‘ I handle craziness better now’
MOMENTARILY, the names that trip off Paul Lambert’s tongue are from another time in his career: Lukaku, Bony and Aubameyang.
His thoughts are narrowing towards Blackburn’s FA Cup tie with West Ham on Sunday, an opportunity to jostle with the elite again, but for now it is the past, not the future, which demands his attention.
It was a year ago last week he was jettisoned by Aston Villa and the continuing downward spiral of his former club means his views on their irreversible slide are no less valid now than when he was at the eye of the storm.
The Scot says that had he had his way, at least one of the aforementioned triumvirate, which now includes two of Europe’s most wanted strikers, would have been enlisted.
They remained out of reach and Lambert reveals he offered to walk away from Villa Park a few months before he was pushed out.
“I offered to resign at the end of my second season at Villa,” he said. “I knew I wasn’t going to get money to spend so I thought, ‘ OK, let me resign then’.
“But the owner, Randy Lerner, said, ‘ No.’ He wouldn’t accept it.
“I knew the club needed big players to come in but we couldn’t go and get them. I remember speaking to Romelu Lukaku when I fi rst went there. I spoke to
Wilfried Bony in one window. I spoke to an agent about Pierre- Emerick Aubameyang.
“It was players like that I wanted to bring in but we were never going to get them. It is a brilliant club but a team that has won the European Cup should not be in the position it is in.
“I had had enough because I was taking the hit for everyone and there were only so many hits I was willing to take before I came back fi ghting. So the easiest thing for me was to say, ‘ Nae problem. I’ll go, nae problem.’
“But Randy Lerner said, ‘ No, no’ and there were so many things going on. There was talk of a takeover, things were going back and forth but I did offer to resign after my second year.”
It is a fair assumption Lambert regrets being talked round given the events that were to transpire and the tumult he was to endure. He has not spoken to Lerner since the day he left.
When Lambert spoke to the Daily Express in November, newly returned to management and unbeaten in his opening matches at Blackburn, he insisted that he would never become engulfed by the “cauldron of management” again.
The thumping 3- 0 success over Fulham on Tuesday was their fi rst in 10 Championship matches and had been preceded by a warning to his squad not to “sleepwalk” towards danger. So has Lambert been able to keep that promise to himself?
“I’m all right,” he said with a smile. “That craziness and putting myself under major stress. I probably handle it a lot better than before. I don’t get
‘ The club needed big players’
caught up in the whole scenario of what has gone on. I try to keep a level head. The lads are a really good group to work with. That is half the battle.”
His outlook is shaped by the truism that players, not managers, ultimately shape results but he should be careful not to diminish his role too much.
In a separate radio interview, Lambert says he “stumbled” across the formula that saw Norwich win back- to- back promotions from League One to the Premier League under his command.
Grant Holt, Chris Martin and Wes Hoolahan were key, yet it was Lambert who deployed Hoolahan at the apex of a midfi eld diamond as opposed to out on the wing. Jordi Gomez, on loan from Sunderland, has that role at Blackburn as the rebuilding continues.
The scenario feels familiar. A cup victory over Slaven Bilic’s West Ham would provide a timely shot in the arm.
Lambert touched the heights during a playing career in which he lifted the Champions League with Borussia Dortmund and he says the arrival of Premier League glamour at Ewood Park is one for others to enjoy.
“I have been involved in big games as a player and big games as a manager,” he said. “West Ham will be great as well but more importantly it will be great for the lads to play against this sort of opposition.
“The stadium will be rammed. We need the fans here but we have to give them something as well.”