Paul Lambert

[bobzy]

What exactly is my argument then Houlston?  All I said was that defensive football is still football.  Being defensive and not conceeding urgo = defending well.  Also;

 

 

I'm not saying we were "right" to do this against Everton

 

 

But hey, feel free to make out that I'm saying Lambert is the messiah or whatever else suits

[P3te]

 

 

If Lambert walks this summer, I wonder if there's anyone suitable to replace him. I personally would like Bernd Schuster, at least he'd be something different than our past managers...with his insistance of playing attacking style, to the reckless quantities.

If Lambert walks this summer we're going down next may. Not because he's a works class manager, but because I dont think there's anyone out there to get Lambert's squad picking up as many points as Lambert himself. Just like nobody else could get O'Neills squad performing like O'Neill

 

Not sure that's fair really. If Lambert leaves in the summer I don't think our best players won't be as good under the next manager.

 

The problem won't be our best players, just like it wasn't when MON left

[Houlston]

What exactly is my argument then Houlston?  All I said was that defensive football is still football.  Being defensive and not conceeding urgo = defending well.  Also;

 

 

I'm not saying we were "right" to do this against Everton

 

 

But hey, feel free to make out that I'm saying Lambert is the messiah or whatever else suits

 

Your argument was that you said our tactics worked for 45 minutes, I tried to point out why this may have been the case and that we might have looked to capitalise on this.

 

I also never tried to make out that you think Lambert is the Messiah, you do a good enough job of that yourself. Smiley face.

[Pilchard]

What exactly is my argument then Houlston?  All I said was that defensive football is still football.  Being defensive and not conceeding urgo = defending well.  Also;

 

 

I'm not saying we were "right" to do this against Everton

 

 

But hey, feel free to make out that I'm saying Lambert is the messiah or whatever else suits

 

Defensive football is football, yes.

 

But deploying defensive football when you don't have any proper central defenders in the team - with the Chuckle Brothers out there - it's ridiculous. 

[MessiWillSignForVilla]

 

Yes odd that a team with no recognised striker

 

Wrong, Mirallas is a striker. It's where he played for Olympiacos, and it's where he played for the majority of his career. Was quite a good one at Olympiacos too, with 34 goals in 50 odd games.

 

Just because he's utilised as a winger at Everton doesn't mean he's not a striker.

[penguin]

I think the Everton game was a very hard one to call for Lambert, on one hand they do have injuries and I personally would have liked a much more positive approach with us attacking and putting pressure on them, then again what fan wouldn't, but then on the other hand this does leave us more vulnerable defensively. Seeing as how good defensively Everton are especially at home, 7 clean sheets in a row earlier in the season, I do understand the caution both in formation and play as them scoring the first goal would have been a disaster.

This said what I think is the most disappointing about the whole thing is that I've always seen Everton, well up until recently, as a very similar side to us and for us to line up that defensively against them seemed an admission that Lambert didn't have the confidence in the team to take them on, almost like a championship team playing a premier league team in the cup and to see Villa line up like that against Everton is depressing.

[Houlston]

 

Yes odd that a team with no recognised striker

 

Wrong, Mirallas is a striker. It's where he played for Olympiacos, and it's where he played for the majority of his career. Was quite a good one at Olympiacos too, with 34 goals in 50 odd games.

 

Just because he's utilised as a winger at Everton doesn't mean he's not a striker.

 

Wrong. Miralllas is a winger. He was moved up front at Olympiakos after playing majority of his time on the wing for Saint-Etienne and Lille. And who knew a good player would be able to score loads of goals in a shit league. But anyway like I said no recognised striker.

[penguin]

Yes odd that a team with no recognised striker

 

Wrong, Mirallas is a striker. It's where he played for Olympiacos, and it's where he played for the majority of his career. Was quite a good one at Olympiacos too, with 34 goals in 50 odd games.

 

Just because he's utilised as a winger at Everton doesn't mean he's not a striker.

Wrong. Miralllas is a winger. He was moved up front at Olympiakos after playing majority of his time on the wing for Saint-Etienne and Lille. And who knew a good player would be able to score loads of goals in a shit league. But anyway like I said no recognised striker.

At least no striker recognised by you

[Houlston]

He also didn't play that high up the pitch anyway on Saturday

Edited February 3, 2014 by Houlston

[Kwan]

It's a complete fallacy that we defended well or had the game under control.

