Could any manager do better.

[P3te]

We need better coaching staff. That's evident be the fact that players stand around stationary consistently. Watch it when we get a throw in the other teams half. Everyone marked and nobody moves

Unless the players are just utterly stupid? I said before, you can buy technical ability for peanuts, but these players must have faults - and this is why they are cheap and playing in lower divisions, I just think they might be thick..?

it's not just these players though. It was the same under any other manager we had all the way back to dol

Not as bad as these, the movement they show is.. well it isn't, even in attack they look lost.

yeah this is definitely the worst it's been, but it's a continual problem. Is it a conincidence that they only guy who looked like changing it was a foreigner?

[Dodgyknees]

 

 

Baker:

 

Beaten to headers a lot - and Baker is apparently our "big man"

Slow.

Easily turned.

Has this odd obsession with moving infield - instead of keeping good distance from other defenders.

Suffers the rush of blood where he darts 5/6 yards and leaves Clark open.

Loses markers from corners.

 

A lot of faults for a player we are being forced to rely on, he needs to learn the game and we should give Donacien a chance.

 

 

Sorry mate but this is some weird logic.

 

I don't know whether you're being deliberately obtuse but 4th choice CB's are rarely players that teams are 'forced to rely on'. Look at other teams. I couldn't even name the 4th choice CB's for some of them, because they rarely play. Baker is absolutely perfect for this role, because in an ideal world the job of the 4th choice CB is to be there in the case of an absolute emergency and not be too annoyed about not getting too much playing time.

 

Secondly, you say 'give Donacien a chance' (a player who has never played first team football) and in the same sentence say that 'Baker needs to learn the game'.

 

 

Baker isn't good enough at the moment, not even for back-up - he is way below average and if we are having a back-up defender, I would rather give the chance to somebody who is very highly rated and won't do any worse than Baker has done. Donacien looks to be strong, has good pace and from what I have seen (even only in youth games) can read the game brilliantly, things Baker really struggles with. He has let us down in nearly every game he has played this season and nothing will hurt from sending him out on loan for a month or two to see if we can get the Albrighton effect with him.

[Dodgyknees]

 

 

 

 

We need better coaching staff. That's evident be the fact that players stand around stationary consistently. Watch it when we get a throw in the other teams half. Everyone marked and nobody moves

Unless the players are just utterly stupid? I said before, you can buy technical ability for peanuts, but these players must have faults - and this is why they are cheap and playing in lower divisions, I just think they might be thick..?

it's not just these players though. It was the same under any other manager we had all the way back to dol

Not as bad as these, the movement they show is.. well it isn't, even in attack they look lost.

yeah this is definitely the worst it's been, but it's a continual problem. Is it a conincidence that they only guy who looked like changing it was a foreigner?

 

 

Maybe we need to bring in some "flair" players who can get players moving, or maybe we need a captain on the pitch who can shout down players ears for doing a wax-work impression..?

[Big_John_10]

Possibly. I completly blame lerner for how poor we've been but i don't think lambert has shown too much.

I think a new manager would do things slightly different but i think we'd be asking a lot if we expected someone to do much better with the restrictions we have in place.

Not a loaded question, just interested to know. where do you think this money we are not spending should in fact come from, his personal fortune? or should we borrow it? or a business partner ( i.e injection of capital)

I thought most were in favour of getting the club back in to profit and out of debt....perhaps the 18 million spent on Bent would be quite useful now.

John, I'm as frustrated as you and I have no allegiance to any of the staff at Villa Park.... but we have had poor Chairmen in the past and not had some of the problems we are experiencing.

I've said it a lot today but the books are now balanced.

I doubt very much that they are.

Really? Do you think PF lied to the villa trust?

[P3te]

It all boils down to what we're actually doing in training I suppose. It could be that the players are doing everything just fine during the week (or look to be because they're only playing against each other) and theyre falling apart on match day, bit I doubt it

There doesn't seem to be the work or focus put on it in training. Otherwise they surely wouldn't be getting worse

[StefanAVFC]

 

 

 

Baker:

 

Beaten to headers a lot - and Baker is apparently our "big man"

Slow.

Easily turned.

Has this odd obsession with moving infield - instead of keeping good distance from other defenders.

Suffers the rush of blood where he darts 5/6 yards and leaves Clark open.

Loses markers from corners.

