weedman

Great, I was all set and resigned to us going down, now I'm looking at this going, "this all looks very plausible", and now have hope again. When we inevitably still get relegated now it'll hurt even more, thanks a lot!

Win Thursday and we're guaranteed to be in a better position though

And we gave them 6 points as well

To be fair we could get 7 points with only 2 shots on target in 4 games...I mean obviously we won't, because that would require 3 clean sheets and us being clinical in front of goal, but technically it's possible

No way, sacrificing the future for short term results is not the answer, nor is sacrificing the present for supposed long term gains, the answer is finding the right balance, we're too far into the planning for the future but forgetting about the present side right now, going too far the other way is just as, if not more costly in the medium to long term. We need an experienced core, ST, MC, DC, GK with "up and coming" players backing them up, we have half of that with Heaton and Mings, the lack of an experienced CM and ST has been costly as well as big injuries to our most experienced senior player in Heaton and Wesley who was just getting into his stride (and even before that has been clearly superior to Davis and Samatta) Going too Steve Bruce or Tony Pulis works in the short term but is unsustainable, we've gone too far the other way. You can see we tried to address it in Jan, bringing in an experienced GK, ST and MC, but with no real budget they've not really made much difference to us

Sherwood took over when we had a core of Guzan, Vlaar, Delph and Benteke, all in their prime. We were underachieving for sure, but we shouldn't have been anywhere near the relegation places. Smith took over when we didn't have a fit CB at the club and had just sacked a manager for failing miserably in our "easy" start to the season, it's not remotely comparable. Sherwood also presided over the biggest shit show I have ever seen from any club, an absolute shambles from top to bottom, leaving us in a position that Lambert, for all his faults, never came close to

What would your alternative be to this?

Look at the last 2 paragraphs, 1, which you agree with, stating that the manager is effectively at the mercy of the scouting team because they won't have personally scouted the players, they are basing their decision off the information they are given by the scouts, and then only a few lines later saying that it's not the scouts fault The extensive background checks you speak of, think they were personally handled by Dean Smith during the season in between games and training sessions when it was considered very likely we'd be shopping in the Championship market and wouldn't even need the players? Of course not, the scouting team went out, made their judgements and passed that information on to the manager, so to place no blame on the scouts and the majority of it on the manager for signings doesn't make sense to me The manager has an input, position, style of play, personality etc and its the scouting team that go out and find players to recommend based on that criteria, if they come back recommending duds and claiming they're superstars how's the manager to know? It's not like we had a lot of time to completely rebuild the side is it so we didn't have the luxury to say, "no, I'm not 100% so we'll leave it", we had to go with, "I'm not 100% but we need bodies, he seems to tick most boxes so let's go for him"

We signed 12 players in a short space of time over 1 summer after what, just a few weeks earlier, would be considered a highly unlikely promotion, and you think the manager was personally scouting all the players we signed over long periods? The manager that only joined the club 6 months prior and was in a league where you play twice a week? When do you expect Dean Smith watched Trezeguet? Or Luiz? Nakamba? Wesley? And not just watched them, watched them extensively enough to form a balanced opinion on their personality and ability to step up to PL football? You make out I'm crazy, but you're suggestion that he personally scouted all the players we signed is physically impossible and completely insane. There would be some players he obviously knew more of if 1) they had previously been discussed probably when he was at Brentford, 2) he had worked with them before and 3) the ones on loan to us last year You're next line is basically exactly what I'm saying, they have a database of people that the scouting team have identified and will be discussed with the manager and director of football and whoever else is in that team until they decide on a player to to for, that's not Dean Smith personally scouting players, he's as much at the mercy of the scouting team as anyone. I'm not absolving Dean Smith from blame for our position by the way, I thought this season would be tough but I feel he should be doing a bit better than he is but this thread has descended into the Steve Bruce thread, either you think every single thing is the managers fault and every single thing he has ever achieved is nothing but luck OR you're a blind fan who loves the manager above all else with literally no middle ground, it's crazy.

Its not that the manager has no say, its that he only has the information the scouts give him to base his decision on. There are no games in the summer anyway, but even if there were, you think the manager of any club is able to extensively scout 12 players all signed in about 5 weeks by himself? The scouts will come to him and say, there's this chap, they call him Trezeguet, he's a hero in Egypt, rapid, full of tricks, a work horse and absolutely ready for this league, here's his highlights reel. By the way Elmo rates him too, they'll form one hell of a partnership! This will happen with several players and they'll decide which one to go for as a team The manager has a say, but ultimately whoever is scouting the players is responsible for the eventual signings

Except that Reina has occasional great games

I mean clearly in terms of net spend this year was the most they've spent out of your examples there Also they signed players like Pontus, a player in his prime that likely won't go up in value, its completely against their usual model of signings unknown youngsters to resell for £20m to us a year later. It was solely to have a crack at promotion this year and is not comparable to the team Smith managed. It's like comparing man city managers pre and post takeover and saying "well they both managed man city", the conditions are so different they may as well be different teams.

