romavillan Posted December 31, 2014 VT Supporter Share Posted December 31, 2014 I think a lot of that TV money was used to cover what we used to lose each year, with about £20m wiggle room to spare. If you add the money he made available to buy Cleverley it's about £15m he gave Lambert. I find it very hard to see Lerner using any of his own money any more so you're going to have to look to the manager to have £15-20m a year to spend each season (not window). I think I'd fancy Lambert to do better with that money than a lot of managers out there from what I've seen over the past few seasons. That's about the size of it, lets be totally simplistic about it for a moment. Let's say we have a settled squad that can avoid relegation without too much trouble but is never going to worry the top half much. From there, if you started buying 2 £8m rated 20 year olds a season, and one of them worked and one of them was a flop, it would still take you a long time to build a squad capable of pushing on in the league and getting us up into the european spots again. If you coudl guarantee progress, and no-one can, you'd think at that sort of pace it would take 10 years to do. Even judiciously using freebies and academy players to replace older players on the way out of the original squad etc. No fan in the modern game has that kind of patience and the project would be very difficult to see through. Personally I don't think it's impossible and it appears to be our only option. Ideally, we want to be in a position where our owner doesn't need to dip into his own pocket and we can compete for the top 6. Realistically, that's an absolutely monumental task. Exactly, more of a 10 year plan than a five year plan from where we currently are though, and even then it would mean getting things right year after year to progress. Nt many teams have done it over that sort of period of time. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lexicon Posted December 31, 2014 Share Posted December 31, 2014 Everton and Spurs are the only teams that come to mind. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sexbelowsound Posted December 31, 2014 Share Posted December 31, 2014 Without spending a decent amount of money, we won't improve from being a bottom half Premier League team. Without a promise of spending decent money, we won't attract a manager who is capable of doing significantly more than Paul Lambert is currently doing. Ah the old no one could do better defence again. When you think how poor it's been that's just really weak. Wonder if palace fans last year thought no one could do better or birmingham city fans under lee clark. For as many examples of teams who have turned it around under a new manager i'm sure there are plenty of examples where it has backfired. Just off the top of my head Felix Magath and Alan Shearer for example. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DCJonah Posted December 31, 2014 Share Posted December 31, 2014 Yeah of course there are. You can't say a guarantee either way. I don't think you can say things will 100% be better but at the same time i think its ridiculous to suggest they can't be either. What we have seen is that we have a decent squad with some very good players. I'd like to see what new ideas and a new approach could do for them. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
foreveryoung Posted December 31, 2014 Share Posted December 31, 2014 (edited) Lambert has proved in nearly 3 seasons he is average manager. We have a midtable squad now and he is still struggling his pants off to improve our results. Speaks volumes to me! Edited December 31, 2014 by foreveryoung Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bobzy Posted December 31, 2014 Share Posted December 31, 2014 I don't defend Lambert for everything he does. If you read my posts, you'd see that. Instead, you flow with hate and want to label people into separate camps - whatever, that's your prerogative. You're being deliberately awkward r.e: no-one can do better as well. Hell, a couple of pages ago you said "that's how I see it too" when responding to my point that someone new could come in but I'm not convinced anything would change. Could someone do better than Lambert? Yes. Could someone do significantly better than Lambert? No. Lee Clark at Birmingham was failing, going backwards, they'd slipped into the relegation zone and were heading down. A change of approach was needed there. Are we going backwards? No. Are we in the relegation zone? No. You're right in your last line - the top clubs in football definitely completely disagree with me. They spend **** all yet keep winning. It's bizarre! If only Man City, Chelsea, Real Madrid, Barcelona and Bayern Munich knew what it was like to really struggle. Must be heartbreaking for them that they can't outspend every other club in European football and, therefore, are unable to win trophies. Oh wait a minute... 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sexbelowsound Posted December 31, 2014 Share Posted December 31, 2014 Yeah of course there are. You can't say a guarantee either way. I don't think you can say things will 100% be better but at the same time i think its ridiculous to suggest they can't be either. What we have seen is that we have a decent squad with some very good players. I'd like to see what new ideas and a new approach could do for them. I'm not sure anyone is saying things can't get better though are they? I think what people are doing is acknowledging Randy's past record when it comes to picking managers and applying it to the search for Lambert's potential successor. I'm sure we'd all love to see an expansive, forward thing coach come in from the continent or even lower leagues but what we'd end up with is Tony Pulis. If football is about merely surviving, and lets be honest ours has become like that, then why not stick with the current manager who has proven he can do that rather than switching it up knowing full well the new guy won't be backed and will probably be just as flawed, if not more so, than Lambert is. Lambert knows the players and even though the improvements are slight, they are there. Do you honestly trust Randolph and his new yes-man to pick a better manager? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sharkyvilla Posted December 31, 2014 Share Posted December 31, 2014 I think a lot of that TV money was used to cover what we used to lose each year, with about £20m wiggle room to spare. If you add the money he made available to buy Cleverley it's about £15m he gave Lambert. I find it very hard to see Lerner using any of his own money any more so you're going to have to look to the manager to have £15-20m a year to spend each season (not window). I think I'd fancy Lambert to do better with that money than a lot of managers out there from what I've seen over the past few seasons. That's about the size of it, lets be totally simplistic about it for a moment. Let's say we have a settled squad that can avoid relegation without too much trouble but is never going to worry the top half much. From there, if you started buying 2 £8m rated 20 year olds a season, and one of them worked and one of them was a flop, it would still take you a long time to build a squad capable of pushing on in the league and getting us up into the european spots again. If you coudl guarantee progress, and no-one can, you'd think at that sort of pace it would take 10 years to do. Even judiciously using freebies and academy players to replace older players on the way out of the original squad etc. No fan in the modern game has that kind of patience and the project would be very difficult to see through. Personally I don't think it's impossible and it appears to be our only option. . Exactly, it can work but it will be relatively slow and there's little appetite from fans to wait that long. What you need is someone who brings in players but increases their value. Guzan, brought in for free, now worth £8-10m? Benteke, worth £25-30m, brought in for £8m Westwood, brought in for £1m, now the going rate for a regular CM in Premier League £7-8m Sanchez, brought in for £4-5m, probably worth £8m though that will decrease because of age but priceless to us Vlaar, £3.5m, worth the same or more than that even now with only 6 months left Bacuna, brought in for £1m, now worth double Okore, £2.5m, potentially one of the best centre halves in the league, value could turn out to be anything Cissokho, £1.5m, worth at least £4m Senderos, free transfer, turned out to be fantastic bit of business Players who failed like El Ahmadi and Bowery pretty much wiped their faces. Tonev, Lowton, Luna, Bennett, Helenius all relatively low cost fails, the jury is out on Kozak. Cleverley would be a bit of a waste, but would probably hold his value if we bought him. I'd say Lambert has added £30-40m in value to the squad, not counting the youth players he has inherited who may have improved. Considering he's had a relatively small kitty each year and nobody to sell to bring in extra cash, it's no wonder Lerner has liked the job he has done after losing so much money through poor transfer activity over previous years. It's the only reason I think we will eventually get there with Lambert if Lerner doesn't find a seller and why I'd be surprised if someone came in and could do better. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
smetrov Posted December 31, 2014 Share Posted December 31, 2014 I think Lambert has assembled a reasonable squad with the players he has available. However the way the players are organised and the recent switch to this tepid style of play undoes the good work done assembling a capable squad. I 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bobzy Posted December 31, 2014 Share Posted December 31, 2014 Are we progressing.....No! Any other chairman would not see his tenure here as success and he would have been sacked long ago. I agree, we're not progressing in particular - but I think a lot of this comes down to the lack of funding. Again, a different manager could do better, yes. Significantly better though? No. You posted a bit earlier saying we now have "a mid table squad". Firstly, based on what? Secondly, if we're 13th... aren't we mid table?! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DCJonah Posted December 31, 2014 Share Posted December 31, 2014 I don't defend Lambert for everything he does. If you read my posts, you'd see that. Instead, you flow with hate and want to label people into separate camps - whatever, that's your prerogative. Nothing to do with hate, bit of a petty comment. You seem to defend everything he does and find a reason as to why nothing that happens is his fault. Likewise that's your choice if you feel that way. It's not labelling people into camps, but it's quite clear there are a few who are defending what's happening by arguing it's not his fault. You're being deliberately awkward r.e: no-one can do better as well. Hell, a couple of pages ago you said "that's how I see it too" when responding to my point that someone new could come in but I'm not convinced anything would change. Could someone do better than Lambert? Yes. Could someone do significantly better than Lambert? No. Well then that's different to what was said on the other page. I don't think it's a guarantee we'd be much better off but I think there's a decent chance we would