StanBalaban Posted December 15, 2013 Share Posted December 15, 2013 It could be worse. We could be Tottenham. Was about the post the same!!!!! Not a good day for the Villas Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sne Posted December 15, 2013 Share Posted December 15, 2013 Villas-Boas will be available come tomorrow, a quick phonecall to Levy offering them Benteke for Villas-Boas, Sigurdsson and £10-15m? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pacbuddies Posted December 15, 2013 Share Posted December 15, 2013 Okore is 21 years old and over a year younger than Baker and 3 years younger than Clark so how anyone can class him as an experienced centre back is beyond me. Stop making excuses for Lambert by saying that he is without his 2 best centre backs! 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
VillanousOne Posted December 15, 2013 Share Posted December 15, 2013 Another tripe performance at home. I am struggling to recall the last time I left a game thinking we had played well. We now have the worst record in all 4 divisions for goals scored at home with just 6. I am sure some will blame the absence of Vlaar for todays result but lets not kid ourselves we have been dire for a while. It is also plainly obvious that Clark and Baker, depsite never giving less than 100%, are not good enough at this level. With that in mind then for me it was a major f up not signing two new centre backs over the summer especially as Vlaar is known for being injury prone. I am not sure where we are heading to be honest. Points wise we are better off than we were last season which I'm grateful for but performances compared to the last third of last season have gone backwards. For the most part we are awful to watch. Massive four games coming up for us and Lambert in particular. Stoke, Palace, Swansea and Sunderland. We need to take at least 7 points from those. If we were to fail to beat Palace and Swansea at home then I can see sections of the crowd turning on Lambert. I think we played well vs Arsenal and Chelsea and then the occasional 45 mins such as against West Brom or Cardiff. The rest of the time we have been dire. Even when we beat Man City and Southampton we were dog dirt. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
theboyangel Posted December 15, 2013 Share Posted December 15, 2013 So who are his best 2 centre backs?? (Certainly not the ones on display today) Okore (albeit in another country) has plenty of appearances and has Champs League/International experience too. Not bad for a lad of 21. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
smetrov Posted December 15, 2013 Share Posted December 15, 2013 For some reason we seem to have less available revenue than nearly all the other clubs in the division. Thats despite attendances that dwarf some clubs and 20 years of premiership revenue. That said we almost got relegated last season - when we were forced to play a load of rookies in defence. Lambert should have taken steps to ensure that didn't happen again. He didn't he choose to buy Tonev and Helenuis - Now we have the Vlaar injury - and apart from Luna todays defence was the one that laboured so badly during Vlaars injury. The glut of goals against since we lost Vlaar should really come as little surprise. To start one season with only 1 experienced CB - was foolhardy - to then be caught out by the same injury to the same player the following season in somewhat unforgivable IMO. But he didn't start the season with 1 experienced CB did he? He had Vlaar and Okore - and before you say that we haven't seen enough of Okore to make a judgement, he's a champions league player so plenty experienced. Then Ciaran Clark is in his 4th premier league season. Herd, Baker and Lowton as back up if needed too. Okore is 20 years old. Granted he looks a talent - but as results have shown you need an experienced man (men) in the middle. Clark - has generally struggled in each of his seasons. And was only a first regular last season (depends if you count, playing but out of your depth as experience) - no matter - We looked short stocked at Centre Defence ...and so it has proved... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
StanBalaban Posted December 15, 2013 Share Posted December 15, 2013 Okore is 21 years old and over a year younger than Baker and 3 years younger than Clark so how anyone can class him as an experienced centre back is beyond me. Stop making excuses for Lambert by saying that he is without his 2 best centre backs! I wasn't making that point. I was responding to a comment that he started the season with only 1 experienced centre back. You've agreed in part by saying Clark is experienced, so therefore if Okore, a champions league performer, is not classed as experienced then Clark must be. Ergo, at least 2 experienced CB's. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pacbuddies Posted December 15, 2013 Share Posted December 15, 2013 So who are his best 2 centre backs?? (Certainly not the ones on display today) Okore (albeit in another country) has plenty of appearances and has Champs League/International experience too. Not bad for a lad of 21. The term 'clutching at straws' comes to mind! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
StanBalaban Posted December 15, 2013 Share Posted December 15, 2013 For some reason we seem to have less available revenue than nearly all the other clubs in the division. Thats despite attendances that dwarf some clubs and 20 years of premiership revenue. That said we almost got relegated last season - when we were forced to play a load of rookies in defence. Lambert should have taken steps to ensure that didn't happen again. He didn't he choose to buy Tonev and Helenuis - Now we have the Vlaar injury - and apart from Luna todays defence was the one that laboured so badly during Vlaars injury. The glut of goals against since we lost Vlaar should really come as little surprise. To start one season with only 1 experienced CB - was foolhardy - to then be caught out by the same injury to the same player the following season in somewhat unforgivable IMO. But he didn't start the season with 1 experienced CB did he? He had Vlaar and Okore - and before you say that we haven't seen enough of Okore to make a judgement, he's a champions league player so plenty experienced. Then Ciaran Clark is in his 4th premier league season. Herd, Baker and Lowton as back up if needed too. Okore is 20 years old. Granted he looks a talent - but as results have shown you need an experienced man (men) in the middle. Clark - has generally struggled in each of his seasons. And was only a first regular last season (depends if you count, playing but out of your depth as experience) - no matter - We looked short stocked at Centre Defence ...and so it has proved... Clark has done well this season, so maybe - just maybe - the man who sees him train on a regular basis had seen that he had upped his game after a tough learning curve. Okore is young, but he's managed to cram in the champions league into those years. Age mean nothing. Phil Jones - who cost more than our starting XI today - is the same age as Okore. Is he inexperienced too? Just because we haven't seen Okore play much doesn't mean he hasn't played. So who are his best 2 centre backs?? (Certainly not the ones on display today) Okore (albeit in another country) has plenty of appearances and has Champs League/International experience too. Not bad for a lad of 21. The term 'clutching at straws' comes to mind! Yes, I agree that you are. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
