lost all touch with reallity which is the only explanation for his inane ramblings I can think of!!!

He is an easy target because he is well past his best, and is almost constantly injured, and being a high profile player does not mean he is immune from criticism. He is up there with Holt and Bowery for baffling signings. As for comparing him cost wise with Luna, etc., they were signed by Lambert, and that only compounds the poor value he achieved in many cases considering the paucity of his budget. No he isn't. Bowery was a no hoper from League 2 who couldn't score for Chesterfield. Joe Cole is one of the most gifted English midfielders of the last fifteen years, it's not remotely similar. We're only two months or eight games into the first season. We are talking about the present, not the past. And Joe Cole now is better than Jordan Bowery is, was or ever will be, so it was still an incorrect comparison. If only he wasn't held together by flour and water? What's better a Bowery on the bench or Joe Cole on the Treatment table? Answer, neither are much us to anyone!

The main point is that for the past 2 plus seasons for whatever reason the football isn't good enough! Whether it be possession, shots on target, shots off target, goals scored, goals conceded, money spent, etc etc!! Not good enough!! Lambert has to take a lot of the blame and he has had enough time to change the style/tactics however he seems incapable of doing so! A lot of people on here got all excited over the first four games but now the reality bites Lambert is not good enough to take us forward he will only hold us back. And now Lerner the Inbred buffoon has us tied to this blithering idiot for 4 years! Taxi for Mr Fox!

Lambert described AW's form as formidable? Not really the first word that jumps into my mind? Best of a bad bunch? Maybe? Formidable LOL!

From what we saw against Man City he is not good enough for this league. Like Tonev either needs chamionship or porridge football to find his level!

Formidable Westwood????? WTF!!!!! Let's hope Sanchez can cover the defence because Zamora on last Sundays form will tear us a new one the way he is finding gaps between defenders?

I agree even though the side is much improved the tactics and football management are still at the dross level so I think Lambert will give us his usual best performance and we finish the same as the past 2 years. Unless we change the management we will never rise to the heady mid table finish!

I really worry about playing him under the current regime which seems to be able to suck the confidence out of seasoned international players with their anti-football tactics!! Leave him out the side until we get a proper football manager!

Great post Mark! We have the squad and first team players to produce an end product on the pitch far better than we witness each week especially at home yet we seem to turn out the same turgid, boring, no hope football on far to many occasions. It's not just this season either, it's the only consistant factor during Lambert's reign. Turgidity,, dourness and souless! As someone else pointed out we could have saved a few million and kept McLeish with the very same outcome. I truly beleive that this side we currently have could compete in the league far better with a better manager. I am still flabbergasted that he has technically another 4 years to inflict this dross on us loyal fans. I still liken the day he was offered another 4 years to someone posting a dog turd through my letterbox! Lerner criteria is never going to be about performances or entertainment or giving the fans something to cheer about. All he wants is a yes man who has no backbone of his own and will carry out whatever stupid idea he comes up with next! I wonder how long before Fox realises that under Lambert he will not have a product to sell!

Unfortunately the new contract was a clear message that as long as he continually scraps survival, he'll always remain in the job while Randy Lerner calls the shots. But he's had a lot of difficult circumstances to put up with? Aaahhh didums!!

This is why Lambert should not have been given a new 4 year contract until we had actually seen how his team was performing? Another one of Lerner's stupid mistakes to add to the already long list. The Lerner Legacy?

But it's said manager that found the player no? Well let's sack him as manager and give him the scouts job then!

he will probably also be retiring from Holland next then He hasn't had the pleasure of playing under Hiddink Mk II!!

Maybe Ron is fed up with the crappy football we play and being under constant pressure for 90 minutes?

It could also explain why a top 4 side has only won one trophy in the last 9 seasons?

