markavfc40

Got the selection spot on today. Not sure many of us would have gone with Bannan, Westwood and Ireland but it worked a treat. Lowton, Vlaar, Benteke, all look like very good signings and Kea and Bennett look like decent pieces of business. Westwood in his first start today was excellent. I look forward to seeing who Lambert has lined up in January.

Genuinely surprised with him today. He was superb considering it was his first start for us. Fair play to the lad and if he can continue in anything like the same vein Lambert may well of brought us a very good player for a snip. Him, Bannan and Ireland looked like they had played together for years and linked up very well.

He was excellent today. Always involved, always a threat and the goal just topped off his performance. He is having a good season and long may it continue.

I am genuinely amazed that a pratt like him can get to the position he has. For me it would be a total **** embarrassment if this country was being led by that bufoon. He may have some comedy value but come on do we really want someone like him as Prime Minister? We would be a laughing stock. Are the Tories stupid enough to make him leader? – most probably. Thankfully given the way the Tories have again behaved over the last 2 and half years there is very little chance of seeing them in power again for a very long time. Certainly no chance of them winning an overall majority something they haven’t done since 1992 anyway.

Stevo you are being ripped off big time. Go onto MYPROTEIN website. Whey protein unflavoured £43.00 for 5kg if you buy 3 or more or £45.00 for one. Free dleivery. You will have it with in 2 days. You will pay more for flavoured but again it is a waste of money. I just put a dash of blackcurrent cordial in with mine whisk it up and it is fine.

Out of interest what is this Whey Protein you are buying for £30 for just 908g/700g of protein? I buy 5kg of Whey Protein for £43.00 which is 82% protein so 4000 grams of protein. It seems really excessive what you are paying.

Its hardly comparable is it. Prescott had an egg **** at him from some pratt standing a couple of feet away and then defended himself.

You look solely on his time at Aston Villa and I guess you could accuse O'Neill of being a cheque book manager. I do though think for an 80 mill net spend over 4 years and when he left the 6th highest wage bill what we achieved was about right. It should also be remembered that since he left we sold 3 of his signings for over 60 mill. What he certainly can't be accused off is being a cheque book manager at Leicester. In his 5 years there he got them promoted and for 4 seasons they didn't finish outside the top 10 in the Premiership. They won the league cup twice and finished runners up once. A remarkable achievement and he certainly didn't have a lot to spend at Leicester. I think he is now possibly on the wane and in terms of English football Aston Villa will certainly be the biggest club he will manage. I think perhaps he knows that himself now and as maybe lost some of the spark he had with us. Like many managers found before him once you leave us it seems you go backwards. He certainly won't go down as an elite manager alongside the likes of Fergie and Wenger but for me he stands comfortably alongside the likes of Moyes and Redknapp especially when you consider he has won more than them at a club like Leicester.

He has scored 67 goals in 274 appearances 31 of those appearances as a sub. A goal every 4 games whilst not great is not that bad especially when you think how many games he has played out wide. He is rightly starting at the moment for me. We look far more threatening with him in the side than out of it.

Getting plenty of praise today from Lambert on the official site. He will certainly be keeping his place in the side and Bent can expect to be warming the bench for sometime yet. Hopefully Benteke and Gabby can continue to forge a decent partnership.

I don't think we can have too many complaints drawing a team like Norwich in a QF. They are nothing to be feared and we have beaten far better already in this cup already. Of course they can say exactly the same thing. Form going into the game will be important and hopefully we can go into it having got a couple of decent results in the league.

BJ is spot on here. I like him wasn't keen on Houllier or McLeish when they were appointed and certainly after a dozen or so games was convinced they were not the right people to take the club forward and so it proved. I still think Lambert will do well with us given time but I can fully understand others thinking completely the opposite especially given the terrible start we have made and I have no problem with people expressing those views. Why would I when I did exactly the same with the previous two managers. I always hoped I would be proved wrong on Houllier and McLeish and I am sure those that are becoming opposed to Lambert hope they are proven wrong. Time will tell.

He could be in trouble unless things pick up pretty quickly and we can hopefully put another nail in his coffin this weekend. We can get an early goal I can see the crowd getting on there backs which has already happened on a couple of occasions this season. In my 30 odd years following us I can't remember a manager who after leaving us went on to do well at another club. In fact the opposite has happened.

Couple of nice finishes tonight from the big man. He gets into some cracking positions and if he'd taken all the chances he has had since signing he'd be in double figures already. He is for me rightly ahead of Bent in the pecking order currently and I can see why Lambert wants to go with Gabby up top with him as Gabby works his bollocks off and is happy to do more of the dirty work in tracking back/working the channels. They are starting to show signs of forming a decent partnership and I have feeling Lambert will stick with them as a pairing.

He was very good tonight and put a great shift in. His work rate over the last few games has been excellent. He obviously needs to start adding goals to his game in the league but as things stand he is worthy of his place in the team and is starting to forge a decent understanding with Benteke.

Bit of an extreme example using a player that didn't perform too well. Maybe we could go the other way and bring back Downing, Milner, Ash, Barry all of whom were very experienced players when we sold them and have been sold and either not replaced or not replaced with anything like the same quality. The core of what was a very good side that could compete in the top third of the table has been ripped to pieces in three years in the main due to cutting costs. Friedel, Luke Young, Ash, Barry, Petrov, Downing, Milner would walk into our best 11 now and the likes of Cuellar, Reo Coker and Collins wouldn't look out of place alongside the current mob. We have gone backwards at an alarming rate and the ultimate fault for that lies firmly at Lerners door.

