Now, it may just be me and indeed I have been accused of being a dreamer or maybe more realistically, a total idiot, but I’ve noticed a massive amount of online support for Lambert occurring lately.
You won’t see it on here, as we have no-one fighting Lambert’s corner.
If there was someone, we’d go out of our way to put the argument up, as that’s what we’re about.
But there isn’t.
So now go and have a look around at other Villa sites.
Not that we want you to, but we know you do anyway.
And you’ll see that there seems very strong support for Lambert from certain quarters.
Support that seems out of proportion. Support that keeps spinning the same line of “who will we get in?”
I don’t really want to name sites, but look at one and see how Fear gets pretty much blasted in reply to one of his articles.
There’s another one, on an American based site.
The replies are all pretty much the same, in that while they slate Lambert, they pretty much consistently say that we should stick with him.
Any polls they run though, say they are totally wrong, with votes being 2-1 in favour of getting rid of Lambert.
I don’t know. I might be totally wrong and I do love a conspiracy theory, but it seems to me there’s a concerted effort going on to try and save Lambert’s neck.
Have a look around and tell me what you think.
Andrew, you make a novel and telling point about the loan system. Many of the players to make it (Cahill seems to have been overlooked in the list) to the first team did not go out on loan. I had not noticed this before.
I can see several reasons for loaning players out.
1/ to overcome stage fright: this is a real problem for a lot of men, the atmosphere at reserves or youth level is no preparation for being in a first team game. Even in Div 1 with a crowd of 6-10K. [I experienced this myself, though I had played football in front of 5000, I had only played darts in front of a pub crowd until playing in a darts finals with 1000 spectators, commentator, raised Oche etc. The intensity is unnerving.]
2/ Maturity: getting to see how much less cushy it is in div 2 might toughen up and wise up some lads who are still a bit juvenile.
3/ As a sort of hot limbo, when you want proper match sharpness in a reserve because you think a first team player is going to jump ship.
I wouldn’t say the academy is a drain on resources.
It probably makes a small profit, or even a decent one, if you weigh up the players that get into the side and do ok.
OK being the operative word though.
As some of you have said, none of them push on and go up in class, maybe Cahill apart.
Whatever the reasons for this, for me the academy simply isn’t that good.
And yes, it probably needs a overhaul.
Possibly because of the complacency that I just feel runs through the club from top to bottom.
Reasons for saying that? I don’t know, but it just seems like there’s no-one kicking arse.
Maybe that’s what Fox is here for.
A bit extreme London lion, lets say a problem is identified .. you are saying it can be complexity remedied in … a season? 2 .. 30 games? .. our biggest problem of the last 2 seasons was our piss poor defence. we lost a lot of high score games in that first season
its significantly improved in fairness. And you cannot discard the starting point he had. oh my god the clueless hoof ball Mcleish was instigating … had me so mad when watching games!
now our problem is creativity … with our resources and the uber competitive premier league, I am not so sure anything but an already top calibre manager with resources could get a team like Villa back to say competing for Europe.
I acknowledge Lamberts failings so far, but to be fair, I think he should have possibly finished 2-4 places higher at most the last 2 seasons. This is his third.
People say he is stubborn and I know many are wondering about grealish game time. but I still see experimentation, be it in roles or tempo or tactics from Lambert.
Its not really working but he is trying and to be fair a lot of managers would be playing it safer.
I don’t know .. we are in a Rut boys, its going to take something special to get out of it, I would think a major buy out or we find a wham like turn around in our fortunes.
Gabby on 50k a week…. Loyalty plan or what?
The academy is one of the most important parts of the club. We cant compete financially with the big guns at present, so we need players coming through even if they end up being sold on.
Right now we have Clark, Baker, Grealish, Gabby and Weimann all in the match day squads.
But also think about the money made on the likes of Craig Gardner, Ridgewell, Albrighton and as much as it pains me, Cahill.
We havent produced players to the same standard of the likes of Southampton in recent years, but the principle is still there. Not only that, but academy players have more loyalty to the club (if treated correctly).
Any one sticking up for lambert must hate villa his the worst manager in our history
Only a child or a madman beleives in absolutes villa 1996. I beleive there is no better alternative to lambert right now and it’s not impossible for the team to improve in a west ham like way.
Also worst manager in 140 years you say? I can only assume you are familiar with every manager villa has ever had and the failures and successes of each one to make such a bold statement if you wanted to be taken at face value.
Or is it safe to say this is just a bit of a rant coming from a perfectly understandable frustration as a villa fan of recent times
Yes, Josef Venglos sets the bar fairly low when assessing Villa’s worst Manager.
I accept that bringing in players is always a gamble, they may nor produce for you what they did for their previous clubs. Torres being the most spectacular flop at Chelsea compared with his stellar form for the Scousers. In the case of Richardson though I cannot see what Lambert was thinking, Richardson is just as bad as he has been for some years. I fear that we are expecting a miracle or a piece of coaching genius, neither of which is likely, if we buy Sinclair. The fact that Citeh still owe us money seems to be the motivation.
Lambert though is not the best I could expect. He happened on the Clark Okore pairing as the last two standing, if either Vlaar or Senderos were fit they would have been in. Likewise his failure to drop Agbonlahor when Benteke returned occupying the same space shows he can’t learn from the evidence in front of him. If his team talks are anything like his interviews, the overseas players must wait till he has left the room and ask Hutton to translate to English.
The performances on the field are as boring as Lambert is. The excitement comes from hoping the defence can keep a clean sheet to garner some points, not from anything at the other end. Much more of this and relegation will start to look attractive.