Lambert

[Jamwolf]

I'm starting to get the feeling that this guy knows what he's doing. He's certainly started to bring order to chaos, he seems to want to attack, and he's giving our better youngsters a run.

 

[Banjo]

I hadn't realised his track record of having high-scoring teams with leaky defences. I think I saw that his Colchester and Norwich teams were the highest scoring at Champ/League 1 level, but that his Norwich and Villa teams at Prem level conceded far more than most.

The hope has to be that he has identified the fact that our defence (which includes our central midfield imv) is simply too deficient to play gung-ho football without significant upgrades in personnel. Surely he must have noticed this! I do like his attacking instincts and seems to want good football being played.

I wish we'd have had him in from the start of the season tbh as this season was effectively over for us by the time he joined. I am still confident in him as manager, as uninspiring as the appointment seemed at the time.

 

[leedswolf]

I am still to be convinced.

 

[Siggy]

I think he has done well so far, I can start to see a pattern in how we play and we finally look to a degree balanced. The football is quite entertaining I think it will be even more so once we get a few decent players in. The fact he has blooded 2 youngsters in Ronan and Bright when we are under pressure is fantastic I couldn't have seen our Kenny doing that or Walter. He also seems to be getting best out of certain players, Price springs to mind who was nowhere near the 1st team not so long ago and now looks an integral part of Lambert's set up.

That said this is a big month transfers wise, some of the names we are being linked with are less than impressive but I will hold my tongue until I see players in a gold shirt.

Would have still preferred Rowett but I am hopeful this one will work out.

 

[jd1981]

He's done a decent job so far with what he's got to work with, very confident we won't go down with him in charge reality is he only needs 17 points from 22 games to survive.
In the long run that's not good enough and he'll prove more of his worth when he has more of his own players in the squad.
If he achieves a top half finish by the close of the season I'd say he's done a good job.

 

[Norman Deeley]

As above [Siggy's post] - I think there are clear signs of progress, and clearly he's not going to say exactly what he's thinking in interviews. So far, so good, but this next month will tell us a lot

 

[Langers]

After a shaky start and very strange team selections I'm pleased that we're picking up points. It must be very frustrating to have to rely on this defence whilst the forwards can't score for toffee so hopefully he can sort this during January. We'd have amassed far more if we weren't so bloody abject at both ends of the pitch.

Still has a lot to do to prove himself here but you can't polish a turd. It'll only be fair to properly judge him once he's been able to shape the squad to his liking. January probably isn't going to see that many new signings to enable him to do this.

He does tend to come out with a fair amount of BS in the media but I can easily ignore/overlook this TBH.

But there are gradual signs of improvement and I'm delighted to see the likes of Bright and Ronan get some game time. These factors mean he's certainly earned more time to prove himself.

 

[Dinowolf]

I think he has done well so far, I can start to see a pattern in how we play and we finally look to a degree balanced. The football is quite entertaining I think it will be even more so once we get a few decent players in. The fact he has blooded 2 youngsters in Ronan and Bright when we are under pressure is fantastic I couldn't have seen our Kenny doing that or Walter. He also seems to be getting best out of certain players, Price springs to mind who was nowhere near the 1st team not so long ago and now looks an integral part of Lambert's set up.

That said this is a big month transfers wise, some of the names we are being linked with are less than impressive but I will hold my tongue until I see players in a gold shirt.

+1

 

[Deleted Cyber]

6.5 out of 10 so far but that's fine as a foundation. Give him the window to mould the squad and we take it from there. For me 60 points or more means Lambert has succeeded and gets the summer to build for a top 6 campaign. Under 60 points and he gets binned

 

[AndyWolves]

A bit too early to get super excited yet but we're playing better football (for both halves!!) than we have done for a while.

Blooding the youngsters with consistent line-ups and the feeling there might be a plan are all encouraging.

Lets see if we can start getting some results

 

[TornadoTed]

I was happy when we got him and am still very happy with him. Like many have said I like that he is playing attacking football and also blooding our academy players.

I also really like that he seems to value technical players over grafters or so it appears having bought Price back into the fold and also gave Ronan his chance.

 

[Lord Knows]

What seems to be a key difference from his Villa days is his positivity. He seems like a fresh character once again not withdrawn with personal doubt. Taking the team and supporters forward with a refreshingly positive attitude. If he can hold that when the pressure gets more intense we could be on a long term winner.

 

[sycophantia]

Have to say I'm surprised and impressed, when he came I was expecting a few months of turgid football to try and get us back on an even keel but we're playing entertaining football while even managing to keep a few clean sheets.... Happy days

 

[Norman Deeley]

Have to agree with LK's comments: what also interested me was PL's remark yesterday that it takes a whole season to get a team playing the way you want. In that case, so far so good. And hopefully yesterday will have gone a long way to cementing Wolves in PL's heart

 

[Deutsch Wolf]

This is Lambo's last chance in all likelihood at a club of this size - ie if he failed again, he'd probably end up on a similar trajectory to Tony Mowbray (without being a big nosed gonk who talks more shite than Brendan Rodgers) - so he needs to make it work here. I don't expect him to be attracting the interest of any other clubs any time soon and I think he realises that this is a better project than you'll get elsewhere.

