Mantis Posted November 18, 2012 Share Posted November 18, 2012 No he wouldn't have but he would have had us more organised and wouldn't have spent our budget on the players Lambert has. Purely hypothetical. On the whole Lambert didn't even spend the budget poorly. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AvfcTheObsession Posted November 18, 2012 Share Posted November 18, 2012 I find it hard to believe that somebody who places so much value in experience would have chosen the least experienced person. There's still no guarantee that established Premier League players will perform at their new club either. Theres not. But its a damn side less risky in a relegation battle than what weve got. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mantis Posted November 18, 2012 Share Posted November 18, 2012 Theres not. But its a damn side less risky in a relegation battle than what weve got. How? Experience means nothing if a player hasn't got the quality. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AvfcTheObsession Posted November 18, 2012 Share Posted November 18, 2012 How? Experience means nothing if a player hasn't got the quality. Which is why if you look back at my post on the previous page what I said was people want 'good' players with experience. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AshVilla Posted November 18, 2012 Share Posted November 18, 2012 We have 4 wins, 12 drawn and 17 losses this calendar year, This season we have 2 wins in 12 games with 7 losses. After every game we fail to win excuses are made to gloss over the fact that we are in big trouble. "The season doesn't start until November", "We look better than last season", "At least we're not Birmingham", "We beat City in the cup so we can't be that bad" And the most used one and the favourite atm "It's just 1 game" The one silver lining for me is that at least it's just fans that are making the excuses and not the players and manager. Let's hope Lerner and Lambert understand how dire our situation is and come January go on a PSG-type spending spree because the squad we have at present is not good enough, not by a long way. This tbh Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mantis Posted November 18, 2012 Share Posted November 18, 2012 Which is why if you look back at my post on the previous page what I said was people want 'good' players with experience. If they're good it doesn't really matter that much. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Big_John_10 Posted November 18, 2012 Share Posted November 18, 2012 Pointless arguing about different managers and what they might or might not have done. Most managers would struggle with the way Lerner has run this club. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Risso Posted November 18, 2012 Share Posted November 18, 2012 Purely hypothetical. On the whole Lambert didn't even spend the budget poorly. I think he did. Not that he bought poor players necessarily, just that he didn't buy the sort of player that we need to keep us up. They nearly all look decent bets for the future, but then if we go down any of them that are decent will be cherry picked by the bigger clubs. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Big_John_10 Posted November 18, 2012 Share Posted November 18, 2012 With the state of the squad the budget and wage restrictions he was given was pathetic. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Keyblade Posted November 18, 2012 Share Posted November 18, 2012 I was against Lambert from the start and it is documented on here as being so. I have always rated Clarke and yes out of those three Clarke would have been my choice and I don't give a toss whether you think it's bullshit or not. How have you always rated Clarke? WBA was his first managerial appointment. Unless you rated his skills as a #2, which would be irrelevant. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
darrenm Posted November 18, 2012 Share Posted November 18, 2012 Some comical clearing in the woodss on here. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
markavfc40 Posted November 18, 2012 Share Posted November 18, 2012 With the state of the squad the budget and wage restrictions he was given was pathetic. I agree. The squad was lacking in numbers and quality last season. Since then Collins, Heskey, Cuellar have left and Warnock and Hutton frozen out. I am not saying any of them players were that good but they all needed replacing and needed replacing with better. 8 players came in over the summer which wasn't far off what we needed. However given their lack of experience at this level the likes of Lowton, Westwood, Bowery, Bennett were highly unlikely to all hit the ground running and Al Ahmadi, Vlaar, Holman and Benteke were always likely to take time to settle. Lambert it seems has had to cut his cloth to suit. We needed numbers but you are highly unlikely to combine numbers with proven quality for a net spend of 17 mill. In fact it is impossible. It possibly wouldn't be so bad if the players brought in were going to be introduced slowly into a team full of quality. Facts are though that with the exception of Bowery all the new players have been thrown straight in and in the main alongside other inexperienced players that have come through our youth system. Recently only Ireland and Gabby have been in the team who have proven themselves to be able to perform in this league and even those two players have over the years shown themselves to be very hit and miss. Simple facts are we lack proven quality and that will not change unless Randy is prepared to stump up the cash in fees and wages that proven quality players cost. