Graham t

Frankly I would not be surprised to see Jack leave in January. We look certainties to go down ( we are currently in the worst form of any team in the Premiership ).He will have been ' tapped up' by virtually every team in the top tier. Man. Utd have made no secret of their admiration of his talents. Good luck to him as Villa have failed to build a team around him . You can see his frustration at the moment, it must be maddening for a guy of his talents to play with some of the dross the club have assembled around him.

2 hours ago, lexicon said:

Stopped reading after the first sentence. No, it's really, really not. 

Brian Clough would diasagree with you. He said football was a 'simple game made complicated by idiots'. Personally I feel he was right.

He won't play Kodgia I imagine as he is pencilled in to be sold and he therefore doesn't want him injured. Can't be any other explanation for playing Wesley in my opinion.

51 minutes ago, KenjiOgiwara said:

Where do you got 140 million from? 

Sorry I have been watching Wolves get robbed at Anfield or I would have back to you earlier. 146million as quoted on talk sport. Hope this  clarifies things for you.

1 hour ago, zab6359 said:

Damn a newly promoted team struggling to get results in the toughest league in the world...........who'd a thunk it hey! 

Not Sheffield United.......

1 hour ago, GodsBarkeep said:

It's that time of year isn't it mate.

lots of disappointment caused by unrealistic expectations

Fortunately the schools start back soon.

 

So you were expecting to be relegated after a spend of £140 million? You should have contacted the board and told them to save their money as we obviously had no chance of survival.......

Relax? No offence but you obviously don't care wether we win or lose, I do and so do many others.

We are half way through the season and Smith had no idea what his best side is. Players who are the in and out of the team will ,not unreasonably, think that Smith doesn't know what he is doing....

Smith playing Wesley isn't bad management, its stupidity........

1 minute ago, mykeyb said:

I bet they will have someone lined up for a quick appointment.

Smith maybe?????

This team is in 'free fall'. We are awful all over the pitch and some players are not trying. Can anyone see this team getting another point anywhere, I can't. We have just played the the 3 worst teams in the league and only got a very lucky 3 points off Norwich. Not only that we are now getting hammered not just losing by the odd goal. I thought he could do the job but I was wrong, he can't.

I would choose anybody who promised not to play a centre forward who never scores any goals and can miss from inside the 6 yard box.....

17 minutes ago, Brentfordnylons said:

God some of you on here are so embarassing listen to yourselves and think where you were just a year ago and even getting tanked by the likes of us.If you hound a decent manager like Dean out of your club in such a short time I suggest you look towards the where the likes of Stoke or Forrest have ended up.There are plenty of Big clubs stuck in the lower leagues these days and all have been guilty of forever changing managers and ending up skint.If the worse came to the worse and you went down Dean could get you back up and stronger like Sean D at Burnley.FFS Big Sam 

 

He has failed and he knows it. Admitting that he is unable to motivate the players is the same as saying ' I don't know what to do'. Its his job to know what to do, he's the manager, remember....

26 minutes ago, KenjiOgiwara said:

Yes. That's what it is. I am shagging Smith. 

Is he any good at it? He must be good at something.....

2 minutes ago, Keyblade said:

Norwich are currently outplaying Spurs, not sure what that indicates since we got the 3 points.

If we stay up on goal difference, that would be a success. As it stands we're a point off that goal with half the season still to be played. It's not time to panic just yet.

No , please panic now.....We are getting worse every game and our best player will move in January and I don't blame him....

6 minutes ago, Paul33 said:

Smith will be going nowhere ..... guaranteed. He is part of a long term plan and if that plan starts badly with relegation (I don't believe it will FWIW) then he WILL still be manager next season. You are wasting your time wishing for a managerial change !

You are wrong. Another couple of performances like recent ones at Villa Park and he will get 'murdered 'by the crowd. He will walk away if he has any pride at all ( and fearing his own personal safety ), very sad as he is a decent man way out of his depth. Fat Sam please, you don't have to like him but he is our only hope to stay up.

