I agree that Lambert is looking a lot more capable manager than Hurst. As San Diego says, I don’t feel quite as pessimistic before matches than I used to under Hurst. The decision to fire Hurst was correct, he was evidently in over his head and struggled to implement any type of playing philosophy and, ultimately, only managed one win in 15 games, which is just indefensible. Having said that, and despite the signs of improvement under Lambert, we have to be beating teams struggling with us and we haven’t done that over the past few fixtures (regardless of who’s in charge). I cannot see us winning the required amount of games to survive this season, and I fear relegation is a very likely scenario this season. Hopefully of course we survive, and obviously it’s not a done thing as we’ve still got plenty of games left to play, but I’m not optimistic.
Pretty much my feelings exactly. We’ve led in the last 2 games and come away with 2 points. We are in a situation (nothing to do with lambert) where only wins are going to save us. Is the squad good enough to win 3 games in a row? (Which I believe at some point we are going to need to do)
Gents, the kind of form we need to hit the 50 point mark is Top 10 form at this point. If we don't pick up wins in a few weeks it would have to be play off form. By the January window it would be auto promotion form. Every week that goes by means we need to get those points in fewer games later in the season and it gets an awful lot tougher.
This is the point, it's not an emotional thing. IF we could win the next three on the trot we could still find ourselves bottom, and it's not a top side that's having to hit that kind of form, it's one low on confidence and adapting to another new way of doing things.
We will see. It's not a great start and his record coming into the role from Villa, Blackburn, Wolves and Stoke was abysmal.
I thought he did okay at Villa, managed to consistently keep them up and got them playing good football, and did well stabilising Blackburn back when they were a basket case. Didn’t do well at Wolves and Stoke though. He managed to keep Villa in the Premier League and avoided relegation with Blackburn, but was unable to prevent Stoke from slipping into the Championship. I see Lambert as a fairly capable Championship manager, who has had success in this division, and was arguably the best out-of-work, experienced option that we had. He currently has a better start than Hurst had for his first two games.
That is clutching at straws a bit. Villa should have been challenging for Euro places not being kept up. Anyway, it's all academic now. We need a miracle and we probably need a change of ownership more than anything.
Okay change of plans and back. May do a report tonight yet. In summary- first half, SUPERB. Outstanding. Second half- Jesus wept. Jackson was absolutely appalling. Fair draw, should have killed it first half but ended up hanging on. Last 25 the players were absolutely dead on their feet - which is not good!! Side note - second half, I don’t know why, on their corners and freekicks we didn’t have an outball- a man on half way...that was a factor in the minute leading up to their goal.
I noticed the lack of leaving a man up the field late on as well, Westy. Players were tired second half and just couldn't keep up the press that had us playing well earlier.
Other thoughts from the game - * ' Pace ' back 4 - embarrassing. Milk turns quicker. * Chalobah - crikey moses. * What the hell happened second half. Not fit enough.
Butcher was critical of Hurst's training methods and focus on fitness. So I have no idea what to believe anymore. Maybe they had a lot of nervous energy and intensity first half and ran out of legs. Individual performances not such a concern while everyone is finding their feet, probably would prefer Donacien to Spence and Dozzell to Chalobah but on balance the XI in the side and the players on the bench are pretty much interchangeable. Jackson continues to offer nothing whatsoever but they must be seeing something in training to be keeping him involved.
They just looked dead on 60 - have the international break now. Maybe Huws / Bishop back - or maybe I should sniff less glue. May help Dozzell too with fitness this / Lambert with training methods. We've certainly a chance under Lambert of staying up as opposed to the previous clown when we'd have guaranteed to been rock bottom. Thank god we have a manager at last.
Well really the chance has gone because we are in a much worse position to the last international break, so taking a gamble has not paid off - but that's hindsight and all that matters now is us somehow finding a way to progress and what is going to happen to the club in the future.
I'm inclined to think it's more likely that God and Father Christmas are real than Huws turning out for us. Maybe there will be a miracle this season after all.