You are Paul Lambert...

[Keyblade]

Well HH did say something along those lines.

[Mantis]

 

I hate it when people try and hound out another ITK from the site. Whether or not you agree with what he says HH gives out a lot of good info and it would be a shame if he left.

apologies for the abruptness but what a load of tosh . If hh is anything to do with the club then he must expect severe questioning based on what we care about ie avfc . Attitudes like you are suggesting are more of an issue IMO

 

There's nothing wrong with questioning but he gets a lot of unfair abuse too.

[Ulver]

Well HH did say something along those lines.

 

I must have missed that then

[Risso]

HairyHands = Krulak MkII....... a club sponsored mouthpiece to keep the rabble quiet whilst the owner and Faulkner fiddle their way around unscathed

 

Spot on Denis.  If the club put as much effort into running things properly as they do in getting stooges onto internet boards, we'd be a lot better off. 

[Risso]

 

 

I hate it when people try and hound out another ITK from the site. Whether or not you agree with what he says HH gives out a lot of good info and it would be a shame if he left.

apologies for the abruptness but what a load of tosh . If hh is anything to do with the club then he must expect severe questioning based on what we care about ie avfc . Attitudes like you are suggesting are more of an issue IMO

 

There's nothing wrong with questioning but he gets a lot of unfair abuse too.

 

 

He doesn't get any more or less abuse than anybody else (and certainly less than the posters that you disagree with such as Morpheus), so basically your "hounding out" consists of "disagreeing with him".

[Mantis]

 

 

 

I hate it when people try and hound out another ITK from the site. Whether or not you agree with what he says HH gives out a lot of good info and it would be a shame if he left.

apologies for the abruptness but what a load of tosh . If hh is anything to do with the club then he must expect severe questioning based on what we care about ie avfc . Attitudes like you are suggesting are more of an issue IMO

 

There's nothing wrong with questioning but he gets a lot of unfair abuse too.

 

 

He doesn't get any more or less abuse than anybody else (and certainly less than the posters that you disagree with such as Morpheus), so basically your "hounding out" consists of "disagreeing with him".

 

Not at all. Read some of the posts directed towards him. It's far more than just disagreement.

[Risso]

 

 

 

 

I hate it when people try and hound out another ITK from the site. Whether or not you agree with what he says HH gives out a lot of good info and it would be a shame if he left.

apologies for the abruptness but what a load of tosh . If hh is anything to do with the club then he must expect severe questioning based on what we care about ie avfc . Attitudes like you are suggesting are more of an issue IMO

 

There's nothing wrong with questioning but he gets a lot of unfair abuse too.

 

 

He doesn't get any more or less abuse than anybody else (and certainly less than the posters that you disagree with such as Morpheus), so basically your "hounding out" consists of "disagreeing with him".

 

Not at all. Read some of the posts directed towards him. It's far more than just disagreement.

 

 

Who, Morpheus?  Yes, you're right, that's what I was getting at.

[Mantis]

 

 

 

 

 

I hate it when people try and hound out another ITK from the site. Whether or not you agree with what he says HH gives out a lot of good info and it would be a shame if he left.

apologies for the abruptness but what a load of tosh . If hh is anything to do with the club then he must expect severe questioning based on what we care about ie avfc . Attitudes like you are suggesting are more of an issue IMO

 

There's nothing wrong with questioning but he gets a lot of unfair abuse too.

 

 

He doesn't get any more or less abuse than anybody else (and certainly less than the posters that you disagree with such as Morpheus), so basically your "hounding out" consists of "disagreeing with him".

 

Not at all. Read some of the posts directed towards him. It's far more than just disagreement.

 

 

Who, Morpheus?  Yes, you're right, that's what I was getting at.

 

No, HH, and I think you knew that as well.

[VillaChris]

HH looks like he's in the inner sanctum of Bodymoor heath more than Villa Park given how spot on the team info and injury news generally are. I enjoy that and welcome his little titbits of news.

 

Of course when results decline people start digging and want to know who he is and then seen him as some sort of link to the board/manager and start criticising etc.

 

Drat, is this season any really worse than 04/05 or 05/06 when O'Leary, a manager you were very fond of was in charge (I've been on this board 10 years and he remains the only manager you never criticised for some reason).

 

We are having a boring, mid table season. It will stay like that as there are many more worse teams than us, shock horror they are below us. The football must improve second half of the season though, that is a justifiable criticism of Lambert and one I won't even bother making a counter argument, it needs to improve as we have been terrible to watch for months now and I don't think that's good enough 18 months into his reign.

