Manager Paul Lambert

[Big_John_10]

Heres an idea, support another team mate.

I do hate it when people post stuff like this. The whole basis of this site is that people support Villa, otherwise, they would be wasting their time posting here.

However irritating or bonkers you find their ideas, everyone is expressing their views as a fan, so comments like this are quite out of place and offensive.

Offensive in what way? Every post of his is a pop at Lambert but he half heartedly backs him but he hasn't got the backbone to actually come out and say he wants him gone which I'd actually give him more credit for.

This a site where the only thing that unites all posters is the fact that they support Aston Villa. If you can't see how telling someone to support another club when they disagree with you is inappropriate and offensive, I'm not sure I can help any further.

But if you demand top notch football & top 6 finishes every year (& by the way you & your ilk continually moan, only this seems acceptable to you) then Aston Villa is clearly not the team for you.

Genuine Villa fans know that the above has been the rarity, not the norm & as you never provide benchmarks to justify your moans, you are either naive or are moaning for moanings sake.

I think someone skipped the posts with actual facts. Oh well. You keep cheering bottom half finishes and survival.

Nobody is cheering & the thread is full of facts & stats from both sides of the argument(most of them pointless)

Anybody with half a brain ought to be able to work out that you can't sell all your best players, slash your wage bill & give your manager a shoestring budget & still expect top half finishes.

I agree.

I'm 100% against the owner on this one.

Edited October 29, 2013 by Big_John_10

[Big_John_10]

On Kozak, I have been very disappointed so far. Doesn't have the strength, aerial ability or power I expected for someone bought to potentially replace Benteke long term.

However, lets not forget Lambert scouts players thoroughly before signing then by all accounts so he must have seen performances and attributes that convinced him that Kozak could be effective at this level or he wouldn't have risked 7m on him which is a hell of a lot of money for a club only spending 10-20m a year currently.

Yes but remember that this is the man who brought the likes of Bennett, Lowton, KEA, Westwood, Bowery etc to the club. Players who, in my opinion, aren't fit to wear the claret and blue.

Benteke aside, there's not many successes for Lambert when it comes to signings.

Grouping Westwood and Lowton with Bennett, KEA and Bowery is grossly unfair as both were in our top 5/6 players last year. Yes they haven't started as well this year but that doesn't make them bad players. Shallow viewpoint.

Fickle fans with short memories it seems.

Does being a better player in a team that barely survives and failing to do it the following year make them good players though?

[StefanAVFC]

 

 

 

On Kozak, I have been very disappointed so far. Doesn't have the strength, aerial ability or power I expected for someone bought to potentially replace Benteke long term.

However, lets not forget Lambert scouts players thoroughly before signing then by all accounts so he must have seen performances and attributes that convinced him that Kozak could be effective at this level or he wouldn't have risked 7m on him which is a hell of a lot of money for a club only spending 10-20m a year currently.

Yes but remember that this is the man who brought the likes of Bennett, Lowton, KEA, Westwood, Bowery etc to the club. Players who, in my opinion, aren't fit to wear the claret and blue.

Benteke aside, there's not many successes for Lambert when it comes to signings.

 

What absolute rubbish

The proof is in the pudding. Unless last season (and this so far) was just a bad dream of course

Our team is rubbish though, I'll give you that.

 

 

Explain to me how this season has been a bad dream. Clear statement that I'd like you to address. And don't sidestep the question with negative rhetoric that has nothing to do with your response.

[StefanAVFC]

4/5 of the top seven from last season. And with away games, we've played 6 of the top 7 in a nightmare start. Yet we're 1 point off 9th.

 

Anything else? Would you class this start to the season as a 'bad dream'? 

 

Arsenal 3-1 Villa

Chelsea 2-1 Villa

Villa 0-0 Liverpool

Villa 3-1 Newcastle

Norwich 0-1 Villa

Villa 1-2 City

Hull 2-3 Villa

Villa 0-2 Spurs

Villa 0-2 Everton

 

Because it's the exact set results we have achieved so far, just mixed around.

 

Ah, the old 'because I'm a bit younger my opinion is less valid' line. Superb.

Edited October 29, 2013 by StefanAVFC

[avfc1982]

We've played 9 league games this season, and for 7 of those games we've been nothing short of appalling. If this is the Aston Villa you want, well fair enough. Lerner and Lambert haven't sucked the last bit of ambition and pride out of me. Perhaps you, but most certainly not me.

