The question on all Villa fan’s lips after what only could be described as someone’s worst nightmare of a last season under Alex McLeish, is what Paul Lambert will bring to Villa Park. Two successive promotions with Norwich City and a 12th place finish in their debut season in the Barclays Premiership convinced Villa owner Randy Lerner to offer 42 year old Scot Lambert the vacant manager’s job at Villa left by Alex McLeish.
Paul Lambert was always Villa fans first choice to succeed sacked Alex McLeish as Aston Villa manager, when after Villa’s final league game in May against Lambert’s former employers Norwich City, both sets of fans come the final whistle were heard singing ‘There is only one Paul Lambert’. One set of those fans will be expectantly singing this when the season starts again in August away at West Ham.
So what has Paul Lambert exactly inherited from Alex McLeish’s reign of terror whilst he was somehow manager of Aston Villa Football Club; a mixture of experience and youth, whose full potential, was non-existent under McLeish. No doubt the squad contains experienced players who are capable of challenging the likes of Spurs, Chelsea and Newcastle for a top 4 place, Shay Given, Richard Dunne and 24 million man Darren Bent, just to name a few.
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If past achievements are to be repeated, Villa’s current playing squad is urgently in need of a review. Villa aren’t the 4th most successful team in English football and only one of five English teams to of won the Champions League for nothing, but to see similar successes again, Lambert will need to bring in 4-5 new players and move any deadwood out. He has been given between 20-30 million by Randy Lerner, plus any player sales to rebuild Villa into a club challenging for the top four; with the wage bill significantly lowered by new contracts not being offered to the likes of Emile Heskey, Carlos Cullear and Brad Guzan.
The two areas of focus of Villa’s current playing squad currently sticking out like a sore thumb for improvements are the state of the current defence and the absence of a workload and craft in the engine of the midfield in Stiliyan Petrov’s absence. Looking at the current squad from top to bottom, Shay Given in goal is one of the best keepers in the Premiership, but without a solid back four in front of him, even the world’s best keepers are going to feeling slightly vulnerable.
Taking a look at Villa’s current back four, in a recent survey done by the Birmingham Mail of fans would most likely want to see leaving Villa this summer, two of the top three were two of Villa’s starting back four last season; right back Alan Hutton (72%) and centre back James Collins (40%) were seen by fans hopefully not playing for Villa next season. Add that to the loss of Carlos Cullear to Sunderland, Lambert is in need of 2-3 defenders to protect Shay Given’s in-between the sticks.
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