 

A lot of faults for a player we are being forced to rely on, he needs to learn the game and we should give Donacien a chance.

 

 

Sorry mate but this is some weird logic.

 

I don't know whether you're being deliberately obtuse but 4th choice CB's are rarely players that teams are 'forced to rely on'. Look at other teams. I couldn't even name the 4th choice CB's for some of them, because they rarely play. Baker is absolutely perfect for this role, because in an ideal world the job of the 4th choice CB is to be there in the case of an absolute emergency and not be too annoyed about not getting too much playing time.

 

Secondly, you say 'give Donacien a chance' (a player who has never played first team football) and in the same sentence say that 'Baker needs to learn the game'.

 

 

Baker isn't good enough at the moment, not even for back-up - he is way below average and if we are having a back-up defender, I would rather give the chance to somebody who is very highly rated and won't do any worse than Baker has done. Donacien looks to be strong, has good pace and from what I have seen (even only in youth games) can read the game brilliantly, things Baker really struggles with. He has let us down in nearly every game he has played this season and nothing will hurt from sending him out on loan for a month or two to see if we can get the Albrighton effect with him.

 

 

But Donacien hasn't played a single first team game. If we sent Baker out on loan now, we'd have to throw Donacien in. IMO, Baker is absolutely perfect as a 4th choice CB and I've outlined my reasons enough so I won't go on about it.

 

Also, bolded is really unfair.

[Spoony]

Why is everyone talking about Nathan Baker?

[VillanousOne]

"I thought we were excellent in the first half. The wind was very strong but even in the second half we had chances. It was a very close game," Lambert told reporters after the match.

"We thought when we got it 1-1 that we might have gone on. We will go again. I don't think we deserved to lose."

 

utter baloney

[Rovers13]

"I thought we were excellent in the first half. The wind was very strong but even in the second half we had chances. It was a very close game," Lambert told reporters after the match.

"We thought when we got it 1-1 that we might have gone on. We will go again. I don't think we deserved to lose."

utter baloney

In the first half I think he's right. Both teams played pretty well, there were a few half chances but the defenses were solid enough. In the second half, both teams started to resort to long ball more and ultimately villa made 2 defensive errors, one aided by a handball, and stoke only made one. Which, when you're down to the 4th and 5th choice center back, is kind of unavoidable.

It's tough with 4 first team defenders out.

[R.I.C.O.]

The man has just completely lost his grip on reality. The problem is, he won't be sacked in a million years - even if we lost every game for the rest of the season.

 

Randy "Lord Lucan" Lerner has the perfect yes man to keep us ticking over whilst he diverts the TV money straight into his family trust fund.

[Morpheus]

No, I find it hard to believe that anybody would be able to better whilst having to work inline with the board/Lerner's policies intact.

 

Yes. Many would have done better with the money he has had.

Many would have done worse, I'd say too.

 

 

Sick to death of seeing statements like this, it has not been his choice as to how he spent the money you are talking about. Lerner himself has already stated that it was a board decision to restructure the squad and so on, it isn't something Lambert just decided to do, it is something he HAD to do. It was not a choice, it was the objective set to him on arrival.

 

Do you really think we could be doing better than we are with another manager who still would have HAD to bring in at least 16 players with £40m? That is a small figure for such a restructure and an incredibly small figure for such a restructure whilst trying to stay in this league. 

 

What we need is investment into better quality, until the transfer window opens we won't know if this will happen but so far it sounds far from it, Hairyhands said there isn't even money there for Lambert to buy a player but that he can bring somebody in on loan if their wages are cheap enough.

 

It makes me sad saying it, but honestly, we are punching well above our weight as things stand.

Pretty much sick to death of seeing this type of post as well.

 

If we had to move players on such as Bent why did Lambert give the captaincy to a player he was going to sell or lets put it another way. Lets say Bent started knocking goals in for fun again with Ireland providing the service do you think Lambert would have still sold those players?

 

He constructed the bomb squad out of players he didn't want and then alienated them when some of those players could have still been used in conjunction with the some of the younger players to give a better balance to the team.

 

Secondly the Chief Executive has already stated that Lambert was given a budget and it was up to him how he spent it. Lambert with few exceptions has brought in complete dross which has arguably built an even worse squad of players than we had under McLeish and those who have used the 'improvement' stat this season were warned that stat was build on something as fragile as sand, as we now see.

