Harry

I think his loan was much more to do with the strikers we have - Tammy and Kodjia with Davies as back up. Seems to me that Smith has got a lot out of players who were being vilified on VT - Taylor and Whelan anyone? I agree he is probably a championship player but a good one

Play offs achieved - what a result!

Great result but our wastefulness in front of goal was not good. Having said that we did the job required.

They know who they are

Life is sweet today....another three points off the Blues who yet again show their utter lack of class as a club; their fans and that fan, rubbish blowing all over the pitch, I think I saw one of their stewards being led away by the police, the shameless targeting of Jack by the Blues players....I could go on.....Oh I think I will, Monk seems to think they should have won

As I have said on VT before Villa fans have to have at least one player as our resident pantomime villain to abuse in any given season. At the moment it’s a toss up between Taylor and Hutton as Westwood was a couple of years ago for example. I can’t imagine the abuse they get either at the game or on forums like this help in any way at all. We have seats eight rows from the back of the Holte so in a pretty good position to judge atmosphere which for the most part is poor. It’s good when we are winning but rapidly decends to near silence punctuated by groans every time a pass goes astray or we are not attacking the opposition. Personally I don’t think we get behind the players hardly at all, we are not that mythical ‘twelfth man’. OK you aren’t going to be singing or chanting for the entire game but it awfully quiet at a lot of games.

Great post. Spoiler alert - we are just not that a big a draw for many managers. Just being ‘Aston Villa’ is not enough to attract the sort of names that get bandied around on VT. Rodger? Benitez? Dream on. We are currently a bang average mid table Championship side whose squad needs to be majorly rebuilt on limited funds. Personally I don’t think we can hope for much better than Smith and I do think he needs to be given time as I believe he can rebuild the squad and get us playing the right sort of football. Bruce got 100 games over two years and spent tens of millions to take us nowhere and yet 3-4 months in fans want Smith out to bring in who? Oh yes that dream manager, the best manager we have ever had......until he loses a few games.

Glad I missed it.

Who are they? Mings is in the starting eleven today and Carroll and Hause are on the bench.

Very much agree with those thoughts. For once we have not made panic buys or brought in aging players often on high salaries to try to solve a problem. This is very much building for the future in how we have handled our existing squad, particularly the younger players going out on loan. Just because we did not sign a player for a particular position like LB does not mean we did not try. Personally I think it shows the benefits of a football CEO, a DoF and a forward thinking young manager.

Absolutely agree with this comment. I don’t think I have posted regarding transfers this window not least because of the vitriol about certain players we have in our squad already but slagging off a player who has never played for us really takes us to a new level. i just hope he has a good first game for us otherwise I think VT will go into meltdown

The worst I have seen us play since our relegation season. The team was outplayed and outsmarted by a bang average Swansea who pretty much controlled the game for 75% of the time. The defence was woeful with Bree being by far the worst, constantly out of position and caught out. Hutton at CB...really? I actually felt sorry for Hogan, he ran the channels but never got a chance save for that early shot. Lansbury looking decent was the only bright spot. Personally I would have rather we played a whole second string side. Until he brought on Kodja, Lansbury and Davies the tactics and formation looked little short of inept.

Smith took Whelan off and put Hogan on. Under Bruce it would have been the exact opposite. Stoke were Stoke - exactly what i expected to be honest - in your face and dirty We lacked a bit of flair and the midfield did little to protect the back four. I smiled when we equalised when the Stoke player with his 'injury' was clearly hoping play would be stopped.

Hooofffff!!!!!!!

The comparison between Bruce and Smith is simply incredible. We always knew we were a better side, it just needed a manager to get us to play like one.