M_Afro

Just take a single sentence out of context. Well played sir!

I am a very reasonable person. You cannot just look at the league position. You have to look at the whole picture. Our form is terrible. We struggled against every side in the division over the second half of the season. Not a single comfortable victory. That’s not good enough for me. I doubt it’s good enough for the owners but we will see.

Well. It’s just opinion. We will have to wait and see what happens. It would not be the first time that I was way off to be fair.

I don’t want to fall out with you mate. I suspect we are misunderstanding each other. My point is that Dean has admitted that the first, long Covid break was a great chance to take time out, re-assess and change things. Make tweaks which lead to an improvement in form. This is his opinion. Not speculation. The second, much shorter Covid break seems to be used as an excuse for our form by certain parties (not the club).This is pure speculation with no evidence whatsoever. It also ignores the fact that our form had started to dip before the covid break. All we know is that 8 members of the squad had Covid. One of those was Trez who has hardly figured anyway. I am a medical layman but my wife played a significant role in the pandemic. She has not seen a single patient with extreme covid symptoms who is young and fit. Not one. It is way too early to understand the illness and will take years of research to start to better understand it. Blaming our form on something we know nothing about is just speculation. Not even Dean, who better knows what going on, has done that. He just said that it affected our momentum.

I think we will have to agree to disagree. I want him to be a success but he is not delivering in my view. All that really matters is what the owners think. I don’t think they will be happy and Dean is under massive pressure. 2 more really poor results could be enough for them.

But he only arrested it after a long Covid break. If that break hadn’t occurred we would almost certainly have been in the Championship and he would have been sacked. He seems incapable of arresting it in normal season. I know he did it when we were in the Championship but how much was that about getting Jack back? Having Jack in the Championship is akin to Barcelona having Messi at his best.

A slump is a run of a few games. This is half a season. We also invested heavily over the summer (and January) to ensure that a slump didn’t happen again. All teams have to cope with injuries. As for C-19 it’s absolutely impossible to tell what impact that has had. It could have been a good thing, giving us a rest during a busy period but we will never know. What is a fact is that in each of his seasons as manager we have had long spells of good form and long spells of terrible form. There has never been a consistent level of performance over the course of the season. He seems totally incapable of arresting the poor form. A good manager is able to maintain a fairly steady level of performance, with minor purple and red patches. Smith’s Villa are the football version of a schizophrenic.

It’s not going to be a few points difference though. It could well be 8 or 9 by the time we have finally limped past our final game. That’s a pretty big gap to be fair.

I don’t know. He should be ready for a run in the Championship 22/23.

I don’t think people hate Smith. I would think most fans really like him. He is a lovely man and he is one of us. You can’t blame today on some kind of end of season on the beach scenario though. If that’s true we have been on the beach since Christmas because the level of performance has been consistent since then. That has to sit with the manager.

That’s just not true. The only 2 teams who have been as inconsistent as us in the second half of the season will be enjoying the championship next season.

Please remember today before you have a go at Mings again. Our defensive organisation was non existent. Konsa looked like a pub player. Even Targett was pretty poor.

It’s not a few losses though is it. We have lost as many games since Christmas as anyone, apart from two teams. We also lost to Sheff Utd, despite the fact they had a really weakened team out and played most of the second half against 10 men. You can brush it up as you like but this is not about a run of poor results, it’s a very long run of utterly clueless performances. That’s a fact.

I have never once seen Palace tear a team apart like they did to us in the second half today. We defended way too deep. The whole team was way too passive. Dean appeared to do nothing about it. In a run of really disappointing results and performances, that was the worst one for me. I have been on the fence for a long time, sometimes falling either side but never straying too far from a neutral position but having reviewed our form since Christmas and also having a bit of time to reflect I think the time has come to replace Dean. He has had 5 transfer windows to address our midfield and yet they are still weak as dishwater. I genuinely don’t think he sees it. Utterly awful.

He was so poor today but no worse than McGinn, Luiz. Bert, AEG or Konsa. He always looks better when he comes on for the last 15 minutes. Hopefully won’t start again.

Stop your 9 iron chips forward you useless donut and stop using your ass as a form of defence. It doesn’t work

If our second half of the season had been our first half of the season, Smith would have been gone by Christmas. I am not saying he should be sacked but I am sure that the owners will be having the discussion. Likely two more defeats to come and possibly a twelfth place finish and he is under massive pressure (quite rightly too).

Really poor everywhere today. We have the most unintelligent players ever. They could not read a Janet and a John book. They anticipate nothing. Pathetic as predicted by me pre match.

I called it before. A championship performance from a championship team. Woeful all over the park. Made a poor team look like Brazil.

Weak as shandy bass

I like Bert but he is having a shocker today. Get him off

The good and bad of villa in a single half. Some of our passing and movement in the first and last 15 minutes was fantastic. Ollie was a real handful. We actually posed a threat from some corners for once. Midfield has again been an issue. We are woeful without the ball. Terrible at anticipating/winning second balls at the edge of both boxes. The goal should have been cleared about three times. McGinn then gave the ball away whilst trying to ass his way out of trouble. Just poor.

Totally agree with this but we do desperately need a dead ball specialist from somewhere. We win so many free kicks and corners and rarely threaten from any of them. Add 10 goals from dead ball situations and we would climb another few places without having todo too much.

The number of championship level players. Elmo, Hause, AEG, Ramsey. On second half season form you could maybe add McGinn, Bert and Luiz to that list too. Then just look at the bench. It’s not a criticism, just an observation. I hope I am wrong. We shall see.

Hope you’re right. We will see. UTV