theboyangel Posted December 15, 2013 Share Posted December 15, 2013 So who are his best 2 centre backs?? (Certainly not the ones on display today) Okore (albeit in another country) has plenty of appearances and has Champs League/International experience too. Not bad for a lad of 21. The term 'clutching at straws' comes to mind! It was nothing more than a question of who are his best defenders - nothing more than that and not a comment on PL good or otherwise. What is the answer? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
markavfc40 Posted December 15, 2013 Share Posted December 15, 2013 (edited) So who are his best 2 centre backs?? (Certainly not the ones on display today) Its about having a squad though isn't it and having players who can come in and at least hold their own at this level. I don't blame Lambert for our lack of in depth quality either. I firmly place the blame for that at Lerners door. Get our best 11 on to the pitch each week and I'd have us finishing comfortably mid table. We get 3 or 4 injuries especially to key players and we will be relegation fodder once again. For an established Premiership club our squad is poor. Edited December 15, 2013 by markavfc40 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sne Posted December 15, 2013 Share Posted December 15, 2013 From the post match intervue we were supposed to build our gameplan arund Chris Herd, when he had to pull out from injury it ll fell apart... "We had to change the whole structure" Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
theboyangel Posted December 15, 2013 Share Posted December 15, 2013 So who are his best 2 centre backs?? (Certainly not the ones on display today) Its about having a squad though isn't and having players who can come in and at least hold their own at this level. I don't blame Lambert for our lack of in depth quality either. I firmly place the blame for that at Lerners door. Get our best 11 on to the pitch each week and I'd have us finishing comfortably mid table. We get 3 or 4 injuries especially to key players and we will be relegation fodder once again. For an established Premiership club our squad is poor. I agree with this! PL fielded possibly his strongest line-up today and they just weren't good enough (bar the first 15mins!) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
smetrov Posted December 15, 2013 Share Posted December 15, 2013 Okore is 21 years old and over a year younger than Baker and 3 years younger than Clark so how anyone can class him as an experienced centre back is beyond me. Stop making excuses for Lambert by saying that he is without his 2 best centre backs! I wasn't making that point. I was responding to a comment that he started the season with only 1 experienced centre back. You've agreed in part by saying Clark is experienced, so therefore if Okore, a champions league performer, is not classed as experienced then Clark must be. Ergo, at least 2 experienced CB's. All right then you've won the point He did have 2 experienced CB'S at the season start. However it was highly predictable that a Vlaar Injury would hurt us badly - it was also highly probably that Vlaar would miss some games this season. Lambert should have covered that in August. ......and its not hindsight plenty on here were saying it back then. For second season running weve been left short at CB position. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
StanBalaban Posted December 15, 2013 Share Posted December 15, 2013 So who are his best 2 centre backs?? (Certainly not the ones on display today) Its about having a squad though isn't it and having players who can come in and at least hold their own at this level. I don't blame Lambert for our lack of in depth quality either. I firmly place the blame for that at Lerners door. Get our best 11 on to the pitch each week and I'd have us finishing comfortably mid table. We get 3 or 4 injuries especially to key players and we will be relegation fodder once again. For an established Premiership club our squad is poor. I agree and this is why I feel the manager is in a no win situation. The standard of the squad is bottom 4 fodder I reckon, yet we're midtable by playing some ugly football. I don't see many other options for PL to be fair. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kwan Posted December 15, 2013 Share Posted December 15, 2013 How many teams not in the top six or eight have more than four good CB's though? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pacbuddies Posted December 15, 2013 Share Posted December 15, 2013 For the most part Lambert fielded a team that he bought and he filled the bench with players that he bought. To deflect the blame elsewhere, even to the owner who is about as much use as a chocolate teapot, is to accept that Lambert is bulletproof and no matter what dross we play he will be supported to the hilt and get off without any criticism. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
theboyangel Posted December 15, 2013 Share Posted December 15, 2013 How many teams not in the top six or eight have more than four good CB's though? I agree - we're not in a financially strong enough position to have a 'full' squad of good players - so have the 2 players per position and hope that the 'good' players stay fit! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Isa Posted December 15, 2013 Share Posted December 15, 2013 (edited) From the post match intervue we were supposed to build our gameplan arund Chris Herd, when he had to pull out from injury it ll fell apart... "We had to change the whole structure" My point about his reluctance to give the academy players a chance rings true then. He could've played Donacien in a back three couldn't he? Instead changed the entire 'structure' because a guy who isn't even a natural CB gets injured... Edited December 15, 2013 by Isa Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Big_John_10 Posted December 15, 2013 Share Posted December 15, 2013 For the most part Lambert fielded a team that he bought and he filled the bench with players that he bought. To deflect the blame elsewhere, even to the owner who is about as much use as a chocolate teapot, is to accept that Lambert is bulletproof and no matter what dross we play he will be supported to the hilt and get off without any criticism. He's not bullet proof but any manager working under Lerner at the moment is going to make mistakes due to restrictions. A different manager would just make different mistakes but it would still be similar results wise. We're going nowhere till the owner changes the plan for the club. 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts