Paul Lambert

[1974Centenary]

Beating the bigger clubs was a nice bonus, losing to all the other teams will lead to relegation.

[Jimzk5]

I know the Bolton situation was a nasty one, but I still don't know what really went happened there... Can someone describe it in full detail as to what was chanted done etc etc....

we needed a win to be safe, he played warnock in midfield, after a cagey first half we come out second half and absolutely battered them before warnock turned to the ball in the at in front of the holte end, everyone went crazy thinking that was it, job done.

Bolton kicked off, and equalized after 30 seconds, then we kicked off, gave the ball away and cuellar needlessly brought down a player in the box, Bolton scored, in the space of 2 minutes we had gone from 0-0, 1-0, 1-1 and 2-1 down

[DelboyVilla]

 

While others said tactics were poor I saw a Manager who was pretty flexible tactically, who was happy to change it as he thought needed - look at the performance at Liverpool when his use of Weimann nullified the best (ugh) attacking side..........also here we were beating Chelsea, Man City, Arsenal.......I didn't and dont agree with those who say he is clueless or that the players are useless...you cant get results like that as a fluke.

Yes you can. Performances don't get fluked, but to say results don't I just don't get. The Man City result was a perfect fluke and masked just how bad our performance was particularly in the first half where I struggle to remember us getting out of our own half at home!

 

Some decent points in your analysis. I just don't know what Lambert is trying to do though as I have never seen such consistent turgid drivel in my life. The players don't know what it is they're supposed to be doing.

 

 

 

I think that all things considered we have been the most patient and least fickle fans this year and Lambert is very lucky that he has got this far into the season without being lynched. I think most people have clung to any thing that could be considered slightly positive and that is now gone.

[foreveryoung]

Terrytini is bang on the money. Sometimes I don't think its the ability, it seems he has lost all sense of direction with the squad. We are a far far cry to how we started out at the begining of the season.

[Big_John_10]

I think the project - as I understood it - needed to succeed and it hasn't,

The problem is there was no such project. It was cut the wage bill and survive on the cheap until the club was sold.

[terrytini]

 

I think the project - as I understood it - needed to succeed and it hasn't,

The problem is there was no such project. It was cut the wage bill and survive on the cheap until the club was sold.

Well that is a matter of opinion and one I don't see much sense in debating. You think there was only 1 objective, I think Lambert at least (if not Randy) had a much bigger vision. Seeing as neither of us will ever know what is the point of making such definitive declarations ?

If anything at least the objectives as you saw them may be acheived. The objective as I saw it has failed.

[pacbuddies]

I believe that the 'Project' as some refer to was just fictitious and it seemed to give a glimmer of hope to some that wanted to (or more likely needed to) believe that Lambert knew what he was doing and that Lerner actually cared about Villa and wanted to get them back to where they belong.

 

The reality is more likely that Lambert thought he could bring in a load of lower league players and foreigners and work some sort of miracle in the self belief that he was actually a good football manager when in reality he is just a 'mini me' of MON.

[terrytini]

 

While others said tactics were poor I saw a Manager who was pretty flexible tactically, who was happy to change it as he thought needed - look at the performance at Liverpool when his use of Weimann nullified the best (ugh) attacking side..........also here we were beating Chelsea, Man City, Arsenal.......I didn't and dont agree with those who say he is clueless or that the players are useless...you cant get results like that as a fluke.

Yes you can. Performances don't get fluked, but to say results don't I just don't get. The Man City result was a perfect fluke and masked just how bad our performance was particularly in the first half where I struggle to remember us getting out of our own half at home!

 

Some decent points in your analysis. I just don't know what Lambert is trying to do though as I have never seen such consistent turgid drivel in my life. The players don't know what it is they're supposed to be doing.

Well I've said pretty much all I want to say on Lambert, and I didn't enjoy saying it, but on this point I disagree.......you can indeed fluke one off results, but not various similar results at various times of the season. Just as the bad results cant be flukes either. Arguments like saying Man City was a fluke are just opinion, but it is more than opinion when it happens more often.

As it happens I dont remember Man City that way, as I am sure Chelsea fans wont remember their win yesterday that way.

[jackbauer24]

I am not in the Pro-Lambert camp at all BUT I'm still not sure what we are expecting of him.

 

The constraints, well talked about as they are, have got to to be the main focus. It's all well talking about total transfer fees but they are only half of the story; you both have to consider how many players were bought (replacing departures) and how much their salaries are. Yes, we have bought a lot of lower league players, but was that choice on Lambert's part or necessity? Some have been disasters and others not too bad, they're not going to be world beaters though. The likes of Lowton and Westwood have, at times, been very good acquisitions, especially for the initial outlay and considering their wages are probably lower than most players in the division. If you look at his bigger spends, Benteke (although personally I think he'll be a one-season wonder) has been an obvious success and Vlaar/ Okore have looked very solid. Can't think of a manager who has 100% success in the transfer market. In fact, I can't think of one of our last managers to have a 'good' transfer record, there will always be mistakes from Collymore to Balaban to Unsworth and Bennett!

