Nabby

41 minutes ago, M_Afro said:

Or, entered a new country and league just a few months ago. Was faced with a pandemic within 2 months which left him self isolating. Never had chance to settle. Needs some time before we totally write him off.

By the way he really does not look miserable. Far from it. He seems like a great character. Ridiculous thing to pull him up on. He is also a Champions League regular and thus a year in the Championship probably doesn’t worry him too much.

This he has come from a team top of league dominating games to a team struggling .Look how long it's taken Luiz to get up to speed.

Just now, Mjvilla said:

This. Smith will take a battering for the early season but is getting little to no praise for the improvement.

IMO the majority of the improvement is down to Luiz being MOTM in every game. The defending has improved as he is stopping attacks in midfield or is in the right place to get the ball away in the box.Take him out and we would still be all over the place.

I don't think overall the defending is much better , its more we sit deeper to stop counters now especially the full backs.Indvidual wise attacking we have been poor but I also think as a team with carry little threat  the Grealish /Targett combo on the left has not been effective , though I think this is down the fullbacks not venturing forward as much.

6 minutes ago, Mjvilla said:

Just pointing out those things. It happens all season. To different teams. The less quality you have, it happens more often. That's where we are at. 

See, I thought we've looked alot tighter at the back recent weeks. We're improving, players are improving (Konsa in particular), this is down to coaching no? Perhaps Terry's influence too, I'd hope.

We have looked a bit better at the back but its come at the cost of our attacking threat.Cross's we get into the box come from deeper positions , we don't get to the byline and get balls in very often as the fullbacks sit deeper now particularly Targett.

My issue is we are labouring , 10 mins to go and they have used 5 subs.We have 3 to make and he does nothing and yes I know he doesn't have a great degree of options but at that points it more about fresh legs to chase and win the ball than anything else.It's also about stopping the game..bring on 2 then wait a few mins bring on another break up the flow of the game.

This not a dig at Smith but we seem to be one of a only a few clubs who have zero talent at the 18-20 age group level.Everton tonight for example had Braithwaite and Gordon.Are they current crop so bad none of them are good enough to run around with some energy to win the ball back or chase balls down the line  ?

5 minutes ago, Mjvilla said:

How do you know he did not so this? I saw him and heard him shouting numerous times. 

I suppose guardiola struggled last night with his game management when Bournemouth so very nearly scored 2 goals to bring it level. 

I suppose Klopp struggled with his game management when Liverpool conceded 2 quick goals not long before half time against arsenal? 

It's football, better teams will peg you back at some stage in the game. It's not like they bought on any £50m superstars off the bench is it? Oh, they did. 

When you shop for £8-10m attacking players, you get that quality. Samatta, trez, el ghazi. We defended well, broke well and had **** all up front. We were the better side, but if you were to read this thread in isolation then you'd think we'd just lost 4-0 barely having a shot.

Just because we didn't get the result we needed, it doesn't mean we didn't play well. Any other time in the season, a 1-1 draw away at a side who haven't lost at home with their current manager is a great result. Because it us, no, it's **** terrible. Grealish is shit. They're all bottle jobs and Smith is a terrible manager.

Going down won't be as a result of tonight, it's as a result of earlier results in the season. Earlier falterings, falterings which seem to have phased out (much better defensively). I know Smith won't get any credit from many for this, he does from me. 

 

So in the entire season you are going to use 2 games in which Pep and Klopps teams had nothing to play for .In particular Liverpool conceded 2 goals from 2 huge errors from Allison and Van Dyke who in a game of any importance would never have made those errors.

We where decent , we where the better side but we let it slip because this team and IMO this manager is unable to coach/manage a side to be tight at the back.

1 minute ago, jim said:

We didn’t stop playing, just invited pressure on us as we always do and paid the price. 

The MF where out on their legs magnified when Everton freshened that area up.He did nothing again 

Once again sit on his hands and does nothing when we are losing control of the game.FFS just make a sub kill the game for 30 seconds take the sting out of it 

16 minutes ago, Zatman said:

Kodjia did nothing in his last 2 and a half seasons to get away with being lazy. He was a disgrace this season in the league games he came on and cost us vs Liverpool.

