Manager Paul Lambert

[Eames]

 

BJ and Morph - let me introduce you to nuance which is a concept that you both appear to be incapable of dealing with. Nothing is black and white, shades of grey and all that.

Oh this crap again.

Seems to the new thing to post to dismiss any opinion you don't agree with.

3) No probably not forced but it was absolutely the right decision and Vlaar IMO is better.

Why was it the right decision? I'm also struggling to see how Vlaar is a better player.

Excuses? No, haven't seen many of those, just attempts to explain to the doom mongers or the overly negative that things are more promising than last season despite the similar position.

Then you're not reading a lot of the posts. Injuries, limited funds, Lerner, MON etc.. Plenty of excuses have been made to take blame from the manager.

6) If he keeps us up he's not "amazing" and I haven't seen anyone say that. He would be doing his job. If he relegates us it wont solely be his fault but he will be culpable.

Agree completely with the 2nd part. But there have been people who have claimed it would be an amazing achievement, one even said he should be knighted if he keeps us up.

 

 1) What Stevo said.

2) Dutch international defender with no obvious drink/discipline problems vs half cut Welsh international defender. I know who I'm taking.

3) Again, you appear to be taking examples of contributory factors, deciding you don't agree and labelling anything you don't agree with as "excuses"

4) Taking the opinion of one obvious idiot (assuming it was serious) or an obvious example of sarcasm (assuming it wasn't) and using it to support your dismissals don't really help your case.

 

As you so helpfully remind me on a daily basis there will always be idiots on every side of an arguement.

[Big_John_10]

They're not excuses. They're reasons. It's context. It's people trying to have a discussion about something rather than just declaring everything awful all the time. [/quotes]

I can see reasons and happy to discuss some of them.

But I've seen comments suggesting he could have done no better with his money. Seen comments about playing 3 at the back only because of injuries and that he had no choice.

These are excuses to take away blame from the manager. Are they not?

[Big_John_10]

As you so helpfully remind me on a daily basis there will always be idiots on every side of an arguement.

So nice.

You seem to have an issue with my views on villa but are happy to resort to personal insults.

Dutch international defender with no obvious drink/discipline problems vs half cut Welsh international defender. I know who I'm taking

Yeah and I know who I'm taking. I like players who make us better.

4) Taking the opinion of one obvious idiot (assuming it was serious) or an obvious example of sarcasm (assuming it wasn't) and using it to support your dismissals don't really help your case.

There are clear examples of people who think he's done a wonderful job if he keeps us up.

[Eames]

No.... that is someone giving examples of why they believe Lambert is not at fault - you know supporting their arguements with evidence.

 

See point 4) above for clarification.

[Big_John_10]

No.... that is someone giving examples of why they believe Lambert is not at fault - you know supporting their arguements with evidence.

See point 4) above for clarification.

Well yes, that's what an excuse is isn't it?

And I haven't seen much evidence as to why we had to buy the players he did or why we had to persist with formations that weren't working.

[Avflife]

Its his shit tactics which have us in the shit, playing 5-3-2 over and over again when it clearly didn't work the first time. Signings wise Benteke and Guzan quality, Westwood looking good, Vlaar and Lowton still undecided and KEA and Bowery shit

[Morpheus]

They're not excuses. They're reasons. It's context. It's people trying to have a discussion about something rather than just declaring everything awful all the time.

it's people trying to find explanations for performances that might not revolve purely around the manager's incompetence.

 

It might surprise you, but not everyone blames every last thing on Paul Lambert. Dismissing their reasons behind this as excuses is doing exactly what you yourself have complained about in the past. It's dismissing others' opinions because they differ from your own.

No-one that i have seen has blamed everything on the manager in the same way that no-one has blamed everything on the chairman.

 

Its relative.

 

The choice of manager and how he attributes funding to the club is down to the chairman and he has been rightly criticised by BJ10 and others for that.

