Manager Paul Lambert

[smetrov]

Yep 'mjmooney' i also stated this last season and put forward the guy in my avatar as one possible.

 

However with Jores Okore signed and hopefully a replacement for Bennet on the way we should be tighter defensively come the start of the new season although i would still like to see a better defensive coach coming in as well.

 

 

Does this ever happen.......anywhere ?

 

To me if a manager can't organise \ coach a defence, then he shouldn't be managing at this Level. - Thats not just Lambert thats any manager in the prem. Lambert has his own choice of coaches anyway - so effectivley he has the option of selecting such a coach . No its down to manager to assemble a defence, and recruit staff capable of organsing it , or do it himself. The whole remit of the playing staff is the responsibilty of the manager - I don't see that he can opt out of the defence bit.

 

I guess what were are saying is- we have a manager who has a lot of good qualities, ie spots decent players, gets respect from said players, get us playing some nice football - the problem is , to date, he hasn't been good at producing a watertight defence - so couldn't we keep all the good bits of Lambo - and get someone else to do the bits he struggles with ? - It would be nice - but the managers lot is to take resonsibilty for the playing side - so tyhe buck stops with him.

 

Hopefully though, he's a young manager, with only 2 seasons prem experience - lets he hope he gets better in the defensive area and Okore turns out to be as good as he is on that video.

[BOF]

I think we may have to accept he doesnt give a toss about defence.

We just signed one of the hottest young prospects at centre back; and a player who has played right back for Groningen. I accept that Lambert is certainly more attack minded than defence minded but 'not giving a toss' is something I disagree with.

[Ghost_of_Pongo_Waring]

 

I think we may have to accept he doesnt give a toss about defence.

We just signed one of the hottest young prospects at centre back; and a player who has played right back for Groningen. I accept that Lambert is certainly more attack minded than defence minded but 'not giving a toss' is something I disagree with.

 

 

Spot on BOF.

 

It's also worth considering that this is, I believe, the first time Lambert has spent two seasons with the same club in the same division. It's understandable that the defence he built at Norwich in League one, for example, wouldn't be the strongest during the following season in the Championship, and again the following season in the Prem.

 

If we continually struggle defensively then it'd be fair to doubt his management in this area but he deserves a bit of leeway at the moment, in my opinion.

[BOF]

That's true too Pongo regarding even being in the same division with a squad. I hadn't considered that and it's quite an important point.

[smetrov]

 

 

I think we may have to accept he doesnt give a toss about defence.

We just signed one of the hottest young prospects at centre back; and a player who has played right back for Groningen. I accept that Lambert is certainly more attack minded than defence minded but 'not giving a toss' is something I disagree with.

 

 

Spot on BOF.

 

It's also worth considering that this is, I believe, the first time Lambert has spent two seasons with the same club in the same division. It's understandable that the defence he built at Norwich in League one, for example, wouldn't be the strongest during the following season in the Championship, and again the following season in the Prem.

 

If we continually struggle defensively then it'd be fair to doubt his management in this area but he deserves a bit of leeway at the moment, in my opinion.

 

 

I disagree - a manager should know what is required, get the requirements , then organize said players into a defensive unit. Its not a 2 season job to organize a defence. Granted I don't expect it to be watertight, but one that can't hold a lead longer than around 15 minutes is unacceptable. 

[Mantis]

To be our fair our defence has been poor for years. Dreadful under Houllier and poor under McLeish. The only reason we didn't ship loads of goals under McLeish is because he always set out for 0-0 draws. Add in injuries, inexperience playing together, the loss of Petrov and a manager who prefers attack to defence then it's not surprising our defence was so poor last season.

Edited June 14, 2013 by Mantis

[MagicMushroom]

To be our fair our defence has been poor for years. Dreadful under Houllier and poor under McLeish. The only reason we didn't ship loads of goals under McLeish is because he always set out for 0-0 draws. Add in injuries, inexperience playing together, the loss of Petrov and a manager who prefers attack to defence then it's not surprising our defence was so poor last season.