 

Lambert has made mistakes, a fair few, but are these not highlighted more by the lack of funds/quality in the squad? Make tactical errors when you're 4th-10th and you may lose games you shouldn't. Do that when you have no back up, no quality and the consequences are greater. I can't think of a team or managers who have bought (inc wages) significantly better than we have for the same cost.

 

Vs Swansea for example:

 

Villa:
Guzan (Free/mid wages) Baker, Clark, Albrighton, Weimann (Youth/mid wages) Delph, Gabby (higher wages) Vlaar (£3m/ mid wages) Bacuna (£2m/mid wages) El Ahmadi (£2m/ mid wages) and Betrand (loan)
Rough team cost around £7m (or £13m with Delph) and now low/ mid range wages

 

Swansea:
Vorm (£1.5m/low wages) Amat (£2.5m/ low wages) Williams and Davies (Youth/ Low wages) Rangel and Britton (tiny/ low wages)  Britton Shelvey (£5m/ high wages) Hernandez (£5.5m/ mid wages) Routledge (£2m/ high wages) Bony (£12m/ high wages) and then Guzman on loan.

Rough team cost £28.5m with similarish (as much as you can guess) wages for the match squad overall.

 

I really am not Pro-Lambert but I think it's very easy to say "we could have had x" for this amount or "look at y who bought him for pennies". You need to compare one team/manager with ONE other, we can all cherry pick and find bits of other squads that are cheaper, better value etc. Lambert has not been great or awful, probably very mid range with his purchases but we are in a very different market to most teams at the moment.

 

Tactics have sometimes been suspect, certain players are favoured for reasons none of us can fathom but nearly every manager does that - we've had years of the likes of Heskey playing (everybody groaned) or Knight being signed or managers bringing washed up players from former clubs with them. It's the way of football.

 

Lambert is average from what we can tell so far. If he goes, he goes but I'm more than happy to see him stay. No manager is going to do any better with us until there is more investment. I'm sorry but it seems so obvious to me that people are falling time and time again for the manager as the scapegoat route: Since MON and investment we've had McLeish, Houllier and Lambert and none of them have been able to do much without investment - our biggest change in fortunes came about when we bought Bent - investment. Who could do a significantly better job than Lambert really? Look at Martinez, everyone raves about how good he is, yet Wigan went down due to investment! Money isn't the be all and end all but it is the most significant aspect of success unfortunately. You can make mistakes when you check £50m at Torres but you can't afford the same luxury when you gamble £2m on Luna.

 

Progress? More tricky. Okore and Betrand seem to be an improvement on what we have. But the loss of Okore and Benteke have seen us slip back. Last season we were luckier with injuries, this season not so much. I think if we'd kept Okore fit and Benteke fit we might have been 10th-12th, a small improvement. But when you're so near the bottom then significant injuries are bound to have a greater impact.

 

For me, Lambert has done an OK job in what have been ridiculous constraints. He said some of the figures I've quoted as transfers fees were doubled in the press! He's infuriated me, he's bought some utter dross and some of his tactics and press conferences have left me fuming. He's like every other manager I can remember, he just has to buy players around the £2m mark instead of £8m mark.

 

I don't see any significantly better managers out there and changing the manager alone will do absolutely nothing to change our yearly struggles.

[penguin]

It was proven it when the accounts were released that Lambert had lied about how cheap his purchases were.

Baffles me how anyone can say he's even doing an ok job, yes his job hasn't been made easy by the financial restraints but it's no excuse for the clueless diabolical football and not just a lack of progress from last year but regression in both results and performances.

To over-simplistic and discrediting to managers to simply say no-one will do any better without more money imo. I strongly believe there are managers out there that could have us performing more consistently and with more purpose, Lambert is completely out of his depth here.

[pacbuddies]

If I said, at the end of last season, that this season Lambert would have us in 16th place with 35 points from 35 games and a -17 goal difference who would say 'that will be an okay job'?

[HeyAnty]

I think the project - as I understood it - needed to succeed and it hasn't,

The problem is there was no such project. It was cut the wage bill and survive on the cheap until the club was sold.

I believe Lambert was sold this idea by Lerner but Lerner knew it was just a ploy to stay in the premiership to he sold up on the cheap.

I have asked Why did Lambert come here on this site numerous times and this is the only logical answer to me.

Lerner pulled the wool over Lamberts eyes.

