Paul Lambert is a manager in which I place great trust, he has a passion for tactics, shown by the variety Aston Villa have utilised, a desire to play passing football and a quality emphasis on trusting his players. He has developed over the last year and improved on player selection, tactics for players and changing things when the team isn't playing well but while all these positive occur they also exist as real negatives that could be adding to the struggles.
Instead of delivering countless match reports I wanted to deconstruct where I feel the manager needs to develop and why.
Player selection and trust
On the whole Lambert has come on a lot in this respect, below are some examples of successes and good decisions that have improved the side.
Last year Joe Bennet probably experienced the hardest part of his career so far, a huge amount of trust was placed in the young left sided player yet he delivered very little in the role Lambert gave him as left back. His defending was woeful, positioning very poor but attacking play showed promise. Lambert received a lot of criticism and finally when the year began we saw him dropped from the team.
Ashley Westwood also found some criticism but due to excellent passing, some Petrov like reading of the game, and a desire to put his mistakes behind him Lamberts trust was rewarded and he has become a key player this year.
Clark who saw favour at the start of Lambert reign has been replaced by the decisive, passionate Baker, and Luna who we hoped would solve the left back crisis was quickly replaced by the quality Bertrand.
Fabian Delph was considered a Championship player but trust and individual development has placed him as one of the first names on the team sheet and a quality member of the Villa squad.
These players have shown where Lambert has balanced trust with quality and has made important decisions to replace the less quality options, such as bringing in Luna and Bertrand as left backs but has Lambert also caused himself some headaches by ignoring fringe players that perhaps he hasn't placed as much trust in?
Two of these fringe players are Samir Carruthers and Marc Albrighton, while the later has found himself injured Carruthers has seen his Villa career stifled hugely and is finally getting some quality games while on loan. When he has played for the club he has filled a role Lambert wanted, a number 10. He plays behind the striker, takes on his man and has some good passing going forward, a role that doesn't suit any other player at the club. This role is imperative to breaking down stubborn defences and allows a new tactical approach to winning games yet we have not seen it utilised in any manner during Lamberts tenure. This is not to say Carruthers has the quality to make this role his permanant home but it's clearly a role he can play, something Bennett cannot as left back.
This fact brings us nicely to Marc Albrighton, the only wide player at the club. Though he perhaps lacks the quality to be a top winger he has the best cross at the club, a desire to help out all over the pitch, natural width and a passion to make run for through balls, qualities which endear him to fans and players alike. He however has seen his game time cut short mostly because of Lamberts desire for short passing tactics.
These two players can still improve but need games and a managers plan B, Lambert has either not considered how they could work or doesn't trust their qualities to deliver chances. I would chance at a combination of both but lead toward the latter as being the main reason.
Against West Ham Albrighton changed the game, the wide approach completely threw their defence and while we didn't score we did threaten, a lot, it seemed to take the team 15 minutes to realise that these crosses were actually real chances, by then the game was mostly over. This change of tactics were not down to manager tactics but down to player attributes, if only Lambert realised he also needed someone to poach a second ball/rebound. Weimann perhaps?
Weimann is an interesting player, trusted by the manager he is filling a role rather than playing to his strengths and it has shown as his few chances a game are usually spurned rather than taken, if he was playing as a striker instead of a hardworking wide forward perhaps we'd finish the chances the creative Benteke carves out. Though a good player Agbonlaor isn't a poacher and he doesn't read the game like the little Austrian Weimann.
We have lacked a combination of player trust and tactical naturalness and this takes me nicely onto tactics.
Tactics
Lamberts 352 and 532 got us in a lot of trouble last year, he tried to fit a team to a tactic rather than a tactic to a team and over and over it caused us issues, as soon as we moved to 4 at the back some calmness came but certain players still underperformed. This year we have seen Lambert show real strength in this respect and we have seen a balance of good tactics against the right teams, however the balance of tactical personnel is still lacking. As mentioned the omission of Albrighton and Carruthers show Lambert hasn't considered width and a link man and player wise Lambert is struggling to find a quality balance, over and over this season certain decisions have confused the fans as well as lowering confidence within the team.
This weekend Newcastle scored a winner in the last minutes of the game and two players contributed hugely to our downfall. When Westwood came off we lost the only quality passer in the team with Sylla his replacement; though Sylla didn't do a lot wrong he also didn't add much to our play, didn't play box to box, or higher up and gave the ball away through poor crossing. This changed the way we attacked with no compensation in a tactical sense, the calmer passing dried up with Delph left doing the defensive and creative midfield work. For the next 10 minutes we looked impotent going forward but still had some counter luck on the right as Newcastle pushed forward, then in the final 10 minutes Lambert made his second error of the day and this was bringing on Joe Bennett as left back. In the weeks previous Bennett worked well as a left wing back and wide man but the problems he faced while defending came back to haunt us. Remy's goal was poor defending all round but Bennett was the real problem, his awful defensive header gave the ball back to the Magpies and they duly make their chance count. As soon as he came on, with Sylla on the same side, Newcastle attacked our left and we saw Villa's defenders looking nervously in order to cover potential defensive frailties; suddenly our defensive confidence was decreased and Newcastle drifted forward with ease.
But did Lambert have immediate options? Tactically perhaps not, the club has no depth in midfield; Gardner and Carruthers are out on loan, Johnson has not seen the bench in some time and there really isn't anybody else to mention. As far as left backs go perhaps Bertrand was injured but if not Lambert went for the win from left back and ignored both Albrighton and Tonev as attacking options. Tonev is really struggling but he doesn't lack confidence and has a lot of pace going forward and Albrighton who plays on the right could have exploited the passes Agbonlahor wasted. Even Bennett as left winger could have worked but instead we stuck with our impotent setup.
He could have gone to a natural 442 and pushed for a win with a solid back line, instead he gambled on a tactic that wasn't working and favouring plan A with plan A players.
Many of our poor performances and losses can be attributed to plan A, as well as a last resort desire to find Benteke with a long ball.
Lambert is a developing manager but he needs to understand what he has and where he can influence outcomes, if this means eating some humble pie by bringing players back into the team then he should do it, it makes him more flexible and more in tune with his players. He needs to place trust in all his players and not the ones he has brought in/nurtured and strike the balance between tactics and quality.
We all know he wants to pass to win, and I support that passion (even though at times we've had appalling pass completion statistics), but he needs attacking personnel plan B's and not just tactical ones.
The relegation zone is not too far away and so experiments will most likely not occur but perhaps the week in Portugal was as important for the manager as it was the squad; we can only hope.