Edited October 29, 2013 by avfc1982

[Isa]

We've played 9 league games.

[StefanAVFC]

And once again, you don't answer the question(s), you just spout buzzwords and entitled rhetoric.

[Morpheus]

Because there would be holes elsewhere in the squad? Kozak was a necessary purchase as we have no backup for Benteke. Tonev was a necessity, no two ways about it. We needed a wide player. That leaves us with Helenius, who cost around 1M. Guess you can say he was a bit of a luxury buy. Still not enough to get an AM I'd reckon.

Kozak wasn't a 'necessary purchase.' We had Bent and while Bent didn't fill the Benteke roll neither does Kozak so how was Kozak 'a necessary purchase?

 

I'm also not sure we needed a wide player either when our manager was playing Gabby and Weimann off Benteke. You could argue i suppose that if we'd kept Bent to utilise his attributes we would have needed a wide player but has Tonev shown anything better than players already at the club who could have fulfilled that role?

 

Helenius no doubt was a luxury we couldn't afford when the manager had already purchased Bowery but at least the manager has had enough confidence in Bowery to play him albeit not in his correct position.

 

For me it has been poor allocation of a limited budget when we could have improved the first team in positions conspicuous by their obvious weakness. 

[gwi1890]

I doubt Everton can pay 110k a week of Barry's wages, We'v done OK so far but when it comes to crunch we haven't got a cool head in the team  we either start 100 miles per hour and burn 2nd half or were panicky and look like were going to concede 10 goals in the 1st 10 mins  with a head with Barry in the team I'm sure that would change, his influence on the likes of Delph and Westwood would also  do the alot of good.

[smetrov]

As said it wasn't a slight on Kozak - I just feel the team would have benefited more from players in other positions. I really don't buy the cover for Benteke argument. Would a front line of Weiman, Helenuis, Gabby, be that much worse than a front line of Weiman, Kozak Gabby ?   

[HeyAnty]

Just give us a wee bit of flair. Even if its only 5 mins a game. We are starting to get really boring

[Morpheus]

 

 

 

 

 

The results are unforgivable - I am not going to give Lambert and easier time than I gave Houllier or Mcleish. - That said I do have hope that Lambert can progress and in future my build us a better villa team. I had no hope that either Houllier or Mcleish would do that.

 

I think Lambert just dropped a few clangers in last summers transfers - thats set him back 12 months (all IMO of Course)

 

I don't understand how you can write off a bunch of players so early. If I recall right you've been saying this since about September. Why can't players be given a season at least before being written off as "clangers"? Even a whole season can sometimes not be enough (e.g. El Ahmadi).

 

 

Youre right some players take longer to settle - what I am looking for is some spark \evidence that they have done it at there previous clubs - a lot of the players purchased were only mediocre in a lesser league. But with regards to 'clangers' I am talking more about about the positions he has leave unstrentghed or short - for me CB + AM - should have taken priority over Kozac and Tonev.  Thats not to judge those players directly - but I just feel there were bigger holes to be plugged.

 

 

Can't see why you think we'd need another centre back. He brought Okre and we unlucklily lost him, Clark has been one of the stand out players so far and Vlaar has been ever present since his calf strain which was a far while ago. Baker is also there and Lowton and Herd at a big push can play CB so you are essentially wasting a limited budget on a needless CB.

 

AM all day long, he just didn't have the funds.

 

Mmmm.

 

What if he hadn't purchased Kozak, Tonev and Helenius? That would have given him just over 7m to play with.

 

I have noted posters stating on a regular basis that Lambert is very good in the transfer market by not paying a lot for good players.

 

With 7m in his pocket and a culmination of the aforementioned player's wages why could he not have with the help of his scouting network signed an up and coming AM for 7m or less?

 

 

 

I think he looks at it in the long term. He doesn't have the money for his top targets at the moment, so looks for players to build a squad with, like the ones you have mentioned. I think Okre was his top target and he got him, also think Kozak was another but he didn't expect to have to throw him in as early as he needed to.

 

We could all probably agree that at the moment we have a half decent squad but it's missing those few gems on top of that. I hope that come Jan and the summer window he'll get to add further to the squad with the better quality the squad needs.

 

At present if we added a top AM, natural wide forward and amybe another midfielder then we start to look a decent outfit.

 

There's no doubt he does look 'at it in the long term' and that very nearly relegated us last season. I've nothing against blooding young players and indeed i would advocate such a policy but bringing so many into a team already low in confidence is a recipe for disaster.