[Didiersix]

I'm in Team HH. Let's see where we are come the end of January. I know we have some serious problems to address, but given the remit of his job, I don't think Lambert is dramatically underpeforming.

 

Lambert has to sign cheap players on low wages. If you want an explanation as to why we are where we are, then surely the blame can't lie with him?

[Ponky]

I suspect HH is close to Lambert rather than the club as such.

[Big_John_10]

HH clearly has some connection to Lambert and not just villa so he's not going to criticise the manager if that's the case. He's also made it clear the limitations Lambert is under so he's not a mouth piece for the club.

I think if you're a clear ITK then you're obviously going to be asked questions and I'm sure HH can take what ever is thrown at him on this site.

I like having someone with clear inside info on here.

[Risso]

HH looks like he's in the inner sanctum of Bodymoor heath more than Villa Park given how spot on the team info and injury news generally are. I enjoy that and welcome his little titbits of news.

 

Of course when results decline people start digging and want to know who he is and then seen him as some sort of link to the board/manager and start criticising etc.

 

Drat, is this season any really worse than 04/05 or 05/06 when O'Leary, a manager you were very fond of was in charge (I've been on this board 10 years and he remains the only manager you never criticised for some reason).

 

We are having a boring, mid table season. It will stay like that as there are many more worse teams than us, shock horror they are below us. The football must improve second half of the season though, that is a justifiable criticism of Lambert and one I won't even bother making a counter argument, it needs to improve as we have been terrible to watch for months now and I don't think that's good enough 18 months into his reign.

 

Yes, it's much worse than 04/05, which started off quite brightly as I recall.  And footballing wise, it's the worst I can remember.

[Jimzk5]

HH is being asked questions he shouldn't be asked though, its unfair on him that were asking him about what the future holds with direction of the club and budgets etc when its the chairman that should be talking to us and giving us proper answers instead of the annual letter sent to season ticket holders with the type of propaganda the north Korean government would be proud of

[VillaCas]

So where are we? – at worst, “a disgrace to this great club and its history” or at best “lower mid-table overachievers” dependent on which posters you ascribe to

 

To post my colours to the mast (and this should come as no great surprise), I’m a Lambert supporter. He wasn’t my first choice after McLeish, but he didn’t look a bad appointment either – certainly back-to-back promotions with Norwich and a very decent debut season in the Premiership (without massive resources) pointed to a manager with real promise.

 

In my opinion, Lambert was certainly at the very top end of managers that we could attract at the time, given the incredibily difficult brief that he seems required to work to. I have no inside knowledge, but my educated guess is that managers like OGS or Martinez gave the job a wide berth because of the impossibility of short-term progress due to the swingeing cost cuts that were required.

 

In that case why did Lambert take the job? I think he has taken a calculated gamble, a gamble that said he had taken Norwich as far as they could go and so if he could keep the Villa in the premiership whilst books are balanced over the first couple of years of his reign, then there will be great potential and perhaps a promise of better things to come in years four and five of the project

 

In return for taking on such a tricky task, and helping Lerner out of the hole that he has dug for himself, he has been given almost unconditional support and (non-financial) backing.  I can’t envisage any scenario in which Lerner would sack Lambert, before Lambert would go of his own accord

Many here have looked back at the first season and a half of Lambert’s tenure using the 20/20 vision of hindsight and the criticisms seem to have a number of themes

• “Why didn’t he keep the existing squad?”  In my opinion this was not a viable option, the main reason being that this was probably specifically against the agreement made with Lerner when Lambert took the job on, but also this was a squad that had collected just 15 points from the previous half season – not just relegation form but humiliating, bottom of the table form.  There was nothing to suggest that this could be turned around
• “Why didn’t he integrate Bent?” I think he tried but I think Bent didn’t come to meet him halfway. A quote from one the Villa backroom staff was “Bent wouldn’t run 15 yards for you”. Certainly, from what we’ve seen at Fulham there is nothing to suggest that out-and-out poachers like Bent are anything but a dying breed
• “Why didn’t he sign fewer, more experienced players” Suggestions here have been players like Berbatov or Adam.  Overlooking the un-overlookable  fact that Lerner would never have sanctioned £60-£80k a week wages, adding a couple of very mercurial ‘talents’ to an unsuccessful and underachieving squad already awash with them (NZog, Ireland, Delph at the time, Bent) would seem a very risky strategy indeed. If that is the approach Lerner required he would have appointed Redknapp
• “Why didn’t he sign 4 x £10m players or 6 x £8m players (or some combination of this)” because this would have left us with a first team squad of around 15 (particularly as in the first season he would only have had the finance to sign 2 x £10m). On this point Faulkner’s comment of “Lambert is able to spend the budget in any way he sees fit” is less than helpful as it supposes that he had many more options than in reality

