Thug

Didn't realise Smith was a physiotherapist...

Brentford have got shit players. We've got 3 or 4 worth north of £10 million.

I'm kinda glad he didn't go after the final. He'd have had this "nearly took them up, unfairly sacked" thing to bleat on about. There's no better example of how wrong he had been doing it, than what is being done now. Also, we'd have most likely had some french guy in charge... probably doing a shitter job than Bruce. Our players look fit, hungry and bloody interested at last. Kodjia is passing and running hard, who'd have thunk! Even Taylor is looking alright!

Get some UB40 on?

Nice little cameo. Trying a little too hard and gave the ball away a couple of times, but good energy, nice work for the 3rd.

Wow, Norwich are on some run huh? I'm sure I saw that they were one of the youngest teams in the division too. And all the scare mongers who were talking about machines and cogs... look at number 22.

I can't agree with this as hard as I try. We wasted 2 years under him. The squad of players he had at his disposal should have walked the championship last year. As for stabilising the club? Had Nassef and Wes not ridden in on a white horses, Bruce's inability to get us up with THAT squad would have been what cost us our future. Xia must be wondering what might have been had he appointed a less negative manager.

The crazy part is that it was so obviously plain to see to every man and his dog.. except to the 1 man that actually mattered. Play to your strengths, don't use your trump cards to "protect" the weakness. He was just soooooooo negative, and it was feeding down into the players.

I don't worry about any defensive team at all these days, Only way you're going to beat this team is to attack us hard.

You can't sit back against us.. which is what they'll try to do

2-0 villa. Abraham with both

No prob, but I totally disagree with what you think the stats show. My interpretation is that we are conceding fewer shooting opportunities than all the top six (including boro) except for Leeds. You could argue that this then proves we are allowing the opposition to progress to much better shooting opportunities to allow for a much higher conversion rate, but in all honesty, the forest game was an exception and not the norm. If you look at the games against QPR and Swansea, where they did manage to muster up quite a few shots on goal, we’ve conceded only once in 180 minutes of those games. Up until the forest game we were conceding on average 0.83 goals per game, better than ALL the top 6 except boro (but really.. who wants to emulate them?) i know it’s not right to start picking and choosing which games you include in stats etc, but I’m pretty sure if you asked anyone after the blues game if our defence was any good, they’d have said no - when statistically under smith they had been better than all our rivals (except the bus in front of the goal that is boro) The defence really hasn’t been half as bad as people are making out (statistically anyway) and I think that will be proven going forwards. There’s been a pretty heated debate on here about the defence, but I think it’s almost become like a game of Chinese whispers over the course of a few pages. The original argument started when one poster pretty much implied that everyone was giving Smith a ‘free pass’ even though the defence was a total horror show. At this point some posters (myself included) pointed out that ACTUALLY the defence was improved on what Bruce had been in charge of. The statistics proved this. It has somehow been dragged from that point to others believing that there was a consensus that our defence was completely fine and comparable to the other top 6. strangely enough, the statistics show that we’re actually not far off. Statistics aren’t everything, and my eyes tell me something else. And the old saying ‘you’re only as good as your last game’ holds some leverage here. My current opinion is that our defence is ok. Time will tell how right I am.

I think that's what we tried to give Micah... but someone "helpful" fixed the "typo".

What do they mean "got off the marK"? My man got "off the mark" against Sheff Utd

I'm not too worried about Boro. One thing they like to do is let teams attack them. That's the one thing we're good at.

Team Games Goals For Gls/gm Shots/gm (on target) Possession Shots A/gm Gls against GA/pg Rating Norwich 19 32 1.68 14 4.9 53.9 11.6 21 1.11 6.81 Leeds 19 32 1.68 15.4 4.6 59.2 9.7 17 0.89 6.87 Boro 19 22 1.16 13.6 3.6 46.4 12.4 10 0.53 6.86 WBA 19 41 2.16 14 4.5 52.2 14.7 27 1.42 6.84 Sheff Utd 19 32 1.68 12.9 4.2 52.3 12 23 1.21 6.79 Forest 19 30 1.58 11.5 3.9 51.4 12.6 21 1.11 6.84 Smith 7 16 2.29 16.1 5.1 59.6 11.4 10 1.43 6.99 (-forest) 6 11 1.83 14.5 4 59.1 12 5 0.83 7.01

Surprisingly.. ONLY Leeds have fewer shots per game against them. Really did not expect this. But this includes all shots, a more accurate reflection would be shots on target I suppose, but I dare not work that out in case Nyland reads these forums and loses even more confidence.

Team Games Goals For Gls/gm Shots/gm (on target) Possession Shots A/gm Gls against GA/pg Rating Norwich 19 32 1.68 14 4.9 53.9 11.6 21 1.11 6.81 Leeds 19 32 1.68 15.4 4.6 59.2 9.7 17 0.89 6.87 Boro 19 22 1.16 13.6 3.6 46.4 12.4 10 0.53 6.86 WBA 19 41 2.16 14 4.5 52.2 14.7 27 1.42 6.84 Sheff Utd 19 32 1.68 12.9 4.2 52.3 12 23 1.21 6.79 Forest 19 30 1.58 11.5 3.9 51.4 12.6 21 1.11 6.84 Smith 7 16 2.29 16.1 5.1 59.6 11.4 10 1.43 6.99

Lol, I'm lost in who said what now. I think we all agree - we're MILES better. Our defence could be better. January will be when we see the other part of new team in action - the recruitment side. If that is anything like the playing side, we're in for a treat!

To put things in context, referring to my table above: Since Smith took over,: our average rating by WhoScored is 6.99. The best rated team in the championship is Leeds at 6.88. We would be TOP. Our pass accuracy is 84.29%. The best rated are Swansea with 81.7%. We would be TOP. Our shots per game is 16.14. The best rated team are leeds with 15.4. We would be TOP. Our possession is 59.56%. The best rated team are Leeds with 59.4. We would be TOP. y

No I know you you're not. Of course there's improvements to be made. It's just some people think that we were doing better defensively under Bruce. We really weren't.

Err... I'm proving you right. Edit: My bad, I get what you mean.. it won't be an end to the myth.

Under bruce we were conceding 1.67 goals per game against opposition who are currently at an average league position of 17 Under smith we are conceeding 1.43 per game against opposition who are currently at an average league positon of 9.57

Lol its an excel spread sheet of before and after smith appointment

Ok, a little bit sad... but above are statistics from whoscored Since Smith took over, we are conceding LESS goals than when Bruce was in charge even though we are playing against opponents on average 9 places higher up in the league. This should be an end to the myth that we can't defend under Smith.