Why Paul Lambert should get the sack

[Ulver]

 

Hairy hands, I'm just wondering about this one thing this year: I don't understand why Lambert has gone away from how he used to manage, with regard to his teams playing a very attacking style. I remember Norwich fans saying at the end of last season that they thought part of the reason they struggled with Hughton last year is because the players preferred Lamberts "all out attack" strategy and had gotten used to it.

The Villa side of last year adhered to that, yes they conceded a lot but they were free scoring and most games were entertaining because there were so many goals and chances. This year, though, the side has played a lot more defensive, obviously it's made the defense more solid but it's come at the expense of scoring and entertainment.

So yeah, why the change to a more negative way of playing? I can't figure it out.

I'm not sure that the style of football has changed too much pal, rather that our attacking 3 who were so threatening last year have been pretty dreadful so far this year.

 

 

 

As have the midfield and defence.

[Danwichmann]

Is sacking the answer?

No. Simple.

[Guest av1]

That was kind of my point ulver. I don't think that the sytle has changed too much rather that lots of players are simply not performing to the level they were last year.

[Mantis]

If Benteke was in top form, this thread wouldn't be open.

Very good point. Amazing what difference the form of one player can make. I'm confident he'll get back to his best soon.

[Ulver]

It just tells you how desperate we are when we have to rely on the form of one player that's just turned 23 to keep us going

 

I don't know if he's really injured or the insane pressure he's been put under to be Mr Aston Villa has finally seen him off

 

If others chipped in half as much as he was then we wouldn't be in this mess in the first place. We're supposed to be a team not a one man operation after all

[GENTLEMAN]

The players HE has bought, are playing the worst brand of football imaginable.  So either the players aren't good enough, or he can't coach them properly, or both.

 

You are overreacting. Are these players PL's top targets? It is nothing to do with the standard of coaching, if anything you could argue the club's coaching staff have made lower league players into premiership players. I think you need to stop with this coaching crap, it is total rubbish.

 

Risso, I am not sure you will ever be happy with PL as our manager.

[CarewsEyebrowDesigner]

It just tells you how desperate we are when we have to rely on the form of one player that's just turned 23 to keep us going

 

I don't know if he's really injured or the insane pressure he's been put under to be Mr Aston Villa has finally seen him off

 

If others chipped in half as much as he was then we wouldn't be in this mess in the first place. We're supposed to be a team not a one man operation after all

 

Yes, and that you can blame on the manager & owner. Relying on one player will always lead to problems. We got away with it last year but needed to push on during the summer, but didn't.

 

If Benteke finds his from then we'll see an improvement. However, I think he's lost interest, and I don't think we'll see the best of him again in a Villa shirt.

[GENTLEMAN]

It just tells you how desperate we are when we have to rely on the form of one player that's just turned 23 to keep us going

 

I don't know if he's really injured or the insane pressure he's been put under to be Mr Aston Villa has finally seen him off

 

If others chipped in half as much as he was then we wouldn't be in this mess in the first place. We're supposed to be a team not a one man operation after all

Benteke has contributed very little to our league standing so far.

[Ulver]

 

It just tells you how desperate we are when we have to rely on the form of one player that's just turned 23 to keep us going

 

I don't know if he's really injured or the insane pressure he's been put under to be Mr Aston Villa has finally seen him off

 

If others chipped in half as much as he was then we wouldn't be in this mess in the first place. We're supposed to be a team not a one man operation after all

Benteke has contributed very little to our league standing so far.

 

 

 

As i just said ...

 

Should we be expecting a just turned 23 year old to carry the whole team again like last season ?

 

Or should we have lessened his work load by bringing in some better quality to help him ?

[theboyangel]

Sacking the manager is futile - backing is what he needs right now.

 

He came in with an enforced business model - sell off assets, rid the club of high wages and rebuild a team that's more cost effective (and using the Academy too). He's slowly doing that and IMO has made some decent 'cheap' acquisitions that have either proven to be good or show enough that they will become very good players for us.

 

In those, I mean the likes of Vlaar, Benteke, Lowton, Westwood, Okore (who will be very good), Bacuna and Kozak

 

He's made his mistakes in the transfer market too (Bennett, Sylla, Tonev) but considering his budget and financial restrictions, I think PL is doing the best he can do with restructuring the squad.

 

We also have filled the squad with players from the Academy, with Gabby, Weimann, Baker, Clark, Herd, Albrighton all featuring regularly.

 

Where PL is drawing criticism now is the lack of quality on the pitch, with simple passing and moving going awry in recent matches. We again look like a team short on confidence but I still feel we look better on the whole than this time last season.

 

Since October, I don't think PL has been able to select the same team without one or two important players missing through injury or suspension - just look at the last few games - no recognised LB, our best CB injured, Benteke injured/off the boil, Gabby, Delph (and next week Westwood suspended a game each) - so we've had no time to gel and get some movement going.