OK so you believe that he only went out partying one time and just got super unlucky it also happened to be the one time he crashed his car and got caught on camera, I personally don't think that was the only time he was out partying. Its not exactly a secret he likes a drink is it? I have no issue with people's personal lives, but there's a reason it takes him so long to get up to speed compared with other, more professional players, and when our position is so precarious and he's so important to our team it would have been nice if he'd bucked that trend on this one occasion It's a little annoying but not really a big deal at the start of the season, 5/6 average games where he's still at least close to being our best player in a 38 game season isn't bad, 5/6 games in a post lockdown 10 game fight for survival is far more of an issue, and that's where people's frustration is coming from. We needed him firing straight away, he wasn't

That doesn't mean there aren't areas of his game he needs to work on does it? I said earlier, he is still our best player, but jeez if he'd just gone against the norm this one time during lockdown and got himself into mega shape for the run in and come back firing instead of partying with his mates and coming back needing 6 games to get going we'd probably have 2 wins now and be nearly safe. It's incredibly frustrating because if he'd just been about 20% less Jack Grealish and more James Milner during lockdown we'd probably be in a much healthier position now

I can already see the autobiography title, "My story so Farr"

He's not right because he doesn't keep himself fit when not playing, he likes a drink and a party. It takes him half a dozen games to get going as a result of this. He'll pick up and get back to his best in the last couple of games far too late to save us

So you're saying our expectations were too high and as a result we are judging DS too harshly?

He's still our best player, but really irking me at the moment. It's so frustrating that it takes him half a dozen matches to get up to speed, you can maybe get away with that at the start of a proper season but at the start of a 10 game must win run of games to save us from relegation? Come on, was it that much of an ask to spend a few months working your butt off instead of partying with your mates and come back fit and firing? It's only another 10 games and you'd get to head off to Manchester a Villa legend having dragged us through to the end, instead of ending your time at Villa with a whimper

McGinn I'm not sure about, he's been pretty terrible since his good opening 10 games or so

People keep bringing up this square ball, he was sprinting in and the pass was too heavy, the only way he was scoring that was if he was 1) 2 yards offside 2) prime Gabby pace wise 3) had 20ft long legs like Peter Crouch There are only a handful of players in the league who could have scored there and they are all the quickest ones, Vardy, Aguero, Sterling etc I love Davis, I think it's only a matter of time and some regular games before he starts scoring

There's really not a lot Smith can do about those, those are the sort of players you get when you have to spread your money out so much. I mean I like Hause, he wins everything in the air and is a really good defensive option at set pieces (50p head makes him basically worthless in attack) but he wasn't good enough for the Wolves reserves, is our 4th choice CB and cost about £2m. We're not signing a player that's not making the odd mistake for that. In terms of goalkeeper we've currently got to choose between our 3rd and 4th choice due to injuries, again, neither can be considered a significant upgrade over the other and training can only achieve so much. We're not going to be steamrolling teams, never conceding any chances and winning our last 9 games, but I was encouraged last night, we looked organised and the only chances they created came from a couple of individual errors, which we can't really do much about. We created some good chances and aside from 1 fantastic save we'd have won that with a goal for Davis. They had really only 2 openings the whole game, the terrible pass from Hause which we stopped before they even had an attempt, and the "goal" which was out of nothing, I think a team in 19th restricting a team in 6th to only 2 half chances in 90 minutes, while creating much better openings at the other end is pretty good going. I'm not convinced we'll stay up, but we've got a better chance now than we did before the break, I'm hoping the fact we've had an extra game will allow us to catch Chelsea cold on Sunday and steal a win

Who can? Reina is the biggest flapper I've ever seen in goal and Heaton and Steer are injured aren't they? We have 2 fit keepers and 1 of them is a 74 year old who thinks he's Iniesta

Oh and I agree with that as well, Samatta is clearly the better player at the moment and even if Wes was fit he should be our #1 this season (or #9?) but Wes wasn't brought here to be the finished article, he was brought to learn and improve. His ceiling is much higher than Samatta by all accounts but it won't just happen overnight, it'll take him some time to get used to this level of football. I think a season in the championship would be the making of him personally but let's hope it doesn't come to that and he can improve while being #2 to Samatta in the PL next season!