December’s win at Anfield seems like a distant memory to many Aston Villa fans at the moment. After the much 3-1 victory over the Merseysiders, many of us were on cloud nine, and headed into the run of games vs Chelsea, Tottenham & Wigan full of confidence in continuing our unbeaten run. As we all know now, this wasn’t to be case.

Three games, three losses, and the conceding of fifteen goals left us with a demoralised team and an angry set of fans – Christmas 2012 will be one to forget for fans of Aston Villa. In the pursuit of someone to blame, some fans blamed our young squad for these losses, others the chairman, but most of accusations were, understandably, pointing at manager Paul Lambert – the buck, after all, does stop with him.

With the fingers of blame pointing at our manager, some fans reverted to type and some started to utter ‘Lambert out’ as their solution to Villa’s issue. Passions all around the club are running high, but at the end of the day we all want the best for Aston Villa – even the most hardened of sadists would not take any pleasure in seeing what our club went through over the hectic Christmas period. However, the idea of sacking Lambert? Surely not, right?

As I have said, I can relate to and understand why fans are upset. I am too – none of us would have been happy in the footballing lessons handed out by Chelsea, Spurs and Wigan, but we need to remember that we are just 21 games into Lambert’s tenure as manager of our club. 21 games is far too soon to be considering sacking the manager if you ask me – even after three consecutive horror shows.

However, in order to rule out the idea of getting rid of the manager, we may as well look at the factors connected to why fans have stated the idea as an option

First off, the squad is still gelling. As we all know, we have some very young players in our group, and a growing injury list that has ruled out many key players. Taking into account these issues, it becomes fairly obvious as to how this can affect a young and subsequently paper thin squad.

Second, as I have just said, we are only 21 games into Lambert’s time as manager and, before the Christmas horror shows, we had started to look like a team that had turned a corner. I still have faith that we can get better, and not worse.

Third, we are far from the finished article. Lambert is going to need time, investment and patience to put his stamp on things. This season, staying up this season is priority and I am confident that, with new faces coming in the January transfer window, this will not be an issue.

Fourth, the demanding schedule, like I have said is a challenge, especially seeing as our squad is thin on the ground. This puts more reasoning as to why the club needs to invest this month.

All of these issues raised are fixable, and I think they will be fixed. After a win against Ipswich Town in the FA Cup, we head for the first leg of the league cup semi-final against Bradford – we won’t play a Premier League team till next Saturday on the 12th. By then we, hopefully, will have at least one or two new faces who can bolster the young squad that has been coming together.

For me, this welcome break from the league schedule couldn’t come soon enough – a chance to beat Bradford after already beating Ipswich will give the team a breathing space and, hopefully, a much needed confidence boost. I fully expect Lambert to turn it around, not to the point where we go unbeaten until the end of the season, but enough to give the naysayers some confidence that we will survive this season.

It is clear that we have money available for this transfer window and that, for me, is enough to show that Randy Lerner has absolute faith in our manager – long may it continue. I have said before that this is a long term project for Lambert and not a ‘throw money at it’ quick fix. We tried that plan under Martin O’Neill and it failed miserably.

When Paul Lambert keeps us up, I am confident that we can further improve next season – the young players we have are far from the finished article, and some will make it, whilst some won’t. However, that’s just how football is. The difference now is that we really are building an exciting team for the future & with experince more and more likely to come in during this window, I am very confident we can and will improve. It is, after all, about balance.

Next season there is much potential to be realised, but the short term will mean a slight deviation in plans in my opinion – I imagine our manager will have the humility to adapt in much the same way as he has adapted his tactics to fit the challenges in front of him.

So is it time for Randy Lerner to stick or twist with Paul Lambert? In my opinion, he has to stick because our club needs stability and foundations building for the future. The solution isn’t one that is fixed quickly, but I am still confident that Lambert is the man to take the club up the table rather than down.

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