Southampton are pretty far ahead of us in both squad quality and club structure. Look at how Southampton replaced a good manager and players and look at how we did it. They're miles ahead of us in how they are run. It's fair to suggest that both are ahead of us in certain regards, but financially it's "easier" to develop coming up through the leagues. Southampton have done incredibly well (a lot of this has to do with how good their youth academy has been) but have also been a "big club" playing at a lower level. Like any relegated team (Norwich, Leeds, Forest etc. etc.), you need to strip out the high-wage players and re-build - something that we've had to do whilst still in the Premier League. We've also never sold £90m of players in a season - much easier to spend that "free money" on talent than it has been for us. Not to take anything away from Southampton, just an unfair comparison. Everton would be a closer one for me - and they've done well by, essentially, not gambling. Edit: For Delph, I can't see why he wouldn't stay outside of a European team (i.e: playing European football) coming in. Swansea, Southampton, Stoke, West Ham et al are all arguably better than us, but not by such a significant amount that you'd want to give up first team action for possible rotation imo. They are not better than us they just have clever owners and decent managers that's all!

Phew!!

Well maybe he will sign for a well run club next summer? And I thought that Trent made the bold statement that perhaps some of the bigger stars hadn't signed up because Lambo only had one year left on his contract and they didn't like the uncertainity? Well that went well didn't it? Lerner really is a knob thinking that sorting this out would be someone elses problem!

Exactly! And the problem is that the counter attacking style is reliant on sitting back and absorbing pressure which obviously places pressure on our defenders and we are rapidly running out of defenders and may well be having to call on our 3rd and 4th choice. This has ended badly before!

But it also points out another problem we have as a club and that's footballing philosphy. Swansea have changed manager as often as we have over the past 7 years but have never changed their style of play because a manager's style is as important to them as his previous success. We have just changed managers and styles willy nilly. We moved from MON to Houllier which nearly ended in disaster and cost a lot of money. Then from Houllier to McLeish which was again chalk and cheese and cost a lot of money. Then finally McLeish to Lambert which on the face of it was again chalk and cheese but hasn't ended up that far in terms of style but again caused a lot of distruption. The worry is that under Lerner we would do the same again and completely change styles if Lambert were to walk or get sacked. The trouble is I cannot see Lambert setting a footballing philosphy up or anyone else at the club at the moment. The main thing we need to change is to be less one dimensional. Relying on the counter attack will work at times but let's show some patience and composure when teams sit back and not get the shits and panic if we have to string more than 6 passes together.

You do realise we actually won that game, right? Do you think Hull fans came away from the game celebrating because they had more possession? But we sat back and let them come on to us and they could have taken something from the game? I know we won. I never disputed that but we should have killed the game by keeping the ball. We need to control games better at home when we have worked hard to build a lead IMO. I don't know why people are still going on about the Hull game, we won. I don't know why when possession is discussed the only thing people can say is we won the Hull game. Yes we all know that! It seems almost as though if we won a game we are unable to discuss the match in any kind of other than it was the prefect performance or people agruing that stats are meaningless and what consitutes a shot on goal? It is becoming impossible to discuss any perceived issues with our play on here without people making silly comments that don't add to the debate but just try to wind up people? Has anyone said our play is perfect? I haven't seen anyone suggest that, however this constant we don't control the game, I'll be honest with you I haven't seen Villa control a game for a long long time. Even when we were smashing Blues 5-1, we did not dominate the ball. This philosophy that people keep banging on about isn't driven by the manager, it's driven by the club, i.e. the board, the fans and the manager. For those of us who go to Villa park, even when we are keeping possession of the ball, you will hear constant groaning at VP, get it down the flanks, get it forward, it's been the same for years. Well then hopefully when we get a new owner they will install a philosphy of successful entertaining football and for that he will need to change the manager very swiftly. You say it's been the same for years and maybe your right but in my 40 years down VP I have not seen much worse than Lambert has served up and certainly not for so long with the backing of the owner.

You do realise we actually won that game, right? Do you think Hull fans came away from the game celebrating because they had more possession? But we sat back and let them come on to us and they could have taken something from the game? I know we won. I never disputed that but we should have killed the game by keeping the ball. We need to control games better at home when we have worked hard to build a lead IMO. I don't know why people are still going on about the Hull game, we won. I don't know why when possession is discussed the only thing people can say is we won the Hull game. Yes we all know that! It seems almost as though if we won a game we are unable to discuss the match in any kind of other than it was the prefect performance or people agruing that stats are meaningless and what consitutes a shot on goal? It is becoming impossible to discuss any perceived issues with our play on here without people making silly comments that don't add to the debate but just try to wind up people?