 

Unless you have a crop of young players coming through of the same quality as Man U had during the Ferguson era you need a balance of youth and experience to create stability within your team. If you don't do that and concentrate solely on youth then you'll need all of those players to realise their potential immediately or you'll struggle and thats what happened last season and we're seeing signs of it this season again although its still too early to give a definitive judgement on that.

 

Concerning your second point no i can't agree 'at the moment we have a half decent squad.' There is a distinct dearth of quality and an imbalance within the squad in certain positions. With the exception of Benteke we lack flair and at the moment we are horrible to watch without even having the ability to change it from the bench.

 

While our chairman must take a larger slice of the blame in how we've performed over the last season or two some of that criticism must also be proportioned to Lambert for his choice of transfer policy and player which for all his bravery in doing so hasn't at this moment in time made any significant improvement to our position in the Premiership.

[gwi1890]

I seriously rate Bowery more than Kozak and Helenius, his game against stoke last year won me over, its a shame he gets so little opportunity he'd come on leaps and bound if he made about 20 appearances a season. 

[Big_John_10]

I seriously rate Bowery more than Kozak and Helenius, his game against stoke last year won me over, its a shame he gets so little opportunity he'd come on leaps and bound if he made about 20 appearances a season.

Jordan? Is that you?

[Morpheus]

It's ironic really because some of our most important players right now were written off by fans at some stage: Guzan, Delph and Benteke. Even I'll admit to thinking Delph wasn't going to make it this time last year.

Are you feeling alright Mantis? 

[Mantis]

 

Seems some people have a massively inflated sense of entitlement.

Christ, I see Lambert and Lerner have sucked the last bit of pride and ambition out of you.

Whatever happened to our pro-active support? So sad.

 

 

Ah that old chestnut "If you disagree with me you have no pride and ambition".

 

Get over yourself. Just because I'm not the type of fan that thinks "we are Aston Villa. These players are not fit to wear the great shirt because they come from lower leagues bla bla bla" doesn't mean I lack pride and ambition. I just happen to judge players based on ability and performances rather than where they come from or how much they cost.

 

 

It's ironic really because some of our most important players right now were written off by fans at some stage: Guzan, Delph and Benteke. Even I'll admit to thinking Delph wasn't going to make it this time last year.

Are you feeling alright Mantis? 

 

???

Edited October 29, 2013 by Mantis

[Rovers13]

Because there would be holes elsewhere in the squad? Kozak was a necessary purchase as we have no backup for Benteke. Tonev was a necessity, no two ways about it. We needed a wide player. That leaves us with Helenius, who cost around 1M. Guess you can say he was a bit of a luxury buy. Still not enough to get an AM I'd reckon.

Kozak wasn't a 'necessary purchase.' We had Bent and while Bent didn't fill the Benteke roll neither does Kozak so how was Kozak 'a necessary purchase?

I'm also not sure we needed a wide player either when our manager was playing Gabby and Weimann off Benteke. You could argue i suppose that if we'd kept Bent to utilise his attributes we would have needed a wide player but has Tonev shown anything better than players already at the club who could have fulfilled that role?

Helenius no doubt was a luxury we couldn't afford when the manager had already purchased Bowery but at least the manager has had enough confidence in Bowery to play him albeit not in his correct position.

For me it has been poor allocation of a limited budget when we could have improved the first team in positions conspicuous by their obvious weakness.

Keeping bent as a backup on his wages wasn't an option. I don't understand how this isn't yet understood

[darrenm]

Because there would be holes elsewhere in the squad? Kozak was a necessary purchase as we have no backup for Benteke. Tonev was a necessity, no two ways about it. We needed a wide player. That leaves us with Helenius, who cost around 1M. Guess you can say he was a bit of a luxury buy. Still not enough to get an AM I'd reckon.

Kozak wasn't a 'necessary purchase.' We had Bent and while Bent didn't fill the Benteke roll neither does Kozak so how was Kozak 'a necessary purchase?

I'm also not sure we needed a wide player either when our manager was playing Gabby and Weimann off Benteke. You could argue i suppose that if we'd kept Bent to utilise his attributes we would have needed a wide player but has Tonev shown anything better than players already at the club who could have fulfilled that role?

Helenius no doubt was a luxury we couldn't afford when the manager had already purchased Bowery but at least the manager has had enough confidence in Bowery to play him albeit not in his correct position.

