Laughable Chimp

The average expectation according to that poll back then for where we would finish was 14th place. The fact that you had different expectations doesn't mean everyone else did too.

I think there's a good chance a PL club goes for him instead

Those are rather specific circumstances so I'm guessing probably not.

Tbh, I still think 3 strikers was enough. We have 3 right now and Baston is not getting a sniff of the matchday squad. We should've never been forced to play without a striker this season with 3 strikers and the only reason we did was because Smith thought it was a good idea to ship out our one remaining non-injured striker in Kodjia. The problem was the 3 we have are crap. Not that 3 strikers weren't enough.

At least Usain Bolt is going to win 100% of the time. Do people forget the fact that we actually spent 3 years in the championship and almost spent one more?

Lambert actually kept us up for 2 seasons and at least still had a chance at keeping us up for a third before he was sacked. Smith is leading us to what is likely to be a 19th place finish with almost no chance of survival anymore with 4 games still left to play. **** hell, there's a chance we might not even get to 30 points. I don't like to play the "we're Aston Villa, we deserve better" card but **** hell, we bloody deserve better than this. Garde however can get ****. There's being relegated, and then there's being one of the worst PL squads ever. And that squad definitely had potential to be more than one of the worst PL squads ever.

We're not the highest spenders in Europe though. Not even in the PL

Guys, I think we did a Fulham

They overpaid for Joelinton. Like, obviously. Newcastle didn't pay 40m to get the Joelinton they currently have. They expected him to be much better. If you're using overpaid transfer fees as your benchmark standard, obviously every other hypothetical transfer is going to be bumped up like crazy too.

I'm just saying, these past couple of years of terribleness we've had so many changes in squad, owners and managers yet nothing's changed. You know what's the constant? **** Doris. Doris Out!!

All this is gonna result in is that the on field ref will take another look at the incident himself and still make the wrong decision. If a couple of refs in the var room can't make the right decision, I don't think the on field ref who is likely to be even more biased considering he's reviewing his own decision, would do much better. The fundamental problem is shit refs. We can mask it with better technology but if the refs are shit, the calls will always be shit.

I'd say 30m. We'll at least get a couple mil back.

Trez and Jota would've been signed to try and get us promoted. They would still be with us.

Sack Smith. Sack Suso. Sack Purslow. Sack Edens and Sawaris. Sack the squad. Sack the **** tea lady. This entire club needs to be restructured from the core.

Grealish's main asset is his ability to pick a defence. They both have similar goalscoring stats but Grealish's buildup and assist stats are far better. Literally 2.5 times more assists per 90.

Basically this. I think to some extent its very difficult to differentiate the effect of the player himself and the manager from the performance we see on the pitch. So I don't see how people are so sure that the lack of quality we're seeing is a result of the players being shit and not the manager's inept coaching, motivation and tactics.

The plan, was to go up this season true but lets not act like that was by choice. That was because Bruce had **** it up for us so hard that promotion seemed unlikely last season. The only reason this season was targeted was because we felt that last season was lost. It does not however follow that we would've been better of had we been promoted this season than if we had been promoted last season. Our finances were still pretty screwed and we would've lost Grealish. We would've still tried to target promotion considering we are Aston Villa but I wouldn't be so sure we would be actually be better off had we gotten promoted this season than last. If we would even get promoted in the first place.

This is a valid point, but its not really anything to do with the original point you made which is the one I was arguing against. Look, you think that Smith can't do better with the cards he has. That's fair, I disagree but I can't definitively prove you wrong here just as you can't definitively prove me wrong. This however is the only solid basis of your and the pro-Smith argument. Its why this one point has been repeatedly insisted again and again ad nauseaum in this thread. Pretty much every pro-smith claim in this thread goes back to this one claim that cannot be definitively proven wrong. The other stuff about how we shouldn't sack Smith because of "stability" or anything similar however is just bollocks. Its not for this reason why you think we should stick with Smith. If you think Smith should've done better, you wouldn't be arguing that we should stick with Smith because we need more "stability". The point I'm making is that I don't think you and the pro-Smith arguers truly believe in this point. You believe in the point you stated above, not this one.

People aren't saying we should just chop and change willy nilly. However, going with the status quo purely on the idea of "stability" or 'long-term vision" or whatever is silly. It wasn't any kind of "stability" that got us promoted in the first place, it was the owners rightfully judging Bruce had failed and they needed a new approach. Why are people so hesitant to do the same with Smith? To be frank, I don't really think people believe in the "long-term vision" arguments as they really just want another reason to argue why Smith should be kept.

He's an average PL defender. Nothing more. And even saying this I'd say is pretty generous. We overpaid for him. Fullstop.

Honestly, the biggest flaw I feel with Smith is his motivational ability. There was a post on here about how Smith is one of the "lads" and not really a disciplinary figure, and honestly it makes sense. I know this is an increasingly unpopular opinion, but I don't think the players are as bad as many of us think they are. There have been many stretches this season where we have looked really good or at least equal to to our opposition. That first 30 mins against Man U isn't an anomaly. .I don't think that can be possible if our players are just that shit. The problem is we never maintain it for the whole game. Then we concede a goal against the run of play and we turn to shit and start conceding several. This too is not an anomaly and has happened many times. The motivation is gone and we revert to what we usually are. This could be an explanation as to why Smith's sides are so streaky. When we're winning, Smith doesn't have to do much motivating and him being this kind paternal figure would arguably be beneficial to the players. When we're in the shits, he's incapable of being as hard as we need him to be to turn things around. The repeated amount of times we've conceded soon after half time serve as more evidence of his inability to motivate. Say what you want about Trez, but he always tries. And I'm highlighting Trez to show the difference between a player who's actually trying his hardest and a player who quite clearly isn't. Which is at this point is most of the squad.

Smith has already done this once. It wasn't very successful.

He really tries. I can respect that. Can't really say much bad about him compared to the rest of the team this time.

Alex Neil and Neil Warnock meanwhile are good examples of doing this.

Since our injury? No. More like since the restart. People are acting like our failure to score recently has been due to wesley when our goal scoring form only took a serious dip after the restart, not after his injury. Edit:nvm, you specifically referred to midfielders not scoring.