We defended because IT'S THE ONLY THING we were trying to do. It's like the crystal palace game against arsenal. They had 6 back defending but would you call it good defending? Not really, it's just playing negatively.

I don't see why playing negatively is seen as something that should NEVER EVER HAPPEN. Like, we should go into games and just play attacking football all day long because we cannot possibly be negative.

There's a time and a place for it. Chelsea had something like 37 shots against West Ham, but mainly from long range and rarely troubled their keeper. The result? West Ham gain a valuable point which could well keep them up. Imagine them playing attacking football and getting hammered 8-0 like we did last season? Could well put them down. That's the decision you have to make in football sometimes.

I'm not saying we were "right" to do this against Everton, but they are a possession-based team which holds the ball and passes their way through - much like Arsenal, but less gifted. Our tactics worked perfectly for 45 minutes to an hour, we managed to take the lead and soak up most of their attacks. Surely this is defending well? Even if you don't like it, it's playing well in a defensive context. Football isn't just about attacking.

The point is that we got rid of McLeish because we didn't want to see boring, 8 defenders, suffocate the game football.

There is a time and place for it but if we want to be something other than relegation fodder then we CANT play like that. It's ridiculous.

So unless we WANT to be the west hams and Tony Pulis sides of the league, we should almost never set out like that.

It's everton not man city ffs.

[MessiWillSignForVilla]

Yes, their not Man City, but an Everton side who have only lost 3 times all season, have the third best defense in the league and have only lost 2 of their last 34 home games(? Not sure on last one, but it's something like that)

 

It's unfortunate that this is where we are, and depressing to boot, but we are not good enough going forward to break a team down that is that solid defensively, especially without Gabby.

[Kwan]

I disagree. We could have definitely broken them down and got at them since they are a possession side. We struggle against teams that park the bus. We can exploit a team that likes to try and pass it around.

At least an attempt to try and win the game is needed. What we saw against Everton was just pathetic

[Bunnski]

I disagree. We could have definitely broken them down and got at them since they are a possession side. We struggle against teams that park the bus. We can exploit a team that likes to try and pass it around.

At least an attempt to try and win the game is needed. What we saw against Everton was just pathetic

We nearly had the game won except for 2 top quality goals.  Too many of our players had off days,  Holt was crap and Weimann made no impact whatsoever. So that's 2 of our 3 attacking players not performing. If they had played better then it would of given us something to build on in an attacking sense. 

[Houlston]

What a surprise that in two games where Weimann was played in a creative attacking role he plays well. We revert back to a negative style with him in a workman like position and he's poor

Everton did create other opportunities it wasn't like they just scored two goals from nowhere

Edited February 3, 2014 by Houlston

[Swerbs]

What a surprise that in two games when Weimann was played in a creative attacking role he plays well. We revert back to a negative style with him in a workman like position and he's poor

Everton did create other opportunities it wasn't like they just scored two goals from no where

He played the exact same position as he did at Liverpool albeit a different team formation overall. 

[Kwan]

Weimann played like shit because he was tracking back for 90% of the game instead of attacking dedenders. Holt played like shit because he's shit and you shouldn't play two target men. Everyone else played like shit because they barely crossed the half way line.

Can't believe the defense of this McLeish style

[sne]

Still our lack of a functioning midfield that is the real problem, always is.

[Houlston]

What a surprise that in two games when Weimann was played in a creative attacking role he plays well. We revert back to a negative style with him in a workman like position and he's poor

Everton did create other opportunities it wasn't like they just scored two goals from no where

He played the exact same position as he did at Liverpool albeit a different team formation overall.

So not meaning to be pedantic but therefore it wasn't the same position. He was coming back deeper and had less support and less of an outlet with Holt ahead.

[MessiWillSignForVilla]

Still our lack of a functioning midfield that is the real problem, always is.

 

Yup, I think we'd have won if we had a better midfield.

 

I like Westwood, but his style of play is very much a luxury style. When you're in our position you can't give up a midfield position to someone who sits back and plays slow passes trying to dictate the game, unless you have a Keane style player alongside who can break up opposition attacks, which we don't.

[villalad21]

I can understand what people are saying, but i don't agree. If the past 1.5 season has teached us anything it is that we are not a defensive side. We have one good defender and thats Vlaar. Thats it. Everytime we try to park the bus we lose, simple as that.