A recent addition to the criticisms are

• “Why didn’t he build a squad around the successful NextGen players?” There are many reasons why this is an absolute non-starter, not least of which is that these youngsters are still, in the main, 12 months away from being ready to integrate into the premiership were certainly nowhere near ready 18 months ago. A player like Baker who is really struggling would look like a monster and a world-beater in the U21 team
• “Why doesn’t he give Grealish / Doncien etc a game?” this criticism usually goes hand-in-hand with the bizarre comment that  “Lambert loves buying young players but hates giving our own young players a chance”. I’m certain Lambert would love nothing more than to have two or three academy players to drop in who would be ready for the premiership but much as we would wish otherwise they’re not

Finally we have a group of criticisms which say

• “Newcastle (for example) bought loads of new players last season and, at first, they struggled to settle but now they are pulling up trees”  except Newcastle bought a load of £60k a week footballers
• “The team is littered with inexperienced players not up to the standard of the Premier League” on this one it’s hard to know what type of players Lambert was expected to bring in on £8k-£10k a week, and even more puzzling that anyone might think that a bunch of these would be giving footballing lessons to even middle-table sides.
• “We just simply have no style, no shape, and seemingly no strategy under Lambert”  On this one quite the opposite is the case. Lambert has a clear style and strategy and has amassed points so far utilising that style. It’s not pretty and it’s not the style that Lambert would like to play I’m sure, but it’s necessary in order to allow these ordinary players to compete
• “He could have bought better players for the same money” and by implication the same wages. This is a very subjective one, It depends on how many better young players you believe are available out there and to some extent on how extensive and well-financed Villa’s scouting network is. I think the signing of Benteke hindered Lambert here as it started the expectation that Lambert could pull rabbits out of hats.  When signing players for such small amounts, in my opinion, it will enevitably by hit and miss. People moan why did we sign Vlaar when he had known injury problems, probably because if he was injury-free he would have been three times the price and in demand elsewhere. As it turns out his knee injury has not been a major problem and so in that respect the gamble paid off

Finally

 

“Why didn’t he sign a creative midfielder / another centre-back / a holding midfielder etc”  probably because he didn’t feel we could bring in anyone better than we’ve got using the money available.  Lambert wanted Sissoko, Kiyotake and Lukaku and it’s clear that we would be a different proposition with players like that in the team

 

Last season I was happy to stay in the premiership and we generally progressed as the season went on except for a terrible run over Christmas. This season my expectation was/is a 10^th-12^th place finish with perhaps a little less drama than last year.

 

Given the nature of the premier league, 10 points often cover the teams from 8^th place down to 18^th and so in the ups and downs of a season it is almost impossible for a mid-placed team to feel insulated from relegation.  Panic-mongers will spout “we are only two games (6 points) away from the relegation zone, but of course it doesn’t really work that way with most teams in the bottom half on average capturing around a point a game.

 

The defeat to MU was predictable, but the defeats to Fulham and Stoke were much more disappointing.  We massively struggle when we have not got our first 11 available.  I doubt that even if we struggle in the next three games – which given the absence of Benteke and Vlaar seems likely, I think that it is still not on the cards that Lerner will support any great transfer activity in January

 

I’m sticking with Lambert for the time being – despite all the criticism I don’t doubt his determination to succeed. From the little I hear, he is an incredibly hard-working and dedicated man. I can’t see any possible advantage of bringing in another similarly skilled manager to the same circumstances and expecting a different result

 

Personally I’ll continue to support Lambert and the team for the rest of this season and reassess then. At the moment I can’t see how any criticism or vocal dissent can help the team

I understand those with genuine concerns but I think my position is pretty clear, I’m not going to spend Xmas responding to snipe-y or sarky comments cherry-picking one point or another, instead I’m hoping for a Xmas gift of three points against Palace and a decent return from the next couple of games

[Denis_B]

Cas a very good read. Don't agree with a lot but thats life. However if the Chairman appoints a manager and then fails to provide him with he players he needs then he needs holding to account - perhaps thats why he finds it 'safer' in good old US of A

[Dodgyknees]

Cas a very good read. Don't agree with a lot but thats life. However if the Chairman appoints a manager and then fails to provide him with he players he needs then he needs holding to account - perhaps thats why he finds it 'safer' in good old US of A

 

Yep, hiding away as he knows we won't do a thing, he also knows we will turn on him if he is at the ground. 