Very good post Briny. Have to say that I do find the lets blame it on Mon game all a bit tiresome now. Did he buy some crap – yes – did we put some players on wages they subsequently didn’t warrant during his tenure – yes but its debatable whether or not he negotiated those contracts. Bottom line in the Mon years is this for me. When he came in we were on the slide. We had narrowly avoided relegation the season before and crowds were dwindling. In 4 years he spent a net of around 80 mill (less if you include the sale of Milner a week after he left )and in his final 3 seasons we had the 8th, 6th and 6th highest wage bill in the league ( not sure on wage figures in his first season ). During those three seasons we finished 6th three times on the spin for the first time in over 50 years. We played in Europe, we reached a major final for the first time in a decade and we competed for a Champions League spot till the last month of the season twice. We regularly gave the big boys a game and never lost a local derby. We averaged over 40k for the first time in way over 50 years and had another two years with average crowds of around 39k. I think given what he inherited and who we were competing against he achieved about what I’d expect. As in life in football you generally reap what you sow. Under O’Neill we spent a few quid, had the 6th highest wage bill and hey ho were finishing top 6,competing for a Champions League spot, competing in the latter stages of cup competitions and attendances were high. Over the last two years we have cut back recklessly, made two shite managerial appointments and spent 90% of the last 2 seasons in or around the relegation zone with this season heading the same way. On top of the above we have in the main been served up tripe and it is therefore no surprise that attendances have dwindled. Lerner is certainly reaping what he has sowed and sadly we are being made to suffer.

Bent is a bit of a luxury player in our current predicament. He is a player that needs others around him to do all the donkey work and put chances on a plate for him. We have lads who are willing to do the donkey work but don't have anyone to supply him with the chances. Without those players then 9 times out of 10 it is pointless having Bent in the side. Its been the case throughout his career that unless he is scoring he offers very little and does pretty much **** all. 　 Given his goal scoring record there will always be clubs willing to pay a fair few quid for him. If you simply look at Bents career in stats you'd have to say he has an excellent goal scoring record and before he joined I'd always wondered why the likes of Man Utd, Arsenal, Liverpool, Chelsea, Man City hadn't taken a punt on him over the years and why Spurs got rid of him and I guess now we know. Hopefully if he gets another run of games in the side he can pull his weight, bang a few in and Lambert will then look to keep him. If not I am sure someone like QPR will be in for him in January and we will recoup around 10 - 12 mill and save around 60-70k a week in wages. Whether or not all of the fee/wages will be reinvested is anyone's guess.

Should this thread not be changed to the Yellow Fellows row with Wiz.

This person doesn't work for the BBC does he?

The fall over the last two years has been unbelievable and Lerner has to take responsibility for that. We went from having our best 38 game Prem season to our worst inside two years. We went from being managed by a guy who had gotten relative success wherever he had been to being managed by a guy who was a known failure. We lost the likes of Ash, Milner, Downing, Luke Young, Friedel, Carew and due to a lack investment on both wages and transfers either didn't replace them or didn't replace them with anything like the same quality. The only surprise during those two years was the signing of Bent who for me we paid over the odds for due to finding ourselves in deep shit again something Lerner can take responsibility for having appointed an out of touch over the hill Houllier. The above is what Lambert walked in to. He was given a net of around 17mil to spend over the summer which for me was never enough to put right the wrongs of the previous years. Due to the small budget he had to spend and the amount of players needed I think Lambert felt he had no choice but to spread the money over a number of players and that has meant we have a lot of players now trying to adjust to this level/league/country all at the same time. What Lerner is going to have to do in January is give Lambert the funds required, both in terms of fees and wages, for the 2 or 3 proven quality signings we are going to need to ensure we stay up. If he doesn't we could well go down and if we do the responsibility for that will lay firmly at Lerners door.

A 1-0 away defeat at Fulham was a new low? Really. Fulham are very strong at home and it was no surprise they edged it but had we have gotten a draw it wouldn't have been an injustice. As for relegation it is certainly a big worry. I'd have hoped to have around 8 - 10 points by now. Norwich at home next week is a massive game for us now. We need a win and hopefully if we can get that it could be the springboard to get something at Sunderland. I have always thought that at Christmas we are likely to be in or around the bottom 3. I do however think the second half of the season will be much better once all the new signings have bedded in and the squad as a whole has gelled and got used to the way the manager wants them to play. We will also need to spend big on a couple of proven quality players in January.

When we appointed Lambert I said that I felt he could have a similar impact to what Graham Taylor did when he took over in 1987. The club like it did in 1987 needs a complete overhaul. Interestingly Graham Taylor had a similar start to Paul Lambert. In his first 7 games we took 5 points. The only difference was we were in the second tier having just been relegated. We should have gone down last season. We were that poor. Just as Taylor in 87 couldn't be expected to turn things around in 3 months neither can Lambert. But just as in 87 I had a feeling that things would eventually come good under Taylor I have that same feeling with Lambert. What we need at the moment is patience and what will be needed in January is for Lambert to be given 15 - 20 mill to spend on 2 or 3 proven players. If both them things happen then we will be fine and it will be onwards and upwards.

WTF. Don't talk like an idiot pal. You don't like the guy fair enough but he was not and is not an awful manager. Awful managers don't take clubs from League one to the Premier League in two seasons and then finish mid table in the Prem. All achieved on a shoe string budget. Lambert is a very good manager. He has however taken on a club that has been on the slide for 2 and half years due to major cost cutting and two poor managerial appointments. That cannot be repaired in 3 months and will take time and major financial backing.

MON had an awful start with who? first 8 league games with us we won 3 and drew 5. We didn't lose until our twelve league/cup game under him. As for Lambert he is going to need big backing in January and is going to need to spend it on 2 or 3 players of proven quality.