 

He did not have to alienate all of the 'bomb squad' and he did not have to bring in 16 players within such a sort time frame either. It was his choice to do that and consequently since we do not have a stable base to build from we will need major investment from the owner in January if we are to stay away from trouble.

 

Lambert's policy of doing something that no other Premiership manager would attempt for obvious reasons has failed and is again playing Russian Roulette with our Premiership safety. We do not at the moment have an in form Benteke to pull us out of trouble so I sincerely hope that both chairman and manager realise that before it's too late. 

[samjp26]

Okay, we'll pretend Lerner never actually said it himself then.

[AVTuco]

Why is everyone talking about Nathan Baker?

Because there is no way anyone can answer the question presented in the title.

So, something else needs to be discussed.

[briny_ear]

I feel a bit sad about Lambert. I was a big supporter when he first came, based on the work he had been doing at Norwich.I know he's had a ridiculous task thanks to the drastic squad/budget cutting demands by Lerner but his purchases and his tactics have sometimes been puzzling and, I think, not always the best they might have been. We've had a few freak results this season (Arsenal, Man C, Southampton) which have given us some points for ballast and we are sitting reasonably comfortably so the answer to the general question right now is, no, probably no-one else could have done much better. But the football we are playing at the moment is dire and we need to improve or our position will become much more perilous.

 

I have been wondering recently about a post I read, I think from HairyHands, which said Lambert thinks Villa is a sleeping giant and he thinks he can restore us to former glory. I wonder if he has become a bit deluded about his role. He needs to concentrate on getting better and more consistent himself as a manager, and getting the team to play more competent football before he entertains any fancy ideas about waking sleeping giants, etc.

[Dodgyknees]

 

Why is everyone talking about Nathan Baker?

Because there is no way anyone can answer the question presented in the title.

So, something else needs to be discussed.

 

 

Not really, it was a sub-discussion based on Lambert not having enough quality.

[StefanAVFC]

Okay, we'll pretend Lerner never actually said it himself then.

 

Exactly.

[jasoncb]

It baffles me why he sold Collins, fair enough he was looking to bring in a more youthful squad but NOT THE CENTER HALVES that is just suicidal. If we could only have a good backline I can take some positives out of this mess. Yes we brought in Vlaar but if we lose him we have no experience at the back whatsoever, which is what is costing us right now.

[samjp26]

It baffles me why he sold Collins, fair enough he was looking to bring in a more youthful squad but NOT THE CENTER HALVES that is just suicidal. If we could only have a good backline I can take some positives out of this mess. Yes we brought in Vlaar but if we lose him we have no experience at the back whatsoever, which is what is costing us right now.

 

Our defence was a shambles, an overpaid shambles at that, I'm glad Collins, Warnock and Dunne went.

 

I find it funny that people are constantly picking out our defence for improvement, a defence that has much improved since last season apart from the last few games where Vlaar has been out injured. Vlaar runs the show at the back, simples, as soon as he'll back we'll be better again - just like last season.

Edited December 21, 2013 by samjp26

[Dodgyknees]

 

It baffles me why he sold Collins, fair enough he was looking to bring in a more youthful squad but NOT THE CENTER HALVES that is just suicidal. If we could only have a good backline I can take some positives out of this mess. Yes we brought in Vlaar but if we lose him we have no experience at the back whatsoever, which is what is costing us right now.

 

Our defence was a shambles, an overpaid shambles at that, I'm glad Collins, Warnock and Dunne went.

 

I find it funny that people are constantly picking out our defence for improvement, a defence that has much improved since last season apart from the last few games where Vlaar has been out injured. Vlaar runs the show at the back, simples, as soon as he'll back we'll be better again - just like last season.

 

 

Without a doubt, those players needed to go, but we needed to spend money on two Ron Vlaar's last season - and then Okore this season. We haven't done enough in the past four windows.

[samjp26]

I agree with that, although again I guess it comes back to spreading the budget across how many players, I'd assume Vlaar picks up a better wage than many of Lambert's other signings. Clark seems to be playing a lot better and between him, Vlaar and Okore with Baker for back-up I'd say we have a decent selection at the back. Just a shame that we have both Vlaar and Okore injured at the same time, unfortunate to say the least, especially with Baker making so many mistakes.