be when i look at the players we now have. Lee Clark at Birmingham was failing, going backwards, they'd slipped into the relegation zone and were heading down. A change of approach was needed there. Are we going backwards? No. Are we in the relegation zone? No. Are we going backwards, well we went from 42 points to 38 points, was that not backwards? Lee Clark was averaging very similar results to lambert, the major difference was their club, run much worse than ours, demanded better. You're right in your last line - the top clubs in football definitely completely disagree with me. They spend **** all yet keep winning. It's bizarre! If only Man City, Chelsea, Real Madrid, Barcelona and Bayern Munich knew what it was like to really struggle. Must be heartbreaking for them that they can't outspend every other club in European football and, therefore, are unable to win trophies. Oh wait a minute... And what do all these top clubs do? They go for the best managers they can possibly get. Why bother when they could hire an average manager and spend lots of money still winning everything? Why would they not do that if money matters more than the manager? Why didn't man u stick with Moyes? Why didn't we stick with mcleish? Why did Chelsea bring back Mourinho? Makes no sense if spending money is the thing that matters the most. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stevo985 Posted December 31, 2014 VT Supporter Share Posted December 31, 2014 Our squad seems to be a midtable squad when we're talking about Lambert's maagerial ability, but an awful squad when we're talking about his transfer acumen. 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DCJonah Posted December 31, 2014 Share Posted December 31, 2014 Are we progressing.....No! Any other chairman would not see his tenure here as success and he would have been sacked long ago. I agree, we're not progressing in particular - but I think a lot of this comes down to the lack of funding. Again, a different manager could do better, yes. Significantly better though? No. You posted a bit earlier saying we now have "a mid table squad". Firstly, based on what? Secondly, if we're 13th... aren't we mid table?! Is our current squad better than the one he had during his first year? I'm sure even you can't disagree with that. So no progress at all is not down to lack of funds. We have a better squad yet are performing at the same level. Without spending a decent amount of money, we won't improve from being a bottom half Premier League team. Without a promise of spending decent money, we won't attract a manager who is capable of doing significantly more than Paul Lambert is currently doing. Ah the old no one could do better defence again. When you think how poor it's been that's just really weak. Wonder if palace fans last year thought no one could do better or birmingham city fans under lee clark. For as many examples of teams who have turned it around under a new manager i'm sure there are plenty of examples where it has backfired. Just off the top of my head Felix Magath and Alan Shearer for example. Yeah of course there are. You can't say a guarantee either way. I don't think you can say things will 100% be better but at the same time i think its ridiculous to suggest they can't be either. What we have seen is that we have a decent squad with some very good players. I'd like to see what new ideas and a new approach could do for them. I'm not sure anyone is saying things can't get better though are they? I think what people are doing is acknowledging Randy's past record when it comes to picking managers and applying it to the search for Lambert's potential successor. I'm sure we'd all love to see an expansive, forward thing coach come in from the continent or even lower leagues but what we'd end up with is Tony Pulis. If football is about merely surviving, and lets be honest ours has become like that, then why not stick with the current manager who has proven he can do that rather than switching it up knowing full well the new guy won't be backed and will probably be just as flawed, if not more so, than Lambert is. Lambert knows the players and even though the improvements are slight, they are there. Do you honestly trust Randolph and his new yes-man to pick a better manager? Then why didn't we just stick with mcleish? He survived. Why wasn't anyone arguing for him to stay as manager if that's all we expect now? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bobzy Posted December 31, 2014 Share Posted December 31, 2014 (edited) And what do all these top clubs do? They go for the best managers they can possibly get. Why bother when they could hire an average manager and spend lots of money still winning everything? Why would they not do that if money matters more than the manager? Why didn't man u stick with Moyes? Why didn't we stick with mcleish? Why did Chelsea bring back Mourinho? Makes no sense if spending money is the thing that matters the most. Why would they not go for the best managers? I don't even understand what point you're making here. As I've said before, managers matter but money matters more. If you have the money to afford the best playing squad possible, why would you also not invest in a great manager? It makes no sense. Managers aren't stupid either - the top ones know that they simply can't afford to move to poorer clubs as it would damage their reputation (and also pay less handsomely). They're not magicians, they need money to be successful. You bring up Moyes, this is an interesting example. Man Utd had an aging squad (Ferguson left at the right time; fair play for winning the title of course) that desperately needed an overhaul. They looked to Moyes and didn't give him the backing needed initially. They (he) panic bought Fellaini on transfer deadline day from what I remember and then overpaid on another panic buy (Juan Mata) at the end of the January transfer window. Not enough investment, they finished 7th. They now look to Van Gaal, give him £170m to spend and look on course to break back into the top 4 - nowhere near winning the title still though. Fully expect them to splash out again in January and the summer to push on (improve, y'know?). Money is more important than having a great manager. You might disagree - I'd say you're wrong. Edited December 31, 2014 by bobzy 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