[Villarocker]

If I said, at the end of last season, that this season Lambert would have us in 16th place with 35 points from 35 games and a -17 goal difference who would say 'that will be an okay job'?

Hairyhands would have!

Before a ball was kicked this season, I sent a PM to HH asking how he was and what he was expecting from the coming season. I suggested that, with the way we finished off last season, together with the signings we'd made and if they settled in fairly quickly, we could maybe sneak a top half finish, maybe even 7th or 8th. HH replied saying that Lambert would take 17th if you offered it him before a ball was kicked.

I guess HH was right.

[PieFacE]

 

If I said, at the end of last season, that this season Lambert would have us in 16th place with 35 points from 35 games and a -17 goal difference who would say 'that will be an okay job'?

Hairyhands would have!

Before a ball was kicked this season, I sent a PM to HH asking how he was and what he was expecting from the coming season. I suggested that, with the way we finished off last season, together with the signings we'd made and if they settled in fairly quickly, we could maybe sneak a top half finish, maybe even 7th or 8th. HH replied saying that Lambert would take 17th if you offered it him before a ball was kicked.

I guess HH was right.

 

Wow, ambitious

[pacbuddies]

 

If I said, at the end of last season, that this season Lambert would have us in 16th place with 35 points from 35 games and a -17 goal difference who would say 'that will be an okay job'?

Hairyhands would have!

Before a ball was kicked this season, I sent a PM to HH asking how he was and what he was expecting from the coming season. I suggested that, with the way we finished off last season, together with the signings we'd made and if they settled in fairly quickly, we could maybe sneak a top half finish, maybe even 7th or 8th. HH replied saying that Lambert would take 17th if you offered it him before a ball was kicked.

I guess HH was right.

 

Maybe HH wouldn't but Lambert would then. A very poor expectation level even for a very poor manager if true.

[Isa]

Vs Swansea for example:

Villa:

Guzan (Free/mid wages) Baker, Clark, Albrighton, Weimann (Youth/mid wages) Delph, Gabby (higher wages) Vlaar (£3m/ mid wages) Bacuna (£2m/mid wages) El Ahmadi (£2m/ mid wages) and Betrand (loan)Rough team cost around £7m (or £13m with Delph) and now low/ mid range wages

Swansea:

Vorm (£1.5m/low wages) Amat (£2.5m/ low wages) Williams and Davies (Youth/ Low wages) Rangel and Britton (tiny/ low wages) Britton Shelvey (£5m/ high wages) Hernandez (£5.5m/ mid wages) Routledge (£2m/ high wages) Bony (£12m/ high wages) and then Guzman on loan.

Rough team cost £28.5m with similarish (as much as you can guess) wages for the match squad overall.

I'm not sure exactly what you are defining as 'high wages' but you do know that Swansea have a wage-cap of around £30k right?

This is the reality of us vs. Swansea:

Lambert has spent £40.6m (£37.5m net) on 16 players* which averages at ~£2.5m per player.

Laudrup spent ~£39m (~£13m net) on 12 players** which averages at ~£3.25m per player.

*including Guzan, excluding loans

**excluding those who haven't played for the first team and loans

Edit: It should be noted that Laudrup utilised the loan-market a lot more to bulk out his squad.

Edited April 28, 2014 by Isa

[Big_John_10]

Baffles me how anyone can say he's even doing an ok job, yes his job hasn't been made easy by the financial restraints but it's no excuse for the clueless diabolical football and not just a lack of progress from last year but regression in both results and performances.

Completly agree. How on earth is he doing an OK job? We're talking about club record lows, are the constraints he's under really the worst any manager has had to work with?

[tinker]

The fact his back room staff have made matters worse at a time we didn't need it to me means hes has to go, for Gabby and Delph not to want play because of them shows how the situation had got out of control and Lambert job is to stop this sort of thing happening, their his men.

 

After this, of all the rights and wrongs he has done, he has to go. I have a feeling he will walk away from us anyway.

[Stevo985]

 

Baffles me how anyone can say he's even doing an ok job, yes his job hasn't been made easy by the financial restraints but it's no excuse for the clueless diabolical football and not just a lack of progress from last year but regression in both results and performances.

Completly agree. How on earth is he doing an OK job? We're talking about club record lows, are the constraints he's under really the worst any manager has had to work with?

 

Up until about christmas this year I'd have said he was doing an "ok job"

 

but things have collapsed this season.

 

It's not ok anymore. Something's wrong. Like I said in the match thread, whether that's all Paul's fault is something we can argue about until we're blue in the face.

 

But bottom line is it's broken. It's not working. Time to let him go.

[Big_John_10]

But bottom line is it's broken. It's not working. Time to let him go.

That's spot on. It doesn't matter anymore why it went wrong. It has and its gone too far.