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pacbuddies Posted November 18, 2012 Share Posted November 18, 2012 Let's face some facts. We have a very inexperienced (and average on a really good day) team. Our defence consists of a goalkeeper who has really only come into the PL this season, a Dutch centre back who has only come into the PL this season and three kids (two of which have never played against such high quality opposition before). Our midfield is shuffled around constantly and with the exception of Ireland doesn't really have a great deal of PL experience to call upon and is therefore almost constantly outplayed.. Then there is our strike force, Agbonlahor who hardly ever scores, Benteke who, at 21, is a long way off being a top PL striker, Weimann is in a similar development stage to Benteke and then there is Bent, a player who, when not injured, spends most of his time on the bench these days I have not mentioned N'Zogbia in this post because I think he is a waste of space. We currently lie in the relegation zone just above a very poor Southampton and just below a very poor Reading both of who have just been promoted so are green as far as the PL is concerned. We are about a third of the way into the season and have a points ratio of 0.75 points per game, a win percentage of just over 16.66%, a defeat percentage of just over 58.33% a strike rate of just over 0.83 goals scored per game and a concede rate of just over 1.83 goals conceded per game. Whilst there may be some light at the end of the tunnel (a bit of a 'Green Shoots of Recovery' saying in my opinion) it is clearly evident that not all is well at Villa Park. I won't bury my head in the sand and put my fingers in my ears and pretend that relegation is not possible, it is very possible based on the aforementioned information and statistics. If we get relegated it will not be a good thing but I won't kid myself that AVFC are immune. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MikeMcKenna Posted November 18, 2012 VT Supporter Share Posted November 18, 2012 I agree. The squad was lacking in numbers and quality last season. Since then Collins, Heskey, Cuellar have left and Warnock and Hutton frozen out. I am not saying any of them players were that good but they all needed replacing and needed replacing with better. 8 players came in over the summer which wasn't far off what we needed. However given their lack of experience at this level the likes of Lowton, Westwood, Bowery, Bennett were highly unlikely to all hit the ground running and Al Ahmadi, Vlaar, Holman and Benteke were always likely to take time to settle. Lambert it seems has had to cut his cloth to suit. We needed numbers but you are highly unlikely to combine numbers with proven quality for a net spend of 17 mill. In fact it is impossible. It possibly wouldn't be so bad if the players brought in were going to be introduced slowly into a team full of quality. Facts are though that with the exception of Bowery all the new players have been thrown straight in and in the main alongside other inexperienced players that have come through our youth system. Recently only Ireland and Gabby have been in the team who have proven themselves to be able to perform in this league and even those two players have over the years shown themselves to be very hit and miss. Simple facts are we lack proven quality and that will not change unless Randy is prepared to stump up the cash in fees and wages that proven quality players cost. Absolutely this. The only little bit I would take issue with is "Lambert it seems has had to cut his cloth to suit." Lambert would have had an idea of his transfer budget and the wage targets before he accepted the job. I accept he needs time but I am getting a bit tired of the idea that he is somehow blameless. But ultimately the fault lies with the owner and board. As regards relegation, I repeat what I've said before; We are going DOWN if Lambert doesn't sign at least three quality players in January. IMO this is the weakest squad (with the exception of a few players) that we have had in over 25 years and has "Championship Quality" written all over it! It is so F****g frustrating as we have lurched from one crisis to another over the last three seasons, but irrespective of the "potential" of Lambert and some of the players lets not kid ourselves - we are at our lowest ebb since the final season under Ellis and O'Leary. Basically in just 6 years Lerner has **** it up and turned our dreams of winning something again into the stuff of nightmares!!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pacbuddies Posted November 18, 2012 Share Posted November 18, 2012 Absolutely this. The only little bit I would take issue with is "Lambert it seems has had to cut his cloth to suit." Lambert would have had an idea of his transfer budget and the wage targets before he accepted the job. I accept he needs time but I am getting a bit tired of the idea that he is somehow blameless. But ultimately the fault lies with the owner and board. As regards relegation, I repeat what I've said before; We are going DOWN if Lambert doesn't sign at least three quality players in January. IMO this is the weakest squad (with the exception of a few players) that we have had in over 25 years and has "Championship Quality" written all over it! It is so F****g frustrating as we have lurched from one crisis to another over the last three seasons, but irrespective of the "potential" of Lambert and some of the players lets not kid ourselves - we are at our lowest ebb since the final season under Ellis and O'Leary. Basically in just 6 years Lerner has **** it up and turned our dreams of winning something again into the stuff of nightmares!!! At last, someone else who can see beyond the end of their nose. The blame lies solely with the owner and the board. We have gone significantly backwards in the last few years under the stewardship of Lerner. It doesn't matter who is the team manager as long as this incompetent fool remains in sole charge. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Morpheus Posted November 18, 2012 Share Posted November 18, 2012 It wasn't a case of Man U being poor it was a case of us being good. Yes we lost the game but a performance like that can't just be dismissed just because we lost. Yes, we were. We were only 1-0 down when he made that "bad decision" but it was such a dreadful decision and then he made another one (although not quite so bad) at 2-0. It's very simplistic just to think City would have merely scored 1 goal less because clearly even you can recognise that goals change games? I'm not surprised it was their most comfortable win of the season as I don't recall them getting so much help from the linesman in any other game. It will take more than a couple of months with the amount of **** turmoil we've had over the past couple of years. We'd be even lower. Yes but Vlaar is just one person in a defence made up of 4 (or 5 depending on how you look at it). You never said those words specifically but the way you go on about him it would certainly seem that way. According to you it's all so simple. We sack yet another manager and bring in Redknapp and everything is magically better. Just because I think Lambert has purchased the right players doesn't mean I think the job is done. It clearly isn't. I never said Lambert is a managerial genius. I think he's the right manager but unlike some I accept that he came into a massive mess and it will take more than a couple of months to get us out of it. He won't be sacked anytime soon. It took Randy a season to sack McLeish and that was with low approval, horrendous football and shit results. And unlike some I think the board recognise that we need some continuity and can't afford to keep on changing managers every season. Explain that. We did well in the second half of that season because we had Bent and started to play better. I don't even remember the teams we playing having loads of injuries. What has happened since is Houllier left, Downing and Young were sold (understandable given they wanted to leave) and we appointed a dreadful manager in McLeish so it meant yet more change and upheaval. Now McLeish is gone we've had to appointed yet another manager who's come in and brought a lot of new players and is trying to get us playing a new way. The mess Lambert inherited isn't going to be fixed overnight. Sorry no. Man U were very poor in the first half which contributed to our performance. It was no fluke in the second half that when they started to play we lost the game from being two up. It actually put it into perspective yesterday how poor Man U were in the first half and Ferguson did allude to that in his post match interview. The second decision was correct and it's just sour grapes to say otherwise. They didn't need any help from the linesman to beat us as they were much the better team. You still haven't answered the point i made concerning the experience v quality debate so i will ask it again. If you feel Lambert has signed the right players why do we still need to buy quality to get us out of the current position we're in? I also never said it would be simple to change our current plight. What i am saying is that by bringing in Redknapp, he would, as at Spuds, have an instant impact on our team by being able to attract the better player to our club and getting us organized and thats exactly what we need at the moment. We don't need to build for the future at the moment which has seen us in the bottom three. We need to build for now to get us out of the current mess we are in. I have no doubt once Redknapp got us safe and on a solid base of good quality Premiership players he would then build around that with younger players. If Redknapp does go to QPR he will get them safe and i am in no doubt of that. Currently i have no faith in Lambert whatsoever to have the same impact in January through these new signings you place your faith in. No he didn't sack McLeish when our football was poor but then again McLeish never had us in the bottom three. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
R.Bear Posted November 18, 2012 Share Posted November 18, 2012 People keep going on about quality. Have West Ham got a much better squad than us? Have WBA? We should not be in this position with the fixtures we have had and players we have got. Or to put it another way, we should have done a LOT better. I'm not getting on Lambert's back (yet) but I'm sick of reading about what we need in January like a couple of signings will miraculously turn us into world beaters. There is one and one person only who can turn this around and that is Paul Lambert. He has to get this squad into a system or whatever that wins games. I dont care if its pretty or not but he clearly isnt getting the best out of the players. Look at WBA, look at West Ham. Mediocre squads on paper yet are beating most who face them. Ask yourself why that it is? Quality, confidence and all the rest of the meaningless clichés are just kop-outs. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Morpheus Posted November 18, 2012 Share Posted November 18, 2012 Purely hypothetical. On the whole Lambert didn't even spend the budget poorly. Totally disagree. Clark has already proven at WBA how good his organizational skills are and on the whole Lambert has spent his budget poorly due to getting the balance of player wrong. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
smetrov Posted November 18, 2012 Share Posted November 18, 2012 We brought Lambert so that he could source players from overseas, the lower leagues, and our own academy system. For better or for worse that's what he has done. However IMO the only thing that can save us is to do something very 'Un Lambert' - buy some experienced players, and while we are at it - Restore DB\Dunne to the starting 11. I am not so sure we will do that - Under Houllier we brought in one of the best prem league strikers (outside of top 4) in the Jan window - I don't see that happening this time. Lamberts teams seem rely a lot on momentum - IMO it may take a season in the championship to get that going. Not that I think a season in the championship would be good for us - but there was simply to much for Lambert to do in a few months. I really hope he can turn it round - but I only see QPR who are worse than us - and that is a case of good players playing poorly - which a change of manager may cure. I don't think changing a manager is an option for us. I think we are doomed TBH Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KjParton Posted November 18, 2012 Share Posted November 18, 2012 I also never said it would be simple to change our current plight. What i am saying is that by bringing in Redknapp, he would, as at Spuds, have an instant impact on our team by being able to attract the better player to our club and getting us organized and thats exactly what we need at the moment. There is no way you can/could ever know whether Redknapp would have an "instant Impact" at Villa. Say we did get him in January, and he had a similar start as Lambert has had, you'd still be calling for his head just like you are now with Lambert Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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