macandally Posted December 31, 2014 Share Posted December 31, 2014 I think Lambert has assembled a reasonable squad with the players he has available. However the way the players are organised and the recent switch to this tepid style of play undoes the good work done assembling a capable squad. I I am struggling to get my head around this "tepid" approach? People complained about the direct football being played, I recall the "Guzan to Benteke" ball being our main pass in stats. We are now playing possession based football and went to the liberty and outplayed Swansea, with more possession. We were doing the same against the baggies and Sunderland until the sendings off and we still created chances. If I was being pedantic, we probably need to introduce an extra yard of pace into our passing to really hurt teams, but personally I am pleased that we have reverted back to being a "football" team and believe that if we can stick a couple past Palace or Blackpool we could really push on. With regards to style of play, it is a typical "lose - lose" situation on here. Lambert is damned if he doesn't and damned if he does. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bobzy Posted December 31, 2014 Share Posted December 31, 2014 Then why didn't we just stick with mcleish? He survived. Why wasn't anyone arguing for him to stay as manager if that's all we expect now? I'd have given McLeish at least another season (you can't expect change in 1 year) but he was an ex-Bluenose manager. He was never going to stay. There were protests before he even joined for **** sake. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
foreveryoung Posted December 31, 2014 Share Posted December 31, 2014 Are we progressing.....No! Any other chairman would not see his tenure here as success and he would have been sacked long ago. I agree, we're not progressing in particular - but I think a lot of this comes down to the lack of funding. Again, a different manager could do better, yes. Significantly better though? No. You posted a bit earlier saying we now have "a mid table squad". Firstly, based on what? Secondly, if we're 13th... aren't we mid table?! There's is no proof a new manager could not do 'significantly' better. Its a huge risk yeah but no proof at all. I base we are a midtable team on the squad we have. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bobzy Posted December 31, 2014 Share Posted December 31, 2014 Is our current squad better than the one he had during his first year? I'm sure even you can't disagree with that. So no progress at all is not down to lack of funds. We have a better squad yet are performing at the same level. Just noticed this too. Would you agree or disagree that other clubs in the Premier League have improved? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pacbuddies Posted December 31, 2014 Share Posted December 31, 2014 I think the game against Palace could be a defining moment for Lambert. If we win, those that are pro Lambert may rejoice and those that are anti Lambert may just be grateful that we scored and won a game. If we draw, those that are pro Lambert may say it's a good point and those that are anti Lambert may be rather annoyed. If we lose, those that are pro Lambert may have to flip rapidly through the book of excuses and those that are anti Lambert may be absolutely livid. All in all each to their own opinion and may 2015 be a lot better than 2014. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bobzy Posted December 31, 2014 Share Posted December 31, 2014 Are we progressing.....No! Any other chairman would not see his tenure here as success and he would have been sacked long ago. I agree, we're not progressing in particular - but I think a lot of this comes down to the lack of funding. Again, a different manager could do better, yes. Significantly better though? No. You posted a bit earlier saying we now have "a mid table squad". Firstly, based on what? Secondly, if we're 13th... aren't we mid table?! There's is no proof a new manager could not do 'significantly' better. Its a huge risk yeah but no proof at all. I base we are a midtable team on the squad we have. So we have a mid table team and are in mid table - but it would be a huge risk to change manager. Where's the basis for sacking him?! Mental. I think the game against Palace could be a defining moment for Lambert. If we win, those that are pro Lambert may rejoice and those that are anti Lambert may just be grateful that we scored and won a game. If we draw, those that are pro Lambert may say it's a good point and those that are anti Lambert may be rather annoyed. If we lose, those that are pro Lambert may have to flip rapidly through the book of excuses and those that are anti Lambert may be absolutely livid. All in all each to their own opinion and may 2015 be a lot better than 2014. Yes please May 2015 be the year of Aston Villa goals. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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