VillaCas

Lolz ..... l’ll happily apologise should you find any example of me ‘changing what was originally said to suit my narrative’ If you keep posting axiomatic statements as if they are pearls of wisdom you’ve got to expect to get a few comments

You are a cheeky monkey TRO. Did you imagine that I thought Klopp’s abilities was solely limited to man-management? Of course he has very many skills but his big differentiator is an almost unrivalled ability to get the best out of each of his players https://www.google.co.uk/amp/s/www.liverpoolfc.com/amp/news/first-team/286674-alexander-arnold-reveals-klopp-s-biggest-strength Pep’s also has a wide range of abilities but I would argue that for him his key skills are his coaching ability and innovative approach to tactics

I’ve also got a couple of contacts and they say it’s just business as usual! There are fall outs all the time at football clubs - what is supposed to be the scale of the issue?

Great post - Klopps real strength is man management, I imagine that is where he focuses much of his effort

Sorry TRO you jump around so much that I’m losing track - I think you are now arguing with yourself - You said (I’m paraphrasing) ‘top managers are all-powerful and Smith is not’. As has been pointed out by a number of posters here even Klopp etc have to work within a structure - if your argument is that top managers have more power than novice managers then I would (of course) agree however, Smith is nearer to the novice end than the top end - secondly it goes without saying that £140m could have been spent better - we are not arguing about that. We were discussing how much blame should go to Suso and how much to Smith - my argument was that Suso should take the lions share of blame (but that Smith is not blameless) - thirdly. I’m not sure what point you are making here? It doesn’t seem to be in response to my post. Like mostly everyone I was unaware of Wesley and Luis but excited to see them play - I did however preach caution and predicted that a 17th place finish would be great achievement this year ( I quoted my post from July 2019 saying exactly this a few pages back) - four?? - five?? - six - you said (again I paraphrase) ‘a serial winner would get more out of these players’. This is a truism - of course I agree but I pointed out that we are not (yet) in a position to appoint a ‘serial winner’ (like Klopp etc) - seven, I never once claimed that ‘a manager is not anyway responsible for the signings that a club makes’ - we were arguing how much responsibility he bears. Again my point was that Suso main job is player acquisition and Smith is player performance - eighth! As I said ‘ I was delighted to get promoted’ You seem to think we have a different opinion on this? - I agree that should we go down it will almost certainly be a real battle to get back up - however personally I would back Smith to try to achieve this (unless a proven serial winner is available ) To get back to the crux of the argument our main bones of contention seem to be 1) How good a squad has £140m bought? 2) How much responsibility does the manager bear for signings? and 3) Has the manager got the best out of his players? My answers are 1) very average 2) some, but the main responsibility sits with the DofF and 3) He’s done ok, could have done better (but in the biggest part this question rests with your view of 1)) TRO, I think for both our sanities shall we agree to disagree and spend our energies sending positive vibes for the rest of the season?

- as I said Smith is not Klopp, Guardiola or Mourinho - had he insisted on total control he wouldn’t be in the job. Like the vast majority of PL managers including those you mention, he has to work within a structure - show me where I ‘divided the £140m equally”? I didn’t! I merely said £140m across 15 players does not buy you a PL squad - I guess a lot of your next point rest on what you mean by ‘very high reputations’ and ‘well rated’, personally I’d never heard of them and have not been at all impressed. For me these were not players who were going to hit the ground running in the PL ...but if we go with your ‘highly-rated’ line then how has DS been ‘stuffed up like a turkey’ if they are such great talents By your reckoning he is either underachieving with good players or not been strong enough rejecting bad players....which is it - you can’t have both sides of the argument - I would expect a serial winner (Klopp?, Guardiola? Mourinho?) to get more out of our players - those managers are with top clubs because they are at the top of the tree - those managers ain’t coming to Villa anytime soon - finally, DS must bear some of the responsibility but in terms of recruitment the lions share sits with Suso The biggest part of the problem is that we overachieved last season - we came up with Bruce’s ageing and unbalanced squad and needed to make far more changes than is optimum. I was delighted to get promoted but realised that in the long run it may have been better to come up a year later with a better prepared and more balanced squad. As it is we will probably go down but I hope that lessons have been learned and we will build a much more balanced and competent squad for our next assault on the Premier League

Hard to know where to start replying to this - Smith is not Klopp, Guardiola or Mourinho - Responsibility for player recruitment sits in the main with Suso - I didn’t expect more from the owners. I suspect that £140m was all that FFP would allow - I certainly never suggested that the owners needed to buy 12 x £30m players - it’s ridiculous to say that - The biggest chunk of funds was spent on retaining or replacing loanees and after spending around £80m I would argue that we were worse than the team that finished 5th in the championship (with Wesley and Engels being (far) worse than Tammy and Axel) That left £60 to find replacements for Adomah, Jedi, Hutton etc. In this respect I think we got what we paid for Nakamba, Hause, Konsa, Trez, Luis etc IE very average run of the mill players I repeat that £140m does not go a long way when spread over 15 players (Wolves have had the support of one of the world top agents to provide them with cut price bargains, Sheffield United have built a team over some years and are massively over performing (good luck to them)) I agree that we are poor talent spotters - Suso has not lived up to his billing

