Were Aston Villa right to sack Paul Lambert?

Paul Lambert was finally put out of his misery by Randy Lerner

Defeat to Hull City on Tuesday night proved to be the last straw for Paul Lambert as Aston Villa manager.

Owner Randy Lerner has decided to act with the club dropping into the relegation zone for the first time this season in the wake of their KC Stadium defeat.

Is it the right move for Villa? And, perhaps more pertinently, can a new manager save the West Midlands club from dropping out of the top flight?

With the transfer window now closed, whoever Lerner decides to bring in will have to engineer improved performances from a squad that has performed woefully in the Premier League this season.

In 25 top-flight games, they have managed just 12 goals. More worrying still is that that Villa collected ten points from their opening four games.

If not for that unlikely fast start they would be hopelessly marooned at the foot of the table right now.

On the face of it, the manager had to go but Lambert's comments since his sacking reveal much about the current state of affairs at Villa Park.

"My initial remit was to conduct a massive overhaul of the playing squad, lower the overall wage structure of the playing staff and achieve this whilst keeping the club in the Barclays Premier League," he declared.

So the Scot had to lower costs, replace the dead wood that was in his squad while maintaining the level of performance. No pressure then.

Lambert also suggested that acquiring younger players to secure the club's long term future was part of that plan.

The summer arrivals of Kieran Richardson, Joe Cole, Philippe Senderos and Carlos Sanchez - then at 28 and the youngest of that quartet - seemed, however, to fly in the face of that strategy.

It looks as though Villa have truly begun to reap what has been sown at the club in recent times.

Lerner has made no secret of his desire to move on and having an owner that wants rid of the club is clearly not helping matters.

The capture of Sanchez from La Liga outfit Elche for 4.7m last August represented Villa's only financial outlay of that transfer window - the remainder of Lambert's dealings being made up of free agents and loanees.

There is no doubt the former Norwich boss was working in a deeply constricted environment and it is no surprise to see him class it as the "toughest challenge of my working life" in the wake of his departure.

Under Lambert, Villa twice finished 15th in the Premier League, on both occasions just five points keeping them from a drop down into the Championship.

Performances this season have dipped below anything that went before during those two campaigns.

The overall strategy of this once proud club has greatly restricted what any manager can realistically hope to achieve.

Things have been in decline since Martin O'Neill left the club in 2010 and maybe it is only now that the reasons are clear why the former Celtic manager felt he could take the club no further.

As noted already, Villa's haul of ten points from their opening four games magnifies the degree of trouble they now find themselves in.

With 14 games to go, Villa are going to need five or six wins to climb towards the magical 40-point tally needed for survival.

On what we have seen so far this season, that doesn't look likely to happen.

Lerner's decision to dispense with Lambert has been attributed in certain quarters to the additional television bounty that was announced earlier this week.

The Villa owner clearly feels the club cannot afford to miss out. Failure to invest adequately from the revenue that has been coming into the club from the current deal could be the deciding factor in Villa having to endure life in the Championship next season.

Removing Lambert looks like a final, desperate - but ultimately fruitless - bid to arrest the decline that can be tracked from the top down at Villa Park.