Yes and look where he ended up . He didn't go to a club in a decent league as no one wanted him.He is another like Whelan etc people have decided could of done a job despite them leaving and going to lesser leagues or basically retiring 

7 minutes ago, nick76 said:

and neither do we on this website because he's had differing performances in the positions he's played and there has been a lot of discussion about his influence in various positions.  From playing in midfield, we asked that he moved more forward and he was put at left forward and then he wasnt in the game enough, then moved back into midfield and that wasnt quite working.  People all have their views on this website but I think none of us know his best/most influential position.  Jack is still learning his craft at this level as well, gets found out a lot, has wonderful moments and games but then disappears some games.  A lot of this is the quality around him as well but I still think Jack has a lot to develop like many quality players until they find their niche and until then managers struggle to find the place for these enigmatic players.  Dean has a lot to answer for but Jack's positioning is way way way down the list.

I think alot of that comes down to Jack having so many different manager's in his career and some of them terrible ones.Can imagine if we went city under Pep he would improve massively 

10 hours ago, M_Afro said:

I am pretty sure we were after Cahill but Palace offered more money plus Cahill wanted to stay in London.

Apparently he wanted 2 year deal we only offered one 

5 minutes ago, sne said:

Strange that he played him for pretty much 80-90-80 minutes in his first 3 games back during the restart. He must have been exhausted by HT in those games.

Our fitness levels are terrible all over

2 hours ago, villalad21 said:

John Terry or no John Terry. Dean Smith had suspect defensive records wherever he's been.

This 

3 minutes ago, sne said:

Interesting.

It's the lack of attention to detail that's been bothering me the most. It's been the same with most of our managers for a long time.

There are so many examples but the most blatant one is that we for as long as I can remember never been able to take a throw in without all our players standing completely still and not showing for the ball. That's super basic stuff and takes 1 session to implement but we don't do that. And that's not even an important part of the game, but it still should be done.

I don't know how our practices are done, but if those lack attention to detail then it's petty obvious that the games will too. And we look sloppy.

Throw-ins are a shambles , we take ages oever them and give the ball away alot of the time , as you say its basic stuff.

Lack of change's is another so many times a player has been struggling or us as a team and he does nothing , the opposition score and then we change. Bournmouth away down to 10 he keeps 3 cbs on pitch when we need a goal ..

5 minutes ago, TimTort said:

I’ve said this before, but my brother in law is a Brentford supporter and I saw him this week (first time in months!). We were chatting about Smith and he said that there’s a massive difference at Brentford now in that their Head Coach Thomas Frank has a fantastic eye for detail and changes things quickly when necessary in games, whereas Smith rarely made changes other than the predictable ones. 

Having said that, he’s got a lot of time for Smith, as have most Brentford supporters, because he kept them ticking over and playing decent football, but he doesn’t believe Smith would have taken them to where they are now because he didn’t address defensive frailties nor did he react quickly enough to change the course of games. 

Most interestingly, he said that Thomas Frank’s tactical influence, even when he was the assistant coach, was crucial and he’s amazed Smith didn’t take Frank with him to Villa instead of agreeing to have John Terry in that role. Oh, and he also said that Richard O’Kelly is just Smith’s chauffeur!! lol

Interesting and some of it's where I stand.I watched a Brentford game recently and continually in the commentary they mentioned how much better Brentford are at the back now and that was why they have been able to push for promotion.

I'm sure the contract extension was reward for promotion 

2 minutes ago, TRO said:

I genuinely don't know......I would never have chosen Ron Saunders, so what do I know.

I think it has to be someone who has a decent win ratio, has charisma and presence.

unless you are in that interview its hard to say.

but I have minimal confidence that we would get the next one right.....unless there is a concerted effort to do so and the club move mountains.

I guess, Biesla and Nuno were brave appointments, but i had never heard of them.....there is a lot of luck involved and plenty of shrewd decisions.

Nuno was the 3rd manger at Wolves under new owners IIRC so it is tough to get it right 

Had another stress fracture ,didn't train during lock down only once they got back to group work hence his lack of match fitness 

From Smith interview in the DT

3 minutes ago, Zatman said:

As for the debate here the other day about Frank Lampard, is he really doing a better job than Dean Smith. 

