Former Aston Villa manager Paul Lambert has revealed the relief that he felt when he was sacked by the club last season.
Lambert endured a difficult three-year spell at Villa Park, as he continued to fight against the threat of relegation before being sacked and replaced with Tim Sherwood last February.
With the club now rooted to the bottom of the Premier League table and seemingly set to be relegated to the Championship this season, Lambert has opened up on his time in the West Midlands and the struggles that he fought with.
“The lads at Villa at that time gave us everything, there was never one time where I walked away and thought we had thrown the towel in,” Lambert said in an exclusive interview with Soccer Saturday, as reported by Sky Sports.
“We just found things hard towards the end. As I’ve said before, Villa is a great club, always has been and always will be, but I knew my time was up.
“Some of the things that were going on were never right so when it [the sacking] did actually happen, I was delighted it was going to happen.”
Lambert went on to reveal that he was keen to avoid making the same mistakes with his next job, and so he took everything that he experienced at Villa into account before accepting his current role at Blackburn Rovers.
The former Dortmund midfielder will hope to guide the club back into the Premier League sooner rather than later, but it remains to be seen whether or not he’ll be facing his former employers in the top flight or second tier of English football first.
Remi Garde oversaw a slight improvement in form last month, but Villa’s crushing 6-0 home defeat to Liverpool last weekend would have shattered confidence as they remain eight points adrift of safety.