av1

Agreed, there was very little remorse in her interview.

You would have thought that she has given the home office decision, though I guess I'm giving the home office more credit than they deserve.

He has ability but I'm not sure his natural position moving forward is going to be out wide. Every single time he receives the ball his first instinct is to cut back inside. At first I put this down to him being a young guy with little first team experience, taking the safe option if you like rather than backing himself to beat the fullback, but the more I watch him don't think it's down to that at all. There are times when the full backs have been pulled inside, he has huge open spaces on the outside to drive into and his first thought is still to cut back in. I don't watch youth football so I can't comment on his positioning at younger age groups but he simply doesn't look like a winger to me, maybe more of a 2nd striker?

So you acknowledge that Smith has taken over a team in freefall yet believe a top 6 finish should be a minimum requirement? You're making no sense at all.

Our squad has got worse, theirs have better, apart from that I guess you're right.

I wonder how @M_Afro would have reacted to the appointment of Tony Barton at the time given he had never managed before

This is fecking hard work. Where do you both think we should be then? Because I would I happily swap our squad with those of Leeds, WBA, Sheffield UTD, Norwich and probably Derby.

No, you're missing the point, as evidenced by your very next sentence. You say that "quite rightly" Brentford are thrilled with finishing 10th, so the fact Smith took them there is an achievement no?

Rather than lisening to how a Aston Villa quantifies his performance at Brentford and Walsall I'd rather listen to how fans of Brentford and Walsall quantify it. All of whom think he did a great job.

Based on the fact that in his first summer at Brentford he signed 14 players, all of whom are either currently still performing in the Brentford 11 or have been sold for massive profit. But hey, let's forget about that and pretend our board employed him because his dad was a steward.

Agree with all that mate. There is a long way to go but there were a few promising signs.

Give it a bloody rest ffs.

A big issue we have within the squad (aswell as a lack of quality) is a lack of leaders. Last season Snodgrass and Terry helped massively with that so i honestly believe that even with his own squad Bruce wouldn't have been doing any better with this bunch this season so I don't think it's fair to measure Smith against last seasons 5th place finish. The style of football has changed significantly over the last few months aswell, from a possession based build up we seem to have reverted to the same sort of football we saw under Bruce. Now there is 2 or 3 on here that think that's down to Smith not being up to the job, I disagree. I think after the injuries to Axel and Jack (before which both the style and results were impressive) he has realised that his style doesn't suit the players currently available to him so has reverted to a more direct style. Things aren't going well but I'm really not sure what changes can be made. People are bemoaning the fact that he is sticking with a formula that isn't working but there aren't many options available to him, and if anyone suggests bringing in the kids I'd love them to also tell me what kids they are talking about, because I'd hazard a guess that those calling for it have probably never seen any of these kids play. It's not great but I trust him to rebuild the squad in the summer

It's nice to see that you haven't noticed that we actually play a 4-3-3. 2-0 win.

Spot on.