This chap is bit angry re PL........

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TOPIC: Paul Lambert: A study in impatience

Paul lambert has really f**ked it up hasn't he? At norwich he dragged them up two and a half divisions in three seasons. He had transformed norwich from a club on the verge of bankruptcy on the verge of bottom tier of english football, and deposited them in midtable in the premiership. he had been a transformative manager for norwich and could basically do no wrong

Norwich were a mixture of experienced lower level players and some fairly shrewd signings picked up along the way. They had struggled at times in the premiership, but there were three telling factors in their first premiership season.

The first was that they scored a lot of goals. 52 goals is a lot of goals. It was the seventh highest total last season. Only the top six scored more.

The second was that they conceded a hell of a lot. 66 is an awful lot of goals to concede. only the bottom four conceded more.

The third was that they were able to finish midtable by being competitive. they only took two real pastings, a 5-1 and and 6-1, against man city, which accounted for nearly all of their negative goal difference. and a couple of 3-0's. But 28 of their games were either draws or were decided by a single goal either way.

It was very clear that while the first season was an outrageous success, fueled by infectious but essentially uncontrolled performances.

I remember thinking and saying at the time that lambert was a little bit crazy to leave norwich because firstly he had a seriously sweet thing going there. He had the worshipful adoration of the fans of the board. he was familiar with the players at his disposal. He had money to choose to add to his squad, (hughton was given 10 million to tweak the squad, lambert would probably have been given more) and was under no pressure to clear out any squad. If things didn't go particularly well, he'd have another opportunity to fix it the following season.

essentially he had to show that he could retain norwich's attacking impetus, while shaving 20 goals off the goals conceded total, and show that they could add a little more control to their game.

Given the narrow, knife edge nature of so many of their games, he needed to show that he could keep winning the narrow matches, while gouging out extra points by shaving off the extra goals conceded.

and ultimately there was going to be no better place for him to do this than norwich.

Instead he went to villa where he was given more money to spend, under tighter restrictions while also told to cut the wagebill. He didn't have familiarity with the players he had to work with, or any sort or relationship with them. He didn't really have the same sort of experience, running through the team, and quite frankly the villa team he was taking over was a total mess.

and now we're seeing the consequences. you still get some of the exciting norwich flashes, with villa storming into leads, but unlike norwich they don't have the cop on, or the competitive nous to hang onto leads. And that is on the good day when they get leads. Usually they go behind and skip straight to the defeat. the crushing humiliating defeat or the spirit sapping draw from a simple winning position.

was it really necessary to jump at the first half decent job that came his way? did he have to drink from the first poisoned chalice he could find? Should he have stayed somewhere safe, and stable to carry on learning his trade, before moving on and causing what may be ireperable damage to his career?

basically what the f**k did he think he was doing? let someone else take the hit of helping villa bottom out while he honed his craft before jumping into the club that destroys managerial careers. (also see brendan rodgers)

Posted By: DrDublin, Jan 24, 15:45:40