 

 

 

And its something the manager was aware of, since he wanted to remedy it during January but did not have the funding to do so. Its not his fault that money was not forthcoming or the reasoning behind that, but im sure he will be adding to Okore in the next month or so.

[Rovers13]

Michael Appleton would be a good shout as a defensive coach. Total shit as a manager but Rovers went something like nine hours from open play without conceding during his tenure. Also won at Arsenal. 

 

Edit: So long as you'd be fine with a former baggy

Edited June 15, 2013 by Rovers13

[KHV]

To be our fair our defence has been poor for years. Dreadful under Houllier and poor under McLeish. The only reason we didn't ship loads of goals under McLeish is because he always set out for 0-0 draws. Add in injuries, inexperience playing together, the loss of Petrov and a manager who prefers attack to defence then it's not surprising our defence was so poor last season.

True, but last season was a new low for defending. I think Lambert misjudged Clarks ability. I also think Bennett was a shocker of a buy.

The back line has to be a unit, last year our back four made too many errors and at times was all over the place. I expect it will be better next year, It has to be otherwise the season ahead will be a repeat. We have replaced Clark and if we replace Bennett we will be 15 goals better off already.

[markavfc40]

I'd imagine Lamberts intention last season was to have Dunne and Vlaar as his first choice central defensive pairing and then to introduce both Clark and Baker over time phasing out Dunne as the season went on. Dunne got injured in pre season and he decided to take a chance on going with one of the young lads alongside Vlaar from the get go. Vlaar then gets injured and we found ourselves for a fair number of games with one of the most inexperienced back lines I can ever remember us having.

 

In all fairness what happened last season is in the past now. The big thing now is have Lambert and the players learned from it. I believe in terms of the players Lowton, Baker, Clark and Bennett will all be better players for the experience gained last season. I also see Vlaar as being better with a Prem season under his belt. Throw into that the signing of Okore then for me I am already confident we will be stronger defensively next season and I still expect one more defender to come in.

 

Lambert made mistakes last season there is little doubting that. He is however like many of the players still very inexperienced at this level. Like many of the players though I believe he will be better this season due to the experience gained in the last one and that can only be a good thing for us.

Edited June 16, 2013 by markavfc40

[LondonLax]

I don't think Dunne was ever in his plans and would have been told to find a new club if fit, like the other high earners. 

 

He has signed Okore instead of an experienced Dunne replacement. I think he always intended to risk it with only one senior CB last season and will gamble on that again this season.   

[TrentVilla]

I'd imagine Lamberts intention last season was to have Dunne and Vlaar as his first choice central defensive pairing and then to introduce both Clark and Baker over time phasing out Dunne as the season went on. Dunne got injured in pre season and he decided to take a chance on going with one of the young lads alongside Vlaar from the get go. Vlaar then gets injured and we found ourselves for a fair number of games with one of the most inexperienced back lines I can ever remember us having.

 

In all fairness what happened last season is in the past now. The big thing now is have Lambert and the players learned from it. I believe in terms of the players Lowton, Baker, Clark and Bennett will all be better players for the experience gained last season. I also see Vlaar as being better with a Prem season under his belt. Throw into that the signing of Okore then for me I am already confident we will be stronger defensively next season and I still expect one more defender to come in.

 

Lambert made mistakes last season there is little doubting that. He is however like many of the players still very inexperienced at this level. Like many of the players though I believe he will be better this season due to the experience gained in the last one and that can only be a good thing for us.

 

I agree with you almost entirely, the only caveat being that when Dunne became injured I don't believe it was a case of Lambert 'deciding' to go with Clark and Baker as I don't think he had any choice. I don't believe he had the money either for the fee or the wages to do anything different at that stage.

[Morpheus]

Just wondering what sort of budget Lambert has this window? Does he have enough to get his first choice targets or is he restricted again in what he can do?

Edited June 16, 2013 by Morpheus

[ciggiesnbeer]

Just wondering what sort of budget Lambert has this window? Does he have enough to get his first choice targets or is he restricted again in what he can do?

 

Good question but for whatever reasons it seems to be rather healthy.  Maybe he got given most of the new TV money to spend?

 

Dunno.

[Papillon]

 

 

For me the jury is still out on Lamber, whilst I do like him he still is far from the finished piece. That defence will need suring up, also i would like to see goals coming from other areas of the pitch, especially midfielders chipping in. He has so far signed the right players to make these changes so i am looking forward to the new season. UTV!

Livingston, Wycombe, Colchester and Norwich all had bollocks defenses when Lambert was in charge. I dont think we will be any different in the long run. I dont think he knows how to organise one.

I think it is more that he plays an attacking style that leaves the defence exposed. Not so much that he can't organise them.

 

 

I am not so sure I agree on us playing  an attacking style. Sure we turned out to be a typical counter attacking team in the last part of the season, but our attacking momentum has been really poor all season in established play and we seldom attack with many people from our central midfield. Not saying we are defensive or anything like that either, but a very "normal" team given our squad and position in the table. I guess it's hard to be an attacking team when the other team has the ball more than us almost every game I do hope we can manage to to tie things up next season though, because attacking confidence comes from defensive control. 

[Jimzk5]

Said it in another thread, the problem with our defence was the amount of goals conceded through our mistakes, it seemed every time one of our team made even a minor balls up, the ball ended up in our net. We rarely made teams work to beat us, man city at home an obvious example, nailed on 0-0 draw the way both teams were playing, then clark decides to give them the goal, norwich away, Bennett wrestling a player for 5 minutes to give away a pen, Newcastle away, Holman failing to close down Ben arfa. Every time we made a mistake, we paid the price.

[P3te]

Just wondering what sort of budget Lambert has this window? Does he have enough to get his first choice targets or is he restricted again in what he can do?

Well if we finalize Helenius and Luna as it looks like we will, we'll have signed 5 players for somewhere in the region of £10m - Lambert spent £23m last summer, and you'd have to think he'll be given that much again. So it could be that he has a few pricier players in mind, but wanted to first bulk up the squad, then sell some players to increase his budget again, then see what he can do maybe for one or two £7-10m players

[P3te]

Said it in another thread, the problem with our defence was the amount of goals conceded through our mistakes, it seemed every time one of our team made even a minor balls up, the ball ended up in our net. We rarely made teams work to beat us, man city at home an obvious example, nailed on 0-0 draw the way both teams were playing, then clark decides to give them the goal, norwich away, Bennett wrestling a player for 5 minutes to give away a pen, Newcastle away, Holman failing to close down Ben arfa. Every time we made a mistake, we paid the price.

Yeah, that's highly unlikely to happen again tbh. If we made the same amount of mistakes this season as we did last, it'd be unlikely we'd lose so many points because of it

[dont_do_it_doug.]

Just wondering what sort of budget Lambert has this window? Does he have enough to get his first choice targets or is he restricted again in what he can do?

Well if we finalize Helenius and Luna as it looks like we will, we'll have signed 5 players for somewhere in the region of £10m - Lambert spent £23m last summer, and you'd have to think he'll be given that much again. So it could be that he has a few pricier players in mind, but wanted to first bulk up the squad, then sell some players to increase his budget again, then see what he can do maybe for one or two £7-10m players

Not a given. I'll not be surprised if another £5m signing, a cheap second choice keeper and we're done, regardless of what else comes in via sales.

[Condimentalist]

 

 

Just wondering what sort of budget Lambert has this window? Does he have enough to get his first choice targets or is he restricted again in what he can do?

Well if we finalize Helenius and Luna as it looks like we will, we'll have signed 5 players for somewhere in the region of £10m - Lambert spent £23m last summer, and you'd have to think he'll be given that much again. So it could be that he has a few pricier players in mind, but wanted to first bulk up the squad, then sell some players to increase his budget again, then see what he can do maybe for one or two £7-10m players

Not a given. I'll not be surprised if another £5m signing, a cheap second choice keeper and we're done, regardless of what else comes in via sales.

 

 

I disagree. We know that Lambert and his team have an eye for a player and clearly have a good knowledge of what's going on across European football. If we do manage to shift most of the high earners I think he'd struggle to resist a little foray if the right player became available.