 

[Kenny]

I was ready for the start of his time in charge to be all about stopping the goals, especially the first 15 minute issue we had under Walter but he seemed to go to far with it early doors and his selections were baffling and didn't really achieve what he wanted. Once he got that and decided to use the proper attacking threat he had in Costa and Ivan he turned a corner. We will still get the shite games, such as Cardiff away and the games where you have no idea how we lost, such as QPR at home. If he is spending the rest of the season keeping us an attacking unit and blooding any of the youth he thinks are ready then a mid table finish is fine by me.

He then has a pre-season to put a proper Promotion team together.

 

[Leigh Griffiths' Hairline]

I was ready for the start of his time in charge to be all about stopping the goals, especially the first 15 minute issue we had under Walter but he seemed to go to far with it early doors and his selections were baffling and didn't really achieve what he wanted. Once he got that and decided to use the proper attacking threat he had in Costa and Ivan he turned a corner. We will still get the shite games, such as Cardiff away and the games where you have no idea how we lost, such as QPR at home. If he is spending the rest of the season keeping us an attacking unit and blooding any of the youth he thinks are ready then a mid table finish is fine by me.

He then has a pre-season to put a proper Promotion team together.

This. The good thing is that he seems to have realised where he went wrong in those early games and adjusted his line-ups accordingly (rather than stubbornly persisting with the same team selections).

Looking at his record, his performances prior to the Villa days were very good. At Villa, he played some turgid football, though every Villa fan I have spoken to says he was very much neutered by the complete lack of a transfer budget. Blackburn - well he was stupid to ever take that job.

I'm impressed with him overall. I hope he impresses even more with a couple of transfer windows. Also, given the recent turnaround in for,, hopefully Fosun are more inclined to spend a bit of cash this transfer window.

 

[lemonjelly]

This. The good thing is that he seems to have realised where he went wrong in those early games and adjusted his line-ups accordingly (rather than stubbornly persisting with the same team selections).

Looking at his record, his performances prior to the Villa days were very good. At Villa, he played some turgid football, though every Villa fan I have spoken to says he was very much neutered by the complete lack of a transfer budget. Blackburn - well he was stupid to ever take that job.

I'm impressed with him overall. I hope he impresses even more with a couple of transfer windows. Also, given the recent turnaround in for,, hopefully Fosun are more inclined to spend a bit of cash this transfer window.

I've heard this line too. I'm not sure I believe it tbh, though of course he may well have had to engage in a lot of wage cutting.
According to soccerbase his 3 seasons show the following:
2012/13 -
Karim El Ahmadi £2,000,000
Brett Holman Free
Matthew Lowton £3,000,000
Ron Vlaar £3,200,000
Joe Bennett £275,000
Christian Benteke £7,000,000
Jordan Bowery £500,000
Ashley R Westwood £2,000,000
Yacouba Sylla £2,000,000
Aleksandar Tonev £2,500,000
Total: £24,950,000

2013-14
Leandro Bacuna £3,000,000
Jores Okore £4,000,000
Nicklas Helenius £1,200,000
Antonio Luna £2,000,000
Jed Steer Free
Libor Kozak £7,000,000
£17,200,000

2014-15
Joe Cole Free
Philippe Senderos Free
Tom Leggett Free
Isaac Nehemie Free
Kieran Richardson Free
Aly Cissokho Free
Carlos Sanchez £4,700,000
Carles Gil £3,200,000
Scott Sinclair £2,500,000
Micah Richards Free
£10,400,000

Certainly there is less being spent as time passes. However, there are a lot of poor purchases across that time. Incidentally, there is very little re-couped during that time, as a lot of players were released, or their contracts ended. This may have been a limitation, but worries me that it doesn't appear that Lambert is good at adding value as they say in these awful house doing up programmes all over tv. That worries me a little.

 

[Deutsch Wolf]

A gross spend of around £52m, they got £32.5m of that back when they sold Benteke.

There are a lot of misses but in Premier League terms that's not a big budget. We spent a hell of a lot in the summers of 2009 and 2010 on fees, you've got to factor in market inflation and new TV deals by the time you're looking at Lambo's time at Villa...it doesn't buy you a lot. There are clearly a lot of players there on lowish wages and speculative punts from the lower leagues like Bennett, Bowery, Westwood and then from second/third tier leagues like Tonev, Bacuna, Helenius, Holman, El-Ahmadi, Vlaar and Okore. It's pauper stuff in relative terms. Just for reference, in the summer of 2013 when Villa were making their low key, low cost gambles, West Ham bought Andy Carroll, Southampton bought Victor Wanyama, Everton bought James McCarthy, Swansea bought Wilfried Bony, Cardiff bought Gary Medel, all of them cost over £10m apiece. All clubs that Villa were towering above a few years earlier but by that point they were operating in a completely different market.

 

[lemonjelly]

I suppose that could be the restraints referred to - a need to reduce the wage bill. I also don't know how much input he had into transfers at Villa - solely him? His scouting network? I can't recall if he took his backroom team from Norwich to Villa?
Granted 2013/14 & 14/15 are low. That's a fair spend in 2012/13 though.

That said, he's a different remit here, and as LK posts above, he's a different character to that of his Villa days. Perhaps he's getting his mojo back. He was decent developing his projects at Wycombe/Colchester/Norwich. Lets hope he can do similar with us.