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Boring Boring Lambert.

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[quote user="Buh"]lets see the possession stats[/quote][url=http://www.whoscored.com/Regions/252/Tournaments/2/Seasons/2935/Stages/5476/TeamStatistics/England-Premier-League-2011-2012]2011/2012[/url][url=http://www.whoscored.com/Regions/252/Tournaments/2/Seasons/3389/Stages/6531/TeamStatistics/England-Premier-League-2012-2013]2012/2013[/url]

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Well given that Parma is right in the sense that most of the time, Lambert didn''t really care about possession, the fact that Hughton''s team''s possession and pass completion figures are worse than Lambert''s, suggests that either Hughton equally doesn''t really care about possession, or Hughton is trying to coach a possession based tactic but isn''t very good at it.Personally I think its the former but neither option bode well for Parma''s hypothesis.

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Possession stats can be misleading, as can all stats. I try and stay away from them in all honesty.

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[quote user="Buh"]I''m not sure how massively illuminating those stats are.[/quote]Like a torn creased and faded sepia photograph of the brave young soldier heading for the Somme such stats are all some have left to cling to.

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[quote user="Dandy Mountfarto"]Lets have a link to one of these academic studies with the 15% figure then
[/quote]

 

The book is "The Numbers Game" has a section on this area and includes the 15% figure.  You don''t have to buy it, I got it out of the library.

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Refracting arguments into polemic in/out simplicity has little intellectual value. Highlighting only the narrow area that suits a pre-determined position within a broad argument, is confrontational, not empirical.

Lambert did not place a priority on possession retention, as the chosen strategy did not require it. Hughton is certainly endeavouring to do so now as observed, though I would suggest that last season also had specific requirements and the desired outcome was achieved via a deep lying, compact 8 block, which was effective though not designed to maximise possession either.

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[quote user="Parma Hams gone mouldy"]In many ways you are almost all right in part. Lambert was a wonderful manager and his Glasgow gambler''s approach was thrilling and historically unusual. His messianic up-and-at-em approach made believers of average players and sleepy fans. Going all out to win was bold, belligerent and beautiful.

It was however, LDC''s perfect storm of lower leagues, lower standards, starting as a rare big fish in a small 3rd division pond. Holt and Hoolahan at that level. The first year in the prem was a no-lose continuation of the policy and was as good a strategy as any for that particular year. Expectations were zero and we were all high on the excitement of it all.

He left because he was not only a Glasgow gambler, but also someone well able to calculate the best odds for his own career.

To judge Chris Hughtom against any of that is grossly unfair. He has been faced with a fundamentally different challenge, one that Lambert felt was beyond the club (and as a corollary, the players and himself). Second season survival - however achieved - was a club-changing success that few inside football and outside Norfolk expected. Hughton did brilliantly and made us £100m. Ironically I decry the cult of manager as lightning rod for success and failure, but, just as Lam err was one of the few with the chutzpah to keep us up season one, just Hufhton was perhaps one of the few who could have remodelled a ramshackle defence into a unit capable of many, many clean sheets and a notable survival.

The irony now is that it is not norwich''s football that is boring, it is the essentially passive nature of the games due to the financial and playing resource disparities between member clubs. Staying boringly in the premier league for a few seasons would have been utopia just a very short time ago - it was certainly McNally''s dream for the club. This is not little old Norwich or costa del Norwich, it is the realpolitik of the structure we find ourselves in.

From a technical and tactical point of view our football now is vastly more sophisticated now than it has ever been, with far better players than we gave ever had. It is not end-to-end exciting, gambling football that we played through the leagues, but such football has not existed in Italy - or most other developed nations. The painful truth is that it does not exist elsewhere because it is unintelligent, low percentage football that cedes possession too easily. England have long got excited by territory, balls in the box, fast, direct football and the constant desire to try and score a goal. This simply doesn''t work often enough and is a poor percentage option. The irony is that Lambert was a gambler who could afford to attack given the circumstances and level he found himself at. Any intelligent gambler plays the odds now and does not attack, rather they retain possession, shape and look for small margins in their favour to win games.[/quote]

Parma, I enjoy your posts and often agree with them. Particularly in your view on how football should be played (and I speak as someone who once gladly paid money to watch Inter in the days of catenaccio).

And I bought into your argument (also put forward by others) that Hughton was trying to switch to a more measured approach. Last season I compared Lambert to the French general Foch, who supposedly said:

"My centre is giving way, my right is in retreat; situation excellent. I shall attack."

The problem, which you rather slide past, is that this season we seem to have regressed. The defence is not as solid as it was, and the attack no more potent.

Last season we scored 41 and conceded 58. If we carry on as we are we will score 32 and concede 67.