Chelsea have conceded more goals, win less games and lost 4 more games than last season and cant reach the same points total as last season but apparently some on here think he is doing a great job

He has the same issue as Smith his teams are poor at defending but he has better players so as won games , but has done worse than Sarri who was sacked...

12 minutes ago, TRO said:

Do you mean like Sheff utd are doing right now, denying chelsea room to play and stifiling their initiative........like Burnley did today at Liverpool.

we set our stall out, and it was too late to change.....after the lockdown the goals against was halted but the goals for dried up, we have been caught between a rock and a hard place and resulted in the confidence and desire has just drained away

Shef united are well drilled in defending and can counter from there 

Our improvement in defending is down to us sitting deeper and having less attacking threat.Our full backs are deeper and one of them is a CB.

Also on Shef United they loaned in Henderson which will likely benefit Man United in the long term but it helped them short term...we were so bloody arrogant in stating we wouldnt loan as we were too big to develop other teams players.

Purslow takes the most blame 

He was the one who decided on the transfer policy ie young and no loans 

He appointed Suso and Smith and then sat and watched them fail and did nothing

His comments preseason look laughably now and it looks like the Liverpool fans where right about him ...I think he talks a good game and on an admin/marketing  level he may be good but I think his football knowledge is clearly lacking.He is starting to look like another Tom Fox 

Terry might be a crap coach but he is only part of the team ...I'd love to be Richard O'Kelly as this point he seems to be getting away scott free in the blame game.

I wonder if I went on any other clubs forums how many would have thread dedicated to a coach and slating him/praising him for the clubs position  

Just now, rbcuk said:

If he wasn’t a villa fan can guarantee a lot more would want him sacked, I wanted him gone after that Southampton game at Xmas 

If this was Bruce 

1)Terry or any assistant manager /coach would not be taking the abuse Terry is at the moment 

2)Suso may be critized but as many would be saying the players are poorly coached by Bruce

3)100% No on would be saying stick with Bruce he knows the championship he will bring us back up 

3 minutes ago, useless said:

I remember at the start of the season and people saying how poor the premier league was and outside the top six or seven teams the quality wasn't that much better than the top end of the championship. Certainly I can't remember anyone saying that we'd need a miracle to stay up, can remember most getting excited by our signings and praising Suso for how well he'd done with that £140m.

 

It is a poor league , which makes it worse that we are where we are 

The stat is bollox we had no players , we had little choice but to spend.40mil or so of the spend was on the players we had on  loan in Mings ,AEG and Hause.The spending could of been better but it had to be spent or we literally would of had no team to put out.

He will be ok Brentford will have him back look how they have regressed since he left ...oh ..

I don't think its the Prem League that makes football miserable there was plenty of shit times in the championship as well. I saw on twitter people posting the  Grealish goal against Rotherham as better times  I don't want to sound disrespectful to Rotherham but beating a team with a capacity of 12k , the smallest team in the Championship is hardly something to cheer about.We spent millions in fee's and wages over 3 years and never once looked like getting auto promotion let alone winning the league and the play off final defeat was a horrible experience.

How we continue to get things so wrong is frankly amazing for all the wrong reasons.2 Billionaire owners ,various chairmen,various mangers god knows how many players and still we can't get anywhere look at where Wolves are in comparison.If the Newcastle take over goes through I bet they make a success of it also .  We have sold a whole midfield of players who have moved on and been League winners.Player's like Traore currently one of the most in demand players in the league other playing in top leagues in Europe , we look hopeless upfront and there is Ayew popping up with goals that have kept Palace safe from the drop.We buy McCormack who is a goal scoring machine in the Championship and he is hopeless and barely plays for the entirety of his contract .Hogan hopeless for. us sent out on loan and remembers where the goal is.

I can accept challenging to win the league is fantasy thinking but right now I'd settle for just being competitive like Shef United.It would be nice not to go into a game not worried about relegation , not having to suffer the embarrassment of being taken apart by teams like Leicester ( another team who got new ownership and shown what can be done ) 

As soul crushing as it is supporting us I still spend time on here and twitter to talk about us and watch all the games I can. I always have hope it will get better ..its the hope that kills you ..

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