Zatman Posted March 11, 2022 Share Posted March 11, 2022 Lerner was shit but its a terrible excuse for Lambert, was managers with similarly small budgets doing wonders Swansea, Southampton, Stoke, Palace and Norwich were finishing above us with similar resources. Was it Lerner fault that Lambert decided to remove most of the senior players and crush any bit of value they had 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Keyblade Posted March 11, 2022 Share Posted March 11, 2022 22 hours ago, Mark Albrighton said: His relative lack of success elsewhere pretty much makes that Norwich stint the definition of lightning in a bottle. Lying 23rd in League One when he takes over in August 2009, bringing them up to 12th Premier League by May 2012. That’s a jump of 55 places in under 3 seasons. Has any club jumped higher in such a short space of time? I know Nigel Adkins got Southampton up twice but if my memory is right, he didn’t see the premier league season through. Lambert was the last manager I strongly wanted us to appoint. Since the way it panned out, I’ve maintained a more indifferent attitude when the position becomes available. I was so convinced he was the right man. Lesson learned. We didn't give him a platform to succeed...quite the opposite actually. We gave him a bunch of League One players and said keep us up you oaf. And he did it 2 out of 3 seasons...but apparently lost everything that made him a success at Norwich in the process. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AvonVillain Posted April 3, 2023 Share Posted April 3, 2023 Really interesting interview with Lambert on Nicky Campbell's 5Live show today, from about 10am. I only caught the end but his struggles at Villa seemed to be the main thrust of it. There's no link to post up just yet.. One comment: How do you motivate players who can't motivate themselves? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Fun Factory Posted April 3, 2023 Share Posted April 3, 2023 (edited) 18 minutes ago, AvonVillain said: Really interesting interview with Lambert on Nicky Campbell's 5Live show today, from about 10am. I only caught the end but his struggles at Villa seemed to be the main thrust of it. There's no link to post up just yet.. One comment: How do you motivate players who can't motivate themselves? Being at Villa took something out of him as when he was at Norwich he was seen as an exciting up-and-coming manager. Post Villa he has been utterly useless. He seems clueless without Culverhouse. Edited April 3, 2023 by The Fun Factory Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mantis Posted June 3, 2023 Share Posted June 3, 2023 17 minutes ago, Xela said: When he first came in, he was a breath of fresh air. We'd been served up some of the worst stuff I'd ever seen under Lambert. Mind you, after Lambert, Gary Glitter in charge would have been a welcome change. I still find it weird how Lambert started off quite fresh and attacking (with some very major early bumps in the road) and then just got progressively more dour and defensive here. It's like the job wore him down. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Keyblade Posted June 3, 2023 Share Posted June 3, 2023 13 minutes ago, Mantis said: I still find it weird how Lambert started off quite fresh and attacking (with some very major early bumps in the road) and then just got progressively more dour and defensive here. It's like the job wore him down. The 15-0 period in Christmas broke him. He knew he couldn't play as attacking with the defence we had. Our back 5 in that period was Lichaj - Herd - Baker - Clark - Lowton. I'd be waking up in cold sweats thinking about that too. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post HanoiVillan Posted June 3, 2023 Popular Post Share Posted June 3, 2023 8 minutes ago, Keyblade said: The 15-0 period in Christmas broke him. He knew he couldn't play as attacking with the defence we had. Our back 5 in that period was Lichaj - Herd - Baker - Clark - Lowton. I'd be waking up in cold sweats thinking about that too. Everyone favours this explanation, I think because it seems most logical, but in reality we went on a really quite good run of form in the second half of that season *after* that 15-0 period, and we even played good football at times. What I suspect actually broke him was the dawning realisation that the cheap-and-cheerful transfers of the summer before 13/14 were all just quite shit really, and contained 0 Bentekeesque gems, and furthermore that there was going to be no substantial funds to rescue the situation in the future either. 7 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Keyblade Posted June 3, 2023 Share Posted June 3, 2023 17 minutes ago, HanoiVillan said: Everyone favours this explanation, I think because it seems most logical, but in reality we went on a really quite good run of form in the second half of that season *after* that 15-0 period, and we even played good football at times. What I suspect actually broke him was the dawning realisation that the cheap-and-cheerful transfers of the summer before 13/14 were all just quite shit really, and contained 0 Bentekeesque gems, and furthermore that there was going to be no substantial funds to rescue the situation in the future either. That was the seed that was sown. Not particularly the defence, but as you say the team. It was borderline League One, and the signings afterwards did nothing to alleviate that fear. If that (and Bradford didn't happen), I think it would be a while longer before he became more reserved and defensive. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
VillaChris Posted June 3, 2023 Share Posted June 3, 2023 58 minutes ago, Keyblade said: The 15-0 period in Christmas broke him. He knew he couldn't play as attacking with the defence we had. Our back 5 in that period was Lichaj - Herd - Baker - Clark - Lowton. I'd be waking up in cold sweats thinking about that too. We ended that season reasonably well though. O.k it was mostly down to Benteke but when we beat Sunderland 6-1 to effectively confirm safety we were moving the ball around nicely and had a bit of swagger about us so there was something to build on. We gave him a very limited budget again in summer 2013 so he was never going to sign another established players but I always thought going for a Kozak type attacker for 7m was a mistake instead of a more creative number 10 given we were linked to a few. Tonev being one of the worst attackers we've had perhaps though suggests he wouldn't have signed anyone decent though. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zatman Posted June 3, 2023 Share Posted June 3, 2023 1 hour ago, HanoiVillan said: Everyone favours this explanation, I think because it seems most logical, but in reality we went on a really quite good run of form in the second half of that season *after* that 15-0 period, and we even played good football at times. What I suspect actually broke him was the dawning realisation that the cheap-and-cheerful transfers of the summer before 13/14 were all just quite shit really, and contained 0 Bentekeesque gems, and furthermore that there was going to be no substantial funds to rescue the situation in the future either. His trip to Germany when he watched Klopp and Guardiola confused him. Hutton took the piss in the recent interview and can imagine rest of players thinking the same 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HanoiVillan Posted June 3, 2023 Share Posted June 3, 2023 2 minutes ago, Zatman said: His trip to Germany when he watched Klopp and Guardiola confused him. Hutton took the piss in the recent interview and can imagine rest of players thinking the same Yeah, that was the start of the true death-spiral that Sherwood had to rescue us from, by the medium of understanding that you should try and attack the other team's goal. But the season prior to Sherwood's rescue job had already been dire; in retrospect, the only chance to salvage something from Lambert's time in charge would have been to give him a real transfer budget and build on the positivity at the end of the 1213 season. The only way to salvage something from Sherwood's time in charge would have been to let him go immediately after the FA Cup final and get somebody significantly better in to cope with the post-Benteke rebuild. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
VillaJ100 Posted June 4, 2023 Share Posted June 4, 2023 Always said we should have gone down in Lambert's second season, we beat Arsenal away, Chelsea at home, drew at Anfield and beat a 5th or 6th in the league Soton away, that's 10 points we got where usually we'd have got like 2 at best. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zatman Posted June 4, 2023 Share Posted June 4, 2023 4 minutes ago, VillaJ100 said: Always said we should have gone down in Lambert's second season, we beat Arsenal away, Chelsea at home, drew at Anfield and beat a 5th or 6th in the league Soton away, that's 10 points we got where usually we'd have got like 2 at best. In fairness that Liverpool game we got robbed by a Suarez dive. Lambert for his shitness had a surprisingly good record at Anfield. He even won with Wolves there and drew with Stoke I think one of his only points Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Keyblade Posted June 4, 2023 Share Posted June 4, 2023 1 hour ago, VillaChris said: We ended that season reasonably well though. O.k it was mostly down to Benteke but when we beat Sunderland 6-1 to effectively confirm safety we were moving the ball around nicely and had a bit of swagger about us so there was something to build on. We gave him a very limited budget again in summer 2013 so he was never going to sign another established players but I always thought going for a Kozak type attacker for 7m was a mistake instead of a more creative number 10 given we were linked to a few. Tonev being one of the worst attackers we've had perhaps though suggests he wouldn't have signed anyone decent though. The season actually started well, with that win at the Emirates with the Tony Moon goal and then battering Chelsea at Stamford Bridge (and getting a draw?). Then inexplicably we devolved into the most dour side imaginable. There were these false dawns periodically but we inevitably reverted to type. My theory is PTSD and I'm sticking to it lol Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Demitri_C Posted June 4, 2023 Share Posted June 4, 2023 Lambert gave us some memorable wins despite his shitness. Those wins at the emirates and anfield. But my god the final season was **** awful. Remember that period when we conceding near enough every corner? Every team would just try get a corner off us knowing they would score. Dark days Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Xela Posted June 4, 2023 Share Posted June 4, 2023 The 15-0 over Xmas and the Bradford debacle was in the first season wasn't it? For me, the real rot came towards the end of the 2nd season. In our last 9 games that season, we lost 4-1 three times and the last two games of the season were 4-0 and 3-0 defeats. The players weren't playing for him at all. Remarkably we started the next season well (ok, 4 games) and he got a new contract! Then we reverted to playing a dour, defensive, possession based game where we never went anywhere or created any chances. It was eye-bleedingly bad and made me despise the team and everyone involved in it. The worst football i'd ever seen. I know we didn't have a great team, but it was the style of play, or lack of it, which was most galling. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wainy316 Posted June 4, 2023 Share Posted June 4, 2023 7 hours ago, Zatman said: In fairness that Liverpool game we got robbed by a Suarez dive. Lambert for his shitness had a surprisingly good record at Anfield. He even won with Wolves there and drew with Stoke I think one of his only points Never lost there having visited with Celtic (player), Norwich, Villa, Wolves and Stoke. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Keyblade Posted June 4, 2023 Share Posted June 4, 2023 There was this gruelling cycle where we'd play that soul-sucking Gerrard ball for like 10 games, and then we'd have 2 or 3 in a row where we start to look half decent and we all think is this? We're turning a corner here surely? Nope. It's back to not scoring goals again. Lambert hits us with that LeBron line, except replace 2 with 10. Rinse, repeat. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mantis Posted June 4, 2023 Share Posted June 4, 2023 11 hours ago, HanoiVillan said: Everyone favours this explanation, I think because it seems most logical, but in reality we went on a really quite good run of form in the second half of that season *after* that 15-0 period, and we even played good football at times. What I suspect actually broke him was the dawning realisation that the cheap-and-cheerful transfers of the summer before 13/14 were all just quite shit really, and contained 0 Bentekeesque gems, and furthermore that there was going to be no substantial funds to rescue the situation in the future either. This seems as good an explanation as any. I don't think Lambert had the ability or confidence to implement the style he initially wanted to with the limited resources we had. It's also worth remembering that Benteke got injured very early on (around September time I think?) during the 2013/14 season. It was the first time we were without Benteke for a significant period of time and injuries plagued him a lot that season. That more than anything may have been what caused Lambert to regress the way he did. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
VillaJ100 Posted June 4, 2023 Share Posted June 4, 2023 The good start in the 3rd season was partly due to how defensively solid Vlaar and Senderos were. It was baffling but they seemed to have a great partnership and cover each others weaknesses perfectly. Then Senderos got injured never to be seen again. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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