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I wouldn''t be so sure that if we carry on as we are we will concede that many Purple. 16 of the goals we conceded were against top 6 clubs. There''s a bigger picture here where we have conceded 7 in the other games and have four clean sheets already.

 

 

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[quote user="nutty nigel"]

I wouldn''t be so sure that if we carry on as we are we will concede that many Purple. 16 of the goals we conceded were against top 6 clubs. There''s a bigger picture here where we have conceded 7 in the other games and have four clean sheets already.

 

 

[/quote]

I did say "if" nutty. I didn''t say we would carry on like that. I was just giving some unbiased figures to back up my point in answer to Parma. So far this season we are scoring fewer and conceding more than overall last season.

If I had wanted to spin it one way I might have made your point.

If I had wanted to spin it the other way I could have said those figures reflect seven homes games and only six away.

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[quote user="nutty nigel"]

I wouldn''t be so sure that if we carry on as we are we will concede that many Purple. 16 of the goals we conceded were against top 6 clubs. There''s a bigger picture here where we have conceded 7 in the other games and have four clean sheets already.

[/quote]

 

Statto 

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I understand that Purple. And only one of our clean sheets has been away from home. But then again the games against Man City and Arsenal were away from home. Come the end of the season if we are relegated on goal difference they will be expensive.  But hopefully we will keep enough clean sheets and pick up enough points from other teams not to worry about that. The goals we conceded that really annoy me are not those but the 2 at Newcastle, especially the first one. We could have got something from that game.

 

 

 

 

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[quote user="TIL 1010"][quote user="nutty nigel"]

I wouldn''t be so sure that if we carry on as we are we will concede that many Purple. 16 of the goals we conceded were against top 6 clubs. There''s a bigger picture here where we have conceded 7 in the other games and have four clean sheets already.

[/quote]

 

Statto 

[/quote]

 

Who is that picture?

 

 

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I don''t believe you but I will go along with it..............Statto (Angus Laugthran) from Fanatasy Football League with David Baddiel and Frank Skinner.

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[quote user="nutty nigel"][quote user="TIL 1010"][quote user="nutty nigel"]

I wouldn''t be so sure that if we carry on as we are we will concede that many Purple. 16 of the goals we conceded were against top 6 clubs. There''s a bigger picture here where we have conceded 7 in the other games and have four clean sheets already.

[/quote]

 

Statto 

[/quote]

 

Who is that picture? [/quote]

Is it one of the Stylistics? [^o)]

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[quote user="TIL 1010"]I don''t believe you but I will go along with it..............Statto (Angus Laugthran) from Fanatasy Football League with David Baddiel and Frank Skinner.[/quote]

 

Rigghht..

 

I didn''t know honest. Has he got his jimjams on?

 

 

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Buonasera PC. I am no apologist for Chris Hughton. What I can see he is trying to achieve from a coaching point of view and whether he is doing it are two different points. The theme of the thread is identifying the fact that there are those on the villa forums criticising Lambert for being boring. This is certainly an interesting counterpoint to similar criticisms of Hughton. The logical (captain) conclusion might be that circumstances are more influential than personality. Not only is Hughton not achieving Lambert-esque football, Lambert is not achieving Lambert-esque football either. I have identified possible contextual reasons for what we saw and are now seeing. These are at odds with the view that replacing the manager is a panacea for all ills, rather it indicates that the manager''s role has influence, but only in a soup containing level played / wages paid/ length of time in top league/ club finances/ ground capacity / ownership structure et al.

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[quote user="nutty nigel"]

[quote user="TIL 1010"]I don''t believe you but I will go along with it..............Statto (Angus Laugthran) from Fanatasy Football League with David Baddiel and Frank Skinner.[/quote]

 

Rigghht..

 

I didn''t know honest. Has he got his jimjams on?

 

 

[/quote]

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mFtpdDhXwCU

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"nutty nigel"Seriously cuz I don''t know...

Have you been watching too much Lizard Lick Towing?

If you start calling people Bo and growing a mullet I''m taking away your TV licence.

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[quote user="Parma Hams gone mouldy"]Buonasera PC. I am no apologist for Chris Hughton. What I can see he is trying to achieve from a coaching point of view and whether he is doing it are two different points. The theme of the thread is identifying the fact that there are those on the villa forums criticising Lambert for being boring. This is certainly an interesting counterpoint to similar criticisms of Hughton. The logical (captain) conclusion might be that circumstances are more influential than personality. Not only is Hughton not achieving Lambert-esque football, Lambert is not achieving Lambert-esque football either. I have identified possible contextual reasons for what we saw and are now seeing. These are at odds with the view that replacing the manager is a panacea for all ills, rather it indicates that the manager''s role has influence, but only in a soup containing level played / wages paid/ length of time in top league/ club finances/ ground capacity / ownership structure et al.[/quote]

Thanks for the reply, Parma. The problem I and others have is not that Hughton is not Lambert or that he is trying to play a different way. As I said, i was in favour of Hughton''s more grown-up approach.