For me it has been poor allocation of a limited budget when we could have improved the first team in positions conspicuous by their obvious weakness.

Keeping bent as a backup on his wages wasn't an option. I don't understand how this isn't yet understood

You read the opinions of some of the special cases on here and don't understand how they can't understand?

I only read this thread out of morbid curiosity now. Unfortunately the miscreants have won, they've forced out most of the reasonable people, there's only a couple left who will likely give up soon.

[Morpheus]

 

 

 

The season so far has been a mixed bag - some good perfromances and some poor ones. I was particularly disappointed by our performance against Newcastle and feel like Spurs and Everton were there for the taking if we had a little more confidence and cutting edge. We've been unlucky with injuries to Okore and Benteke which hasn't helped.

 

In terms of our style of play I would like to see us taking more possession and being more positive, especially at home

 

I'm still happy with Lambert and I still believe we are progressing and I think it's too early to judge progress this season, especially given our tough run of fixtures. We are four points better off than the same fixtures last season.

 

The next five games will be tell me a lot more - I'm looking for at least 7 points and hopefully more. It will also tell us a bit more about the new signings, some are finding their feet but some like Kozak have yet to make an impact - the next few games will be important for them

 

I am concerned that even if Lambert is wildly successful, 8th place is about the best we could contemplate given the level of investment available

 

 

Not a lot to disagree with there other than i do feel the quality of football we're playing at the moment is not representative of the final third of last season and certainly isn't any better but that could be due to any number of things and we'll be in a better place to judge come Christmas.

 

 

Hard one to judge.....we do not seem to be playing as well as last season, however we do look to be stronger and even in games where we have not shone we have been in the game throughout. Saturday was a prime example, on another day we could have been home and hosed by halftime. Playing in an attractive manner is not as important as playing in a way which wins points and so far we are 4 points better off than in the same fixtures last year

 

I understand the points about gaps in the team but my opinion is that for the money that we can afford (and particularly the wages we can pay) we wouldn't attract anything any better than we already have (Delph). Given time I could easily see Tonev and Bacuna becoming the AM we keep talking about. Zog may also fill that gap when he returns? Gary Gardner needs to make the step up soon too.

 

Kozak and Helenius have not yet shown why they were signed but hopefully they will grow and improve - certainly the first 9 fixtures which included last years 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th, 6th and 7th place teams can't be the ideal run of fixtures to ease yourself into the team

 

I'm glad Bent has gone and haven't seen anything from him at Fulham which makes me regret that decision

 

I think many came into this year with too high expectations - I will be happy with 10th-12th this year and top ten the year after that but without serious investment I can't see Lambert (or any other manager) getting us any higher

 

I'm hoping that after the next 5 games we will be sitting on 18 points - 8 points better than last year. That would represent real progress for me

 

 

 

 

Again all very fair points and not a lot to disagree with.

 

I would however give it a little more time to make a judgement on Bent as he wasn't match fit when going to Fulham on loan and he has to get used to the way in which Fulham play.

 

That being said if he doesn't improve then i'll have to eat even more humble pie on here and we'll have to take him back.

[Big_John_10]

Because there would be holes elsewhere in the squad? Kozak was a necessary purchase as we have no backup for Benteke. Tonev was a necessity, no two ways about it. We needed a wide player. That leaves us with Helenius, who cost around 1M. Guess you can say he was a bit of a luxury buy. Still not enough to get an AM I'd reckon.

Kozak wasn't a 'necessary purchase.' We had Bent and while Bent didn't fill the Benteke roll neither does Kozak so how was Kozak 'a necessary purchase?

I'm also not sure we needed a wide player either when our manager was playing Gabby and Weimann off Benteke. You could argue i suppose that if we'd kept Bent to utilise his attributes we would have needed a wide player but has Tonev shown anything better than players already at the club who could have fulfilled that role?

Helenius no doubt was a luxury we couldn't afford when the manager had already purchased Bowery but at least the manager has had enough confidence in Bowery to play him albeit not in his correct position.

For me it has been poor allocation of a limited budget when we could have improved the first team in positions conspicuous by their obvious weakness.

Keeping bent as a backup on his wages wasn't an option. I don't understand how this isn't yet understood

Now I actually have no real issue in getting rid of bent.

But if we had kept him would it have bankrupt the club? Would we have gone into administration? It might not have been the most sensible option but I don't see how it wasn't an option.

Edited October 29, 2013 by Big_John_10