Terry Jones offers us the following;
Now in my last offering, I compared the progress of Lambert & Rodgers.
Now let’s compare teams who apart from us have made any real progress apart from the newly promoted teams.
Well you only have to look at the table to see that teams like Swansea & Southampton have moved forward. Those clubs bought in only one or two players while Lambert bought six or seven.
So why do we seem to be so poor? Quite simple really.Lambert bought quantity over quality and to say we are not a one man team, it’s as plain as the nose on your face that we do not have anybody to fill Bentekes boots.
Another thing is his injury. I thought he was only going to be out for a few games and was going to be back to face spuds?
Well my question is this injury seems to be hanging on longer than we were led to believe or is it he does not want to play? or that Lambert won’t play him as not to affect his sell on value?
As some will say in Lambert’s defence, Rome was not built in a day. Well Lambert has had twelve months and yet progress is running at a snails pace. Even McAlpines fusiliers & Wimpeys marauders in that time could have built a motorway.
Now who is up next? Ah, Everton. Another three points lost and probably more steps backwards.
Your opinions please.
Vaze, I feel I should just make a small point.
I can’t speak for Oohah, but I suspect he thinks the same.
I don’t particularly care if people think the site is credible or not, because it’s all about views, whether we like them or not.
The fact is we get a lot more debate when somone comes out with a more extreme opinion, whichever side it comes from and to me that’s just healthy.
It’s also quite noticeable that the views are somewhat polarized and Terry does have at least some supporters of at least some of his views.
It could be worse, to my mind, where we’re all batting from the side and any dissent is frowned upon or even just plain and simply not allowed.
I feel the OS has that well and truly covered.
Agree Badger the whole idea of this site is that people can write what they think whether you me and other posters agree with it is irrelevant. As long as they are football related everyone is entitled to their say. We rarely police this site in comparison to other sites where they have to tow the corporate line or editors will ban you. As long as there is no racism or abuse etc then everyone is entitled to put their view forward. It would be a boring site if everyone one of us shared the same view football is all about opinions that’s whats so good about it.
Submitted an article lads, let me know if it flies or not, similar theme to start discussion really.
Mdn8, read it, liked it as it addresses all the concerns in one article.
It’ll be up tomorrow morning mate.
You are, you’re a 100% right Badger, but then 95% of the negative people on here don’t back up a single thing they type. That’s the problem. You get a fair few of the “Lambert apologists” as is loved to be claimed on here (despite few if any actually backing Lambert, but the players), back everything they type with actual examples and whatnot. Claiming “he’s shit, they’re shit, we’re all shit for shit shit” “He’s dross, they’re dross, garbage players, crap crap crap” makes you look like a complete idiot. Now if you actually made a real claim of why, then there would be more of a positive argument, then the name calling that there is on here.
thats the nail on the head for me ..
I didn’t really chime in on this one because i didn’t think it was a serious article.
i look at the disparaging comments about villa, the players, the coach the performances, owner the club basically. It makes me think about it and we should be able to question everything and point out potential mistakes
but this article is just a random shit stirring piece designed not so much to debate villa as to gain reaction and promote debate for the sake of the site more than anything particularly villa.
it reminds me of the 606 days a little. these kind of .. we are shit anyone who thinks otherwise is deluded .. or they are sheep etc without any solid argument behind it ..
its just name calling and usually devolves into petit rivalries.
I might be just ignorant of what it takes to run a site like this maybe you need to throw in pieces like this to keep it going between games or news
If that is the case who am i to say otherwise
Ok lambert is crap because he is tactically poor, most of his signings are poor, most of his substitutions are poor, he lacks charisma, he lacks nous, we only just escaped relegation and the biggest proof of all is he has given us more unwanted records than any living manager in the history of the club including mcleish. I rest my case
haha ooahh It would be premature to rest your case .. you have only just made a short opening statement and not endured any the opposite argument yet.
let me have a go first!
“Ok lambert is crap because he is tactically poor, most of his signings are poor,…”
We have beaten Arsenal and man city and have taken 10 points from an opening fixture list that included, arsenal, city, chelsea, liverpool, and spurs ..
if he was tactically poor then the players must have been good enough to win those games despite the tactics… if most of his signings were poor .. then the tactics must of been of been good to win in spite of the poor players …
it can’t be both. Teams with poor tactics and poor players don’t win games. unless you think you can turn out any 11 players against premiership opposition and expect them to win 3/8 games through luck ?