 

The remit of the manager is to bring in the right coaching staff, prepare tactics, purchase players to fit those tactics and to win games. Lambert has again been rightly criticised by me, BJ10 and other posters due to the team's performance and results this season.

 

The mistakes have been elementary and juvenile and should not be expected of either a Premiership chairman or manager.

 

BJ10 and i and indeed other posters have criticised the current defence and midfield which contain the majority of Lambert's purchases. They have been simply awful. Both the results and performances prove that and Bennet was targeted last night and will be again due to being identified as a weakness as has our defending at set plays because Vlaar isn't a dominant CB who takes responsibility. Our midfield was already weak and really hasn't been improved upon as a collective with the purchases of KEA, Sylla and Westwood.

 

The only area which hasn't been targeted by BJ10 is our forwards. He has continually complemented Lambert on the purchase of Benteke, a player who has proven me wrong and has been Lambert's best signing.

 

Any supporter should have an allegiance to their own team but they also shouldn't be adversed to their respective team being criticised even by their own fan base when it is blatantly obvious that criticism is justified.

 

This is where BJ10 and i and several other posters are coming from. Its not that we see everything black and white. We just don't let that allegiance turn into excuses .  

[Kwan]

I daresay with how much you and BJ agree, you should just give him a....

 

I'll see myself out

[MagicMushroom]

Im happy with Lambert carrying on next season, mainly because i think hes had one hand tied behind his back, but aso because we need stability. However, how much time i give him next term depends on defensive improvement. Any more of the same, and he will have to go.

 

BJ is right saying its the worst defence in memory. Hes had all season to sort it, and its as bad now as it was from the start. I imagine he was hoping for the return of Dunne, but was then let down from covering Dunnies loss when he was denied funds in January. However, its his job to learn from mistakes and tighten things up. Its just not happened, and that falls squarely with the coaches and manager.

[HeyAnty]

Im happy with Lambert carrying on next season, mainly because i think hes had one hand tied behind his back, but aso because we need stability. However, how much time i give him next term depends on defensive improvement. Any more of the same, and he will have to go.

BJ is right saying its the worst defence in memory. Hes had all season to sort it, and its as bad now as it was from the start. I imagine he was hoping for the return of Dunne, but was then let down from covering Dunnies loss when he was denied funds in January. However, its his job to learn from mistakes and tighten things up. Its just not happened, and that falls squarely with the coaches and manager.

The demise of our team has been happening for the past 4 years. The two main culprits are Lerner and his sidekick faulkner(whom i still dont know what he does). Everything that has happened has started with them.

[VillanousOne]

It is difficult to work out whether the need to sell and bring the wages down hurt the club more than the signings made and the tactics played and not all are without considerable merit.

Everyone can see what Lambert is trying to do and the glimmers of hope for the future, but you can't build a castle on a swamp.

The horrid truth is tactically he has learnt nothing, we are still getting our arse handed to us when we play a team even half decent, all we have managed to do is through a excruciatingly painful process of trial and error - compete with the teams in the lower half. He is the first manager at this club I have ever seen who does nothing to change tactics when playing the top teams and that level of dillusional arrogance troubles me, ok vs Liverpool we had a good but lucky result but you'd think he'd crave a nil nil draw considering our goal difference and perilous league position. It feels like he thinks he is the manager of Roy of the Rovers or some fictional team in a film.

I love Villa and I love this club but part of me feels that even if we stay up next season - Lerner won't back Lambert enough to bring in the experience we are crying out for and we will continue to struggle. It doesn't feel like we have any ambition anymore, Lerner just wants this Utopian and idyllic football model where we buy incredibly cheap foreign and lower league players and turn those players into bravehearts.............. who knows it might work, but i don't know if we will be in the Premiership to see it happen.

I hope i am wrong, i am just pretty jaded from being the laughing stock amongst all my friends for a third season.

[Big_John_10]

Lowton and Vlaar have played in the same defence 23 times and in those games we've conceded 40 goals. So an average of around 1.7 goals a game.