 

The big question would be - so who else would take over and do a better job with what we've got???

 

It would take a miracle worker IMO and I wouldn't expect RL to 'splash the cash' either, in which case is it worth doing?? (and spending yet another lump of cash paying off PL - which could be used to make vital additions!?!?!)

 

Sacking Managers is the current fad in football - I'd rather stick than twist at this present moment in time.

[Villan4Life]

People talk about avb was a failure at spurs ? He never signed most but his win percentage was 55% better than any manager of spurs since 1899 in all comps for spurs. 44 wins, 20 draws and only 16 loses. I would deffo have him down vp as his football plays is a lot better

[Mantis]

AVB didn't do a great job with lots of money at Spurs so why would he do a good job with hardly any money at Villa?

[GENTLEMAN]

 

 

It just tells you how desperate we are when we have to rely on the form of one player that's just turned 23 to keep us going

 

I don't know if he's really injured or the insane pressure he's been put under to be Mr Aston Villa has finally seen him off

 

If others chipped in half as much as he was then we wouldn't be in this mess in the first place. We're supposed to be a team not a one man operation after all

Benteke has contributed very little to our league standing so far.

 

 

 

As i just said ...

 

Should we be expecting a just turned 23 year old to carry the whole team again like last season ?

 

Or should we have lessened his work load by bringing in some better quality to help him ?

 

Can we bring in better quality? That is the real question.

[VillaChris]

If AVB has any sense he won't manage in this league for a while, I'm sure he's still popular in Europe so wouldn't shock me if he rocks up somewhere like Valencia.

[VillaIRE]

Randy needed a manager popular with the fans as he knew that austerity at the club would be unpopular.  Lambert's brief when he joined was to drop the wage bill in any way possible while keeping us in the Premier league.  To that end, we're a success to our owners.  We achieved that last season and if things go our way, we probably will again this season.  It doesn't matter about the quality of football - AVFC is to be run in best business practice.  If every Premier League team was run to this model, our league standing would be competitive.  

 

The problem is - it's not.  Every Premier League team has its own model and those who spend, play better football.  Us Villa fans know we're a big club, and we want that status back.  The only way that's possible is through a change of ownership.

 

I've been supportive of Lambert given his restrictions, but it's waning.  He had certain tactics in mind when he bought his players, but now when we need to change tack, we can't as our one-dimensional squad can't seem to adapt.  There's a misery at the club right now and it's showing on the pitch.          

 

Would a change of manager help?  Possibly.  I think Lambert could turn things around, but we need some quality players capable of playing in a different system.

[Villan4Life]

Mantis as said before. Baldini signed the players at spurs not avb. Given circumstances his win rate is impressive. For me he him will become a great manager given time, he is only. 36

[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

[Jonoridge91]

 

It just tells you how desperate we are when we have to rely on the form of one player that's just turned 23 to keep us going

 

I don't know if he's really injured or the insane pressure he's been put under to be Mr Aston Villa has finally seen him off

 

If others chipped in half as much as he was then we wouldn't be in this mess in the first place. We're supposed to be a team not a one man operation after all

 

Yes, and that you can blame on the manager & owner. Relying on one player will always lead to problems. We got away with it last year but needed to push on during the summer, but didn't.

 

If Benteke finds his from then we'll see an improvement. However, I think he's lost interest, and I don't think we'll see the best of him again in a Villa shirt.

 

 

I don't think we've been relying on Benteke too much in fact I think he's actually hindered us. When he was out injured we beat Man City, we dropped him for Southampton and won and unlike last season the midfield have actually been chipping in with goals and here there like people were begging for over the summer.

 

Yes we'd love Benteke to get firing again but until the last few games we were actually sitting quite nicely in the table without a goal from him in 7 or so games.

[Danwichmann]

 

If Benteke was in top form, this thread wouldn't be open.

Very good point. Amazing what difference the form of one player can make. I'm confident he'll get back to his best soon.

 

 

And Vlaar as well. Our defence had become so solid this season I was starting to expect clean sheets against bottom half teams, but while Clark and Baker are both good back up or even partners for Vlaar, as a pair they are shocking. Anyone who doubted Vlaar's value to the team should have realised based on our performances since his injury. 

[Mantis]

 

 

If Benteke was in top form, this thread wouldn't be open.

Very good point. Amazing what difference the form of one player can make. I'm confident he'll get back to his best soon.

 

 

And Vlaar as well. Our defence had become so solid this season I was starting to expect clean sheets against bottom half teams, but while Clark and Baker are both good back up or even partners for Vlaar, as a pair they are shocking. Anyone who doubted Vlaar's value to the team should have realised based on our performances since his injury. 

 

Yep. We're on our worst run of the season at the moment - without Vlaar. The Christmas/New Year horror show last season was also without Vlaar. It's not a coincidence.

Edited December 22, 2013 by Mantis