“Most of his substitutions are poor. ”
very subjective statement neither here nor there.
I remember at least one sub coming on to win a game this year already against Norwich
Substitutions are are 2 way streets. how are you deciding they were poor.
the most obvious way is to see the impact they have on the game versus the player they replaced. sometimes they replace better players and they always have less time to provide impact .. . ie fitness, form, or the quality of the direct positional competitor.
Subs are subs for a reason.
“he lacks charisma . he lack nous ..”
What in the feck does charisma have to do with it? I would hardly describe the most successful manager in the era of modern English football alex ferguson as .. “charismatic” ..
And that is leaving aside the subjective opinion that he lacks charisma…
i have seen interviews and end of year norwich parties that suggest otherwise.
he lacks nous –
well i don’t have a working nousometer to gauge that but lets take a general interpretation as you believe he lacks the niche and special know how or understanding of the game.
For a man who lacks the understanding of the game he has done awfully well to win a champions league medal as a player.
How does someone who lacks the intellect to process the modern game neutralise zinidan zidane in a champions league final exactly ?
how does he oversee a clubs promotion from league one to the premiership and stay there comfortably in the first season?
unwanted records ?
OUT!! is the only unwanted record that i want changed
He just avoided relegation?
in his first year … with a team who just avoided relegation the previous year?
what does that exactly prove?
What was an acceptable target for last year?
You may have loftier expectations than i and you may expect them to be achieved in a shorter term .. but that doesn’t make a manager crap..
But mcleish only just avoided relegation in his first year and did it more effectively than lamberk IMO.
The wins over arsenal and city mean nothing it just papers over the cracks as shown in spurs game. By all accounts arsenal could have been 3 up before we even crossed halfway line but yes that was a good win but we wouldn’t do that now. I take ur point v city but remember when they were 2.1 we were only half hr away from the worse start since 1946 lamberk would of been sacked if we had lost IMO as he very nearly gave us another unwanted recorded. It does not mean lambert is a good manager because we beat these teams lucky yes. Remember Cardiff beat city 3.0 more convincingly than we did and WBA beat utd away and saints drew. It means nothing. When wolves went down some years ago they beat champions utd at home. When we went down in 87 we drew 3.3 at home with Liverpool and utd. And Liverpool were good then. You are basing this season on 2 games v arse and city. Against Norwich lambert had no choice to bring Kozac on even we could have seen that. Yes he scored though made it look more difficult as he’s no left foot but has done sfa since
I still have to strongly disagree oohahh.
“..But mcleish only just avoided relegation in his first year and did it more effectively than lamberk IMO…”
I don’t understand that statement.
Are you saying that winning less games drawing a whopping 17 times while finishing with 5 points less and being literally mathematically closer to relegation is a more effective way to …avoid relegation ..?
Thats not even accounting for the the days of 6 defenders against spurs and making statements along the lines of they are too good to try and play to win against …?
I didn’t enjoy the spurs display the last day- we were toothless pretty much all game until we threw a few crosses into benteke when he came on. but … compare that to Mcleish’s 6 defenders we can’t win anyway approach?
puke..
if wins against arsenal and city are flukes …
and wins or draws against the top teams are indicative of a poor season, i am not sure what you want to see happen should all your dreams come true tomorrow?
imagine Lambert is sacked.. lerner sells to a sheik, an FSG or a russian oligarch
whoever the new continental big reputation manager that then gets hired …
He should know that beating top teams is not progress.
that any signing he makes that scores as substitute for an injured player has nothing to do with him.
I understand that the results so far do not mean we have finished in the top 4 already.
I understand that some of our games were poor this season, ie newcastle and the spurs game in particular.
But we are a team that try to win now. that plays to win.
We are a team that has significantly more points against significantly better teams than last year..
We are a team that scores more and that has conceded less comparatively speaking.
we are not world beaters
we are no where near European qualification
but under Lambert we have improved..
both in results ..and in approach ..
Is it simply that we haven’t improved enough for you? you think we should be higher up the table?
