Why Paul Lambert Must Stay

oily sailor

The groundswell of opinion against Wycombe manager Paul Lambert has reached deafening levels after Wanderers were flipped and boned 6-0 by Stockport County at the weekend. There have been mutterings against the manager all season but the reasoning displayed by most Wycombe fans is at best disingenuous and at worst seethingly malicious. Listed below are the main points of contention, and none of them stack up.

1) Lambert still lives in Scotland
For the Daily Mail-sponsored People’s Republic of South Bucks, Scotland is viewed only slightly less suspiciously than North Korea or any African country that won’t let white farmers grow bananas. In their eyes it is bad enough that Wanderers have a Scottish manager but his decision to continue living in northern Britain causes massive enragement. In truth, Lambert spends Sunday, Monday and Tuesday away from Sands and this should be no problem at all. One of those days sees the players resting or updating their myspace pages, and the others are largely used for fitness work. Lambert has never missed a Tuesday night game because he is baking shortbread or siphoning of North Sea oil so we really cannot see where the antipathy comes from. Successful managers such as Lambert’s mentor Martin O’Neill also keep their contact with the players to a relative minimum, so there really should be no issue. Nonetheless, it seems that from West Wycombe to West Lothian, questions will be asked of any Scotsman who dares to tell Bucks folk what to do. Let us not forget that O’Neill was once told that Wycombe needed a Bucks Man in charge, for only then would the club reach its potential.

2) Lambert is tactically weak
It is bad enough when Wycombe fans mindlessly abuse the players but when they try to be constructive it’s even worse. A sample 10 minutes in the Woodlands Stand reveals tactical knowledge gleaned from Championship Manager, World War I and games of backgammon on a picnic table. “You’re shooting that way”, “keep it on the bloody ground” and “show some passion” is not helpful advice. Lambert showed tactical nous when guiding WWFC to the League Cup semi-finals, and Wycombe’s performance in the first leg against Chelsea was one of the most carefully orchestrated displays in the club’s history. Every manager makes substitutions that sometimes do not work, even O’Neill laboured under the belief that Simon Hutchinson could come on and make a difference.

3) The Team Has Declined In Quality
This complaint is true enough but any fan blaming Lambert for this is petty, small-minded and clearly filled with a hate-agenda against the manager. Would Lambert like to have Kevin Betsy and Jermaine Easter in his team? Of course he would, but due to staggering financial mismanagement from other figures at Adams Park, he has been forced to sell them. It often seems that those fans so judderingly opposed to Paul Lambert are the same people who lap up club spin about how a new ground with a hotel and an all-weather dog shelter attached will propel Wanderers to the Championship. Perhaps if less money was lavished on off-field staff, Lambert would be able to bolster his squad with players of a higher standard?

4) On Paper, Wycombe Have A Squad Capable Of Promotion
This is a strange phenomenon where Wycombe fans (often with little idea of who plays for rival teams in League two) deem the squad one of the finest in the lower leagues, so any defeat or spell of bad form is a direct consequence of Paul Lambert failing to get the best out of them. Instead, they should perhaps pause and consider that there are many new players at the club this season and that sacking the manager before he has had even half a season to turn them into a decent team would be ridiculous.

No doubt the rage against Lambert will increase over the next few weeks but SMBU demand that the club pay no heed to these bug-eyed maniacs and continue to back the manager for the rest of the season. This is not South America, this is South Bucks.

09.12.2007. 22:51

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