This is Lerner and Lambert Mark 2. We are not just losing we are getting hammered. The answer is obvious really. Smith has to go. He wasted £140 million on sub-standard players (Heaton being the exception). It would be insanity to give him anymore money I don't expect the board to sack him, they were the idiots who extended his contract when we were hovering around the relegation zone.

37 minutes ago, Sulberto21 said:

If you look through the history of some my posts you will see I am very critical of Dean Smith as up until now he has stuck religiously to a system which unfortunately we don't have the players for and his Brentford and Walsall teams pressed high and dominated the ball. Also when we got promoted I thought we should bring in Marcelo Gallardo but that’s a personal preference as I believe he is going to be successful. 

Had we played the same 4-3-3 and with the high full backs we have played all season our GD would have taken a hit. We would have conceded a-lot more than the 3/4 chances they had. 

So why didn't this happen? Because Dean Smith decided to change his tactics. Of course they had a few chances but we had good chances too. El-Ghazi , El-Mohamady clean through only to totally muck up his cross. 

We stifled their players so we actually limited them because of our formation and we pressed them much better than we have done. Norwich like cutting teams up with threaded passes through the middle and in between the lines ( against Liverpool they should have won). And then he tactically bought on Hourihane which was a tactical move and in the interim 15-20 minutes we dominated them. So credit where credit is due. 

Criticism is justified when we lose but credit is also justified when we win, especially as Dean Smith changed formation and also allowed Jack the freedom to play wherever he wanted today.  

Also Dean Smith definitely isn’t the Messiah. We need reinforcements and Smith needs to be more flexible but a-lot of credit is due to him today as he changed things for the betterment of the team.  

Some good points raised and a thoroughly fair assessment of the game today. But......it was only Norwich.......His faith in Wesley will get him sacked and my team relegated .

1 minute ago, sidcow said:

Basically he's a striker but all of his best work is done outside of the opposition box, and in fact he's a complete dead weight inside the box. 

How long does he have to go without scoring before he's dropped? 

Smith paid 22 million for him. As long as Smith is manager then Wesley will be our centre forward wether he scores or not ....

5 minutes ago, Vive_La_Villa said:

Battled all game. Chased, harassed defenders, played some good link up play, played a part in the goal. 
 

All nothing special I admit but still not bad for someone that isn’t even a footballer 

Basically then he ran about a bit then. Actually Grealish created the goal and I didn't see the 'good link up play' either. Sorry I think we see things differently.

atb

G.T.

On 24/12/2019 at 12:13, lexicon said:

10 minutes ago, Vive_La_Villa said:

We’ll have to agree too disagree mate. I thought he was one of our better players especially considering how isolated he was. 

Apart from 'running about a bit' what else did he contribute? Could you be specific please as I am genuinely interested in why some people seem to think that he is a footballer.....

Sorry me old cocker but I don't find our situation funny at all. I love the club and passionately want us to succeed. Relegation is a certainty if we continue to play as we are doing at the moment.....

1 hour ago, DCJonah said:

Deserves the chance to build something here. 

Unless it becomes an absolute disaster he gets my support.

We are in the relegation zone. How much of a disaster are you looking for...........

1 hour ago, Sulberto21 said:

Im not the biggest Smith fan, but he got the tactics spot on today. Our defensive midfield did the job of getting stuck in. He made the full backs narrow so they couldn’t play through us. 
 

El-Ghazi has got to play on the left though as he is much better from this side. 

Smiths tactics.....we played one of the worst teams in the division....they hit the woodwork twice and Heaton made a string of world class saves....he continues to play a centre forward who is just awful. Norwich will rightly consider themselves unlucky. Glad of the points but not kidding myself that our ' messiah' continues to rely on luck to get a win not tactics

I thought we were really poor again today. Take Heaton and Grealish out of this team and we would not win another game. As for Wesley, don't get me started! Glad of the points though, Norwich were the better team but Heatonwas brilliant in goal for us ( again).