KMitch

Fair enough. As you said, neither of us knows exactly what the contract states, so it's a bit pointless to continue to speculate what can happen.

The players know this too... A lot of them probably don't like Smith's style of play, which requires A LOT of running and pressing, and they know Smith doesn't have a lot of options at his disposal, so they'll play regardless of how they perform.

Then why didn't we sign Mepham from Brentford in January? We apparently bid more than Bournemouth did? It's not like the player had a choice in the matter... Also, what you're mentioning above is called a "First Refusal" clause, not an "Option to Buy" clause, which is what was reportedly what we agreed to with Bournemouth as part of the loan deal.

If the contract we signed with Bournemouth says we have already agreed to purchase him for a certain price, they have to honor that deal, regardless of what someone else bids.... But, whatever. It's better to moan about something which is completely unrealistic.

Oh, no. I 100% agree with that, but if we haven't made any sort of progress after a year, I'll be wanting to look for someone else to lead the team.

Yes, because why would he want to come here????? You act like the player isn't the one making the decision...

I mean... Fans are fickle, but I even remember people complaining about MON when we were in the hunt for a Champions League spot. I'm going to continue sticking by Smith for another season. If we're still playing the same garbage football next February after 2 more windows of rebuilding, I'll 100% be in the "Smith Out" camp.

Let's wait until the end of the season first... Don't want to sign him up right now, only for the injuries to return. If he continues to be solid, though, I'm sold!

So... Now that we salvaged a point, had a stonewall penalty turned down, and have gotten screwed over by the ref for their 2nd goal, is everyone still Smith Out???? haha

My fear was that no matter who we replaced Bruce with, the fans wouldn't support him until the summer, no matter how difficult the struggle this season would be. We need better players all over the pitch and it's going to take several windows to work them out. Blame Smith, Blame Bruce, Blame Lerner/Xia, I don't care. We need to start building for the long term now and stop with quick fixes.

Same here... I keep seeing comments blasting Smith for continuing to play Hutton & Taylor. As shit as Hutton is, he's still better than Elmo, and we don't have another LB in the squad, unless he plays Mings there. We have no backup for Grealish in the center of the park and we have a plethora of shit CMs who are equally as useless as the next (Jedi, Whelan, Thor, Lansbury, etc.) Our wingers are one dimensional and apart from running at one defender, they can't do anything else.

Will this season finally end so we can get rid of some of these useless shitters?

News was that we made a better offer to Brentford for Mepham than Bournemouth, who ended up signing him for 12 million. I'm positive the money is there to spend, if we identify the right player for the right price. I don't think many of our targets were available for the "right price" or they don't want to play in the Championship, which means we're being ambitious in who we are going for first.

Didn't the Scum straight up ignore FFP transfer embargo restrictions and sign a player this summer? There was all kinds of talk in the papers about the EFL possibly deducting points from them, but then it all went quiet when the season started. FFP is a complete joke.

That explains why Elphick has been so good lately... He's only like 4'11" at this point, isn't he?

At this rate, I would rather have the club re-sign Elphick for another 2 seasons and try to offload Chester this summer for some funds to spend on a young CB prospect. He looks like the player he was for Bournemouth again. Solid defensively, calm, collected, decent in possession, and a threat from set pieces.

We aren't out of the playoff running yet... A lot can happen between now and the end of the season. Jack will be back by the end of the month, with Axel shortly after that. Reading was the best performance our defense gave all season. If we can just figure out how to keep the backline solid while still feeding Tammy, we can easily sneak into the playoff spots when spring rolls around.

Smith is like the managerial equivalent of McGinn, IMO. He works hard, but isn't anywhere near the finished article yet. He has shown flashes of his potential, but needs a lot of time and the resources to build the team with him. I think that was the board's intention with Smith as well. Unless the wheels completely fall off on the pitch, they're going to stick with him over a period of time and see if he achieves their agreed upon goals.

Contrast this to Villa over the years. We sell our best players and replace them with shit, hence why we've gone from competing for Champions League football 10 years ago to being a mid-table Championship club today. It wasn't an instantaneous change, but a gradual slippage because of one after another poor business decisions. Selling your best players and not reinvesting properly year over year, as Villa have shown, will result in the club dropping down the table. The fact that Smith was able to stabilize Brentford's league position, while losing his best players every year, its an accomplishment themselves. Also, Brentford were genuine promotion contenders before Smith left and came to Villa. After he left, they lost 8 out of their next 10 games and slipped to the bottom of the table. That was a direct result of Smith leaving that club. Period.

Yeah, and your team went on this fantastic run after Smith left: Wins: 1 Draws: 1 Losses: 8 You guys were promotion contenders before he left, now you're just a bottom half team. I think he massively improved you from where you would be without him.

Unless someone offers us $25 Mil (which is what James Maddison went for last summer) I have a feeling that the board will tell them to do one. Jack has had some pretty lengthy injuries these past 2 seasons and I think that's going to be enough to put off any club from paying the kind of money we'll be wanting for him.

He was my Man of the Match. He was all over the pitch pressing, tackling, and looking for a pass. I honestly thought he was McGinn several times.

Positives: Was the best our defense looked all season. Mings is a player, Elphick almost scored, but hit the bar instead, Taylor was immense, running up and down the pitch all game, and Kalinic looked a bit like a 7 million pound keeper. I was impressed with the overall team's ability to press and work hard throughout the first half. Negatives: We were shit going forward. Lots of effort from Taylor and Hutton going forward, but our crossing was pathetic and every other cross either was over hit, or didn't make it past the first man. Also, what were some of those awful set pieces? We're usually a threat from corners/free kicks, but beside's Elphick's header, we threw most of them away. Overall: If we had Jack in the side, we would have easily won that game. Our defense looks more stable and some players are putting in more effort off the ball.

Out of all the positions in the team, I think our holding/deep-lying midfielders have gotten the most flack from our fans over the years. Even Petrov was getting called "The Crab" by fans because he only passed the ball sideways. If they can tackle, fans bitch about how they can't pass. If they can pass, fans give them stick about not defending well enough. If they aren't dominating games, they're "too lightweight", etc.

I think a lot of fans are frustrated by the fact that we've been declining as a club for 10 seasons now and are lashing out at anything and everything they don't agree with. There are some who are going overboard and unreasonably slagging off many decisions or lack of decisions that the club makes. On the other hand, you have a new contingent of fans who blindly defend every single decision the club makes, now that we have new owners & a new manager and will bash anyone questioning anything as a "Bruce Lover". I think most fans are somewhere in the middle and cautiously optimistic with Smith, Purslow, and the new owners, but we've been screwed over so many times in the past by Deadly, Lerner, Xia, and a revolving door of managers, that they're afraid that if they get too bought into the talk, it's only going to end in disappointment, like we've come to expect. The problem is that both the "doom mongers" and the "happy clappers" are lumping any opinion on here in with the other group and it's becoming Bipartisan Politics. A lot of fans don't want to express their opinions openly, because if it doesn't match that of the herd, discussions will turn into posts of people just high-fiving each other for being smarter than others.