The problem is that Hughton achieved this last season (which is why I supported him at the start of this) but we seem to have regressed. All the statistics point that way.

I don''t see that there are contextual reasons that apply only to this season to explain.

Our context certainly hasn''t changed for the worse from last season. On the contrary, if anything we should be better off.

That we paid off all our external debt in the last financial year is a factor that should be helping us this season. As evidenced by being the 9th biggest net spenders in the European transfer market in the summer.

One thing all sensible fans are agreed on is that finance is the major determinant in how a club does.

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All this tactical/statistical expertize aside, can I ask the obvious question here?

How many more pictures of men in their (?) pyjamas has Til got, especially those that have sharp implements and alcohol in the near vicinity? Also what prompt does one input into Google to source these sorts of pictures (that isn''t a personal question btw)

Also is Mrs Til in the house when this ''exploration'' occurs?

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PC, the stats may point that way, but you should include other factors.

New players bedding in. Apart from Fer, none have hit the ground running. Redmond & Olsson (wasn''t he injured?) have taken time to get up to speed.

Loss of form/injury: Snodgrass, Bassong, Johnson, Ruddy, Tettey, E Bennett, Pilkington & possibly Martin come into this category.

Fixtures so far: difficult, according to Opta I believe.

Other luck: Not brilliant I would argue. Lucky against Everton & that''s about it.

Additionally teams that were regarded as pushovers have proved surprisingly resilient (not just against us).

I would also add that injuries have hit us just as the team was showing some improvement (Tettey & Snodgrass being prime examples).

I still think we''ll improve as we settle & injured players get back.

Overall, still optimistic.

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[quote user="ron obvious"]PC, the stats may point that way, but you should include other factors.

New players bedding in. Apart from Fer, none have hit the ground running. Redmond & Olsson (wasn''t he injured?) have taken time to get up to speed.

Loss of form/injury: Snodgrass, Bassong, Johnson, Ruddy, Tettey, E Bennett, Pilkington & possibly Martin come into this category.

Fixtures so far: difficult, according to Opta I believe.

Other luck: Not brilliant I would argue. Lucky against Everton & that''s about it.

Additionally teams that were regarded as pushovers have proved surprisingly resilient (not just against us).

I would also add that injuries have hit us just as the team was showing some improvement (Tettey & Snodgrass being prime examples).

I still think we''ll improve as we settle & injured players get back.

Overall, still optimistic.[/quote]

Ron, the trouble with taking other factors into account is that it all gets very subjective, and there are factors that point the other way.

For example, we have played all three promoted sides (and two at home and away it was against ten men) and got only one goal and four points.

And it was noticeable that at the AGM when McNally gave examples of games in which we supposedly had been hard done by he chose two (Arsenal and Sunderland) from last season! None from this season. Which tells a story in itself.

So I stick to the basic unspun facts, all of which at the moment point to a regression from last season. We are scoring fewer goals, we are conceding more and we are (based on six home and six away games) getting fewer points per game.

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Hmm PC. I would prefer not to be pigeon-holed into defending Hughton as a default position, but I believe there are coaching reasons for the things you long to.

The progression from a deep-lying 8 block, with over-protected, reticent full-backs and a claustrophobic concentration of space in our defensive third, to a solid, fluid, penetrative, balanced unit is simply not a light switch change.

Ron rightly highlights the mitigating factors and there is - I''m afraid - further reasons that include:

a. We haven''t always done it very well

b. some tactical errors (Opening midfield v Chelsea via Redmond substitution)

c. our players aren''t as good as home fans perceive them to be (investment theory)

I personally feel they we have had very hard fixtures. Not only playing the top 9, but Playing promoted teams early is no advantage in my view either, they have generally found their level as the days get short.

A raft of new players, ones that are central to the team and cannot be left out without a media cry, inevitably have to be played into form and comfort with their surroundings.

My view is that Hughton is a club- building manager who looks and acts for the long term good, from the roots upwards. Nobody is immune from results, but 10 wins a season is safety. 12 wins is 10th. That''s 28/26 games of not winning. And so it will continue. Don''t blame Hughton for that, this is where we are now. Boom and bust is exciting, but not very good for the business. McNally may well be thrilled with the status quo; and the seats are all full. We are not going to build another stand. Follow the money.....

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