Lowton, Vlaar and Bennett have played in the same defence 13 times letting in 21 goals, so an average of around 1.6 goals a game.

When you also consider that our goalkeeper is the only keeper in the league to make over 200 saves and is a contender for our player of the year it shows how much of the blame the manager must take for such an awful season.

I also find it amazing that 2 of our defenders are considered successful signings when you look at how many goals we concede with them on the pitch.

[Condimentalist]

Vlaar has certianly been average. I'm not sure that he's actually been worse than Collins but he hasn't been a lot better. Lowton has been more good than bad but is far from the finished article. 

 

We definitely need to sign a quality centre half in the summer, whether it's to play alongside Vlaar, Baker or Clark. Lowton I'm quite happy with at right back and look forward to seeing him grow as a player over the coming years. 

[PaulC]

Collins has had a pretty good season for West Ham hasn't he?

[KHV]

Vlaar has certianly been average. I'm not sure that he's actually been worse than Collins but he hasn't been a lot better. Lowton has been more good than bad but is far from the finished article. 

 

We definitely need to sign a quality centre half in the summer, whether it's to play alongside Vlaar, Baker or Clark. Lowton I'm quite happy with at right back and look forward to seeing him grow as a player over the coming years.

Vlaar is fairly crap. Not as good as Collins, Im amazed he has been capped by holland. they must be desperate for centre halves.

[il_serpente]

 

They're not excuses. They're reasons. It's context. It's people trying to have a discussion about something rather than just declaring everything awful all the time.

it's people trying to find explanations for performances that might not revolve purely around the manager's incompetence.

 

It might surprise you, but not everyone blames every last thing on Paul Lambert. Dismissing their reasons behind this as excuses is doing exactly what you yourself have complained about in the past. It's dismissing others' opinions because they differ from your own.

No-one that i have seen has blamed everything on the manager

 

 

 

Seriously?   Have you read any of BJ10's posts at all?   They're hard to miss because he comes onto every.single.thread and  turns it into the same attack of Lambert and repeats it every time someone else suggests that it's not all his fault.   Thread about a player?   He's terrible, and it's Lambert's fault for buying and/or playing him and making him part of the worst defense in Villa history.   Trying to rebuild the team on the cheap?  Lambert should have kept the "experienced" players 90% of us agreed last year needed to go and spent the money on just 1 or 2 more expensive players.  A couple of the low budget signings have struggled?  Should have been prescient and known what we now know with the benefit of a season's hindsight and signed the players that have turned out to be the best value in the league (regardless of knowing whether he tried or whether they would even have come here).

 

Honestly, I've been very disappointed with a lot of things about Lambert, probably because of false high hopes after assuming that McLeish was a bigger part of the problem last year than he really was, but I'm almost driven to defend (er, make excuses for) Lambert after reading the relentless posts of a few people that seem to imply that he's the only thing that's kept Villa out of the top 4 this season and tossing out the same arguments over and over at  those with any sense of moderation and accusing them of just making excuses.

 

It gets a bit tiresome...

[ciggiesnbeer]

Collins has had a pretty good season for West Ham hasn't he?

 

Yes. He also had a great pre season with us.

 

Lambert must have shipped him out because of attitude because he was playing just fine.

 

Lambert doesnt mess about. He knew he wanted rid of half the squad and has a zero tolerance for attitude or lack of commitment. I respect that in him. I still think he did too much too quickly though, would it really have hurt to keep some of our experienced players and not piss em off or ship em out?

 

Anyway whats done is done, we just have to hope for the best now. Scary as hell though.

[Stevo985]

 

They're not excuses. They're reasons. It's context. It's people trying to have a discussion about something rather than just declaring everything awful all the time.

it's people trying to find explanations for performances that might not revolve purely around the manager's incompetence.

 

It might surprise you, but not everyone blames every last thing on Paul Lambert. Dismissing their reasons behind this as excuses is doing exactly what you yourself have complained about in the past. It's dismissing others' opinions because they differ from your own.