Didn’t we beat Chelsea away 3.1 under mcleish it means fuck all. Beating arsenal and city was great but all it’s done is paper over the cracks. We have had more unwanted records with lamberk than any other manager I care to remember. And fwiw how many defenders did lamberk have back defending against arsenal, Liverpool man city and spurs.
McLeish apologist
I find it amazing when people compare villa to Dortmund. Does anyone seriously think villa are a Dortmund in the making.
The midfield run around like small terriers , snapping at the oppositions heels but have no idea what to do with the ball when they win possession. Why lambert chose to spend 7 m on a striker when what was needed was an attacking or defensive midfielder is mind blowing. Particularly when we have Helenius, who hasn’t bend given a real run. Kozak, may have been the highest scorer in the Uefa league last year but this years highest score in the same league is Defoe. Truth is it’s an easy league to score in, so no real pedigree.
We may end up mid table, and this is an improvement. But we play low possession , hit and hope football and his doesn’t a Dortmund make.
Except Kozak scored 2 against Panathanaikos, 1 against Maribor, 2 against Monchengladbach, 3 against Stuttgart. Defoe’s scored against Anzhi who’s sold most of their first team to make a youth team, 2 against Tromsø, 2 against Dinamo Tbilisi. You can’t compare those 2 as Lazio played much, much harder teams.
Where as we are light years away from where Dortmund are as a club today .. i dont think its all that amazing to make some comparisons.
Dortmund ..
one time European cup winner that has since faced relegation in the face and had to cut the playing staff for financial reasons. sound familiar?
They also invest and emphasise on buying youth players or developing them and they have sold them on at huge profits.
There are of course massive differences as well.. but thats not the point. no two clubs are identical. but some do share a similarity or two.
Have you seen Dortmund play any time over the last year or so?
they don’t play a possession game .. they play a high tempo more direct style
counter attacking at times too ti could be said.
They have won a comparable number of titles and trophies but the main difference is they have done it more recently.
we are further and further from the halcyon days of the early 80’s
Another big difference is the support Dortmund has in Germany.
their stadium – Westfalenstadion or signal iduna stadion holds 80 thousand and at a glance on wikipedia they hold the highest average attendances in Europe.
although they don’t own this stadium outright anymore.
we can’t seem to fill a stadium half that size in a city with twice the population.
although they don’t have the inner city rival villa does. Their bitter and nearest rivals are schalke.
all in all .. there are similarities .. and couple that with Lamberts former association with the club and his affiliation with German football (appointment of Henke as European scout) and his contacts there.
Is it still so amazing to compare the two clubs approach to club football?
I think there could be a solid case for Lamberts influence on Aston villa meaning some of Dortmund practices or policies becoming part of Villa’s way of doing things.
We are just miles away from the end result and may never get there.
I think you’ll find the reason they fill their place to the rafters is cost, reduce ours and mirror the German model and I think you’d find attendances on the up at vp.
Watching Dortmund last night and comparing them to our shower of shite the only thing we have in common with them is that we both wear glow in the dark shirts. We will never be as good as them
Ah shit I posted a long considered answer and my poxy tablet froze and I’ve lost the lot.
Suffice to say, we are nothing like 606 and don’t pick and choose the posts we put up.
The fact is, we get very few positive submitted entries, simple.
We really don’t need to be deliberately positive or negative, as I can assure you we haven’t earned anything since we moved away from the Google ads or adsense, or whatever it was.
We lose money to run this site, because we love the club and it’s in our blood. Hence we like to talk about it.
We just don’t believe that everything is automatically all rosey.
And if people want to moan, they’ll be allowed.
That said, we’ll be happy to publish any positive posts, so send them in.
Fair point about options when it comes to moaning though.
The truth is with a tightarse like Lerner in 100% ownership of the club, it means there are none.
But does that mean we should meekly accept it?
Which is where I suspect the “sheep” comments stem from.
We’ve supposedly had a scout at the Hearts v Hamilton Scottish youth FA Cup and supposedly especially watching Dale Carrick but I guess a host of others.
We’ve also supposedly stepped up our interest in 16 year old Italian Left Back, Marco Cestagalli who plays for Milan’s Primavera side and hope to sign him to the academy.
Oh and Delph supposedly wants to end his career at Villa.