[Sunny*Nunny]

I think we need some transparency regarding what the short and long term plans are. If costs are being cut as a short term measure and that means making do with low cost players until certain financial targets are met then fair enough, but there should be a contingency in place to allow for spending in January based on recent results, injuries and the risk of entering a relegation battle.

But what about next summer? Will the budget be opened up to the extent that bigger transfer fees and wages are made available as long as the books remain balanced?

If the long term plan is to continue with £3M players on £20K a week then the plan is also to become a Championship club.

Edited December 22, 2013 by Sunny*Nunny

[Zatman]

think i was more pissed off that we got outpassed and outplayed by a bunch of cloggers. cant remember any chance we created from open play in 2nd half as our most creative players was Stoke defenders

[Pilchard]

 

Funny to see the lists of excuses even blaming the fitness guys now but not even admitting that it's possible Lambert made mistakes.

What a colossal waste of money Tonev, Bennett, Helenius, have been. Even Vlaar was a signing that shouldn't have happened - if you are going to only have one experienced central defender, make sure that it isn't an injury prone one. Next time lambert decides to do sign one of these unknown, crap foreign players perhaps he could just pay off my mortgage instead. It'd be cheaper for he club.

We are worse than last year, and play worse, boring football struggling to score goals. An attacking midfield player is going to do nothing for that, nothing. All it will do is increase the bloated, top heavy nature of the squad and be another player to try and flog when Lambert leaves at the end of the season.

Only Palace are worse than us, and they will spend in January and have a togetherness, and fight that we haven't got. It's spineless.

To stories I hear about Lambert may be true or not. But from what I've heard, and the arrogance shown towards players which reach MON proportions, are not a particularly great way of raising a positive attitude for the team, unless it's to dislike the arrogant bloke in charge.

Pilchard I'm making no excuses whatsoever. The fitness thing has nothing to do with where the team are right now it was in reference to how he changed that and might want to change the medical staff a bit in light out how one or two injuries have been handled.

Didn't I say not all signings have worked but the ones you mention haven't cost the earth have they? I think he batting average when given decent money is decent as benteke, kozak and vlaar prove. You use the word colossal which for me doesn't fit when the guys you mention are on peanuts in terms of premier league wages and didn't cost a great deal.

You then go on to say an attacking midfielder will do nothing to improve the goal scoring and style of football? Are you for real? It is the one thing, although I agree there are a few, the team needs. Someone to get on the ball in the final third and make things happen. A focal point of the attacking play.

Now I really need to take issue with your final point. That is just lies. The manager gets on with the players, if anything he maybe protects them too much. Ask Guzan or gabby, two of the players he meets regularly for discussions on how the group are doing in general. That's one thing there isn't a problem with.

 

 

If results don't improve then he won't need to worry about the fitness and medical staff because he won't be at the club. I'd like to think he's concentrating on getting the team to be able to score goals and then defend their goal.

 

As I've said elsewhere, I don't think Vlaar was a good signing. Sure, he's a good player when fit (well, good in terms of Villa defenders) - but when he's the only senior defender at the club, and is injured a lot of the time - with a history of injuries - signing him was a mistake. We needed someone who we can depend on as having Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum in defence, or even the defensive midfielder Herd there - clearly isn't good enough as we saw throughout last season, and throughout this season.

 

I believe it's colossal as the failures of these signings have directly meant that the teams performance, style of play and all round ability has decreased. That's his fault. Nobody elses. And he needs to accept that and sort it, not come out with bullshit like he did yesterday about not deserving to lose. Does he think we are idiots? We can see the games, the struggle to create anything near a goalscoring opportunity and the ridiculous defensive slip ups.

 

An attacking midfielder is pointless, as we could have Lionel Messi in there but we'd still be throwing in goals at the other end on a regular basis with Baker passing it to the opposition, giving away fouls, scoring stupid own goals or Clark being caught out of position again, being out muscled or generally caught out as the League One standard defender he is. We spend half the time pumping the ball up in the area for whoever is up front to head into space. I'm not sure an attacking midfielder would relish that. Our midfield tends to have three in the middle with no width. Taking a player out of there and pushing them up, leaving just two of them in the middle would mean that they get even more overrun if that is indeed possible.

 

We play too narrow. Far too narrow.

 

As I said - the stories may or not be true. But what I was told is that there are areas of Bodymoor that are very much "Lambert Only" areas. Players aren't allowed in the corridor where his office is, for example. I was surprised when told this, and questioned it too. But it was from somebody who has, shall I say, a hotline to the top. Perhaps it's a mis-understanding, but that's what was said. 

Edited December 22, 2013 by Pilchard