No-one that i have seen has blamed everything on the manager in the same way that no-one has blamed everything on the chairman.

 

Its relative.

 

The choice of manager and how he attributes funding to the club is down to the chairman and he has been rightly criticised by BJ10 and others for that.

 

The remit of the manager is to bring in the right coaching staff, prepare tactics, purchase players to fit those tactics and to win games. Lambert has again been rightly criticised by me, BJ10 and other posters due to the team's performance and results this season.

 

The mistakes have been elementary and juvenile and should not be expected of either a Premiership chairman or manager.

 

BJ10 and i and indeed other posters have criticised the current defence and midfield which contain the majority of Lambert's purchases. They have been simply awful. Both the results and performances prove that and Bennet was targeted last night and will be again due to being identified as a weakness as has our defending at set plays because Vlaar isn't a dominant CB who takes responsibility. Our midfield was already weak and really hasn't been improved upon as a collective with the purchases of KEA, Sylla and Westwood.

 

The only area which hasn't been targeted by BJ10 is our forwards. He has continually complemented Lambert on the purchase of Benteke, a player who has proven me wrong and has been Lambert's best signing.

 

Any supporter should have an allegiance to their own team but they also shouldn't be adversed to their respective team being criticised even by their own fan base when it is blatantly obvious that criticism is justified.

 

This is where BJ10 and i and several other posters are coming from. Its not that we see everything black and white. We just don't let that allegiance turn into excuses .  

 

None of this disagrees with anything I've said.

 

I merely said that meeting a difference to your opinion with "those are just excuses" is dismissing others' points of view because they differ from your own, which again, is exactly what BJ10, especially, has been complaining about (over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over)

 

So it's a bit hypocritical.

 

Not once have I said you should be happy with everything Lambert does or that you have no right to be negative. What I have a problem with is the labelling of anything positive, or anything that attempts to justify bad performances or take some sort of flak away from Lambert, as an excuse.

Edited April 24, 2013 by Stevo985

[ozvillafan]

 

Collins has had a pretty good season for West Ham hasn't he?

 

Yes. He also had a great pre season with us.

 

Lambert must have shipped him out because of attitude because he was playing just fine.

 

Lambert doesnt mess about. He knew he wanted rid of half the squad and has a zero tolerance for attitude or lack of commitment. I respect that in him. I still think he did too much too quickly though, would it really have hurt to keep some of our experienced players and not piss em off or ship em out?

 

Anyway whats done is done, we just have to hope for the best now. Scary as hell though.

 

 

Gradual change is all fine and good, I'm just not too sure how well that works when you are talking about a change in culture. Seems to me you kinda have to pull the rug out from under people or the culture doesn't really change.

 

I can respect Lambert for that......

 

... though if it comes at the price of leaving the Premiership then it's a very steep price to pay.

[ciggiesnbeer]

 

 

Collins has had a pretty good season for West Ham hasn't he?

 

Yes. He also had a great pre season with us.

 

Lambert must have shipped him out because of attitude because he was playing just fine.

 

Lambert doesnt mess about. He knew he wanted rid of half the squad and has a zero tolerance for attitude or lack of commitment. I respect that in him. I still think he did too much too quickly though, would it really have hurt to keep some of our experienced players and not piss em off or ship em out?

 

Anyway whats done is done, we just have to hope for the best now. Scary as hell though.

 

 

Gradual change is all fine and good, I'm just not too sure how well that works when you are talking about a change in culture. Seems to me you kinda have to pull the rug out from under people or the culture doesn't really change.

 

I can respect Lambert for that......

 

... though if it comes at the price of leaving the Premiership then it's a very steep price to pay.

 

Yeah. I dunno, I go back and forth between blaming him and being proud at just how insanely attacking he is. I mean he setup with 4 attackers playing ManU away..... nobody can say he never goes for it thats for sure!