Thats not how things work these days - the manager is no longer all-powerful. He says what he wants and the DofF uses his network to identify the target - For example, I doubt DS had much information on Wesley when he turned up. Like in any endeavour when you work as part of a team, you trust your colleagues to know what they are doing. That said I don't think we have been greatly 'tucked up' - Wesley and Trez look poor signings (the fault here lies with Suso) but the rest look worth about what we paid for them - this has been gone over again and again, to be sure of getting quality PL players you need to be paying more money than we did. If Smith had had his choice Benrama and Maupay would be here instead of Wesley and Trez (and I expect we would be doing a hell of a lot better) It is imporant to get the right players but for that look to Suso before laying blame at Smiths door As for the £140m spend thats peanuts spread over 12-15 players

This was from a thread last year when a number of people were expecting us to rip up the league. Every signing (in this case Jota) was going to be a world beater My point was that we were barely stronger than the year before - The largest chunk of our spend on making the loanees permanent, The next biggest chunk on second rate replacements for Tammy and Axel and the relatively small remander spread out over (to my mind) squad fillers - We needed to make an enormous changearound A 17th place finish is never going to be anything other than frustrating as hell - Some of the comments about 'don't mind relegation but wanted to see us play decent football' are crazy - teams in 17th place are not delivering decent football If you thought anything other than a massive struggle for survival was on the cards you were always heading for disppointment If a top manager is available to us, great - if not I'm happy to persevere with Smith

Agreed - that’s not the same as saying he’s doing a great job though. I don’t agree about recent performances being ‘inexcusable ‘ either - Given the resources available I thought the performances were ok (very far from good or great but ok) - we got run around against a very good Chelsea side but could still have got something out the game and we were well in contention in the other games

I don’t think anyone is saying he is doing a good job? Circumstances mean that it is an uphill struggle for him but I still have a little more patience for him.

It’s not the club saying “for the final 6 games” or the dreaded vote of confidence! I don’t see how you can draw a conclusion from this information

This just isn’t the case!

Maybe Smith trusted Suso to do his job? Suso failed. If Smith learns from that great, if not then I would agree with you

Simple. Next, World Peace

So by this logic managers like Pep and Klopp are not required? Just get some random out the stands to run things?

I understand and share the disappointment, but for me the lack of quality in the squad is the main issue We are hardly better than last season - We spent a huge chunk of the budget signing loanees and another huge chunk bringing in not-quite-replacements for Tammy and Axel - at that stage we had spent £80-90m(?) and were worse We then needed to swap experience (Hutton, Adomah, Jedi) for potential but Nakamba, Trez, Targett etc are just not PL ready. Luiz has shone in the last few games but he also has disappointed most of the season. Add a few more makeweights like Hause, Samatta etc and for me this is not a team that is going to do anything more than struggle Surely no one can think that that squad wasn’t going to struggle? If Smith was the driving force behind the recruitment then he should go but the fact that the ownership are still backing him signals to me that they realise he is working with poor materials. My feeling is that if we’d gone with Smiths choices Benrama, Maupay Phillips etc we would be much better off If the owners splash the cash to bring in a Rafa-level or better manager I wouldn’t complain but if not personally I would stay with Smith Whatever happens it is absolutely vital that this summers transfer activity is a level above what has gone before

Across a large enough sample of data expected goals will be approximately equal to actual goals. But when you look at the data from only a single game or in this case four games it is very likely that the data will deviate widely from what is expected It is chance or luck whether that deviation is in your favour or against you Across a whole season it is likely (although not certain) that this will even itself out, but in the short term it is entirely valid to talk about luck I feel that with only two points from four games Villa have been unlucky As the original poster noted, others with a different agenda will no doubt hate on the metric

Sort of

Poch or Allegri ain’t coming mate

We’ll have to agree to disagree. With modern technology and methods, I doubt that there is much difference in fitness between top sides worldwide. It may be that one reason better players and squads seem fitter is because they have better physical attributes to start with or perhaps less talented squads need to work harder and concentrate more just to stay in the game - we looked like we were paddling full speed to stay afloat today whilst Wolves superior squad was just cruising around Lack of fitness is always one of the first charges levied against out of favour managers. Deadball restarts, throw-ins, passing, shooting and not shouting enough are also commonly cited - In reality in the main it is down to the quality of the players and we have three or four PL players and the rest don’t belong there If we could find a Santos or Rafa I’d happily consider a change but for me Smith is a victim of his own success in gaining promotion last season If you were expecting more than a point a game form you will of course be unhappy now

Yes because of course sacking him would be guaranteed to take us out of the relegation zone

Maybe. Hard to disentangle what is ability and what is application. NES is a better manager than Smith but I doubt if roles were reversed he could get a tune out of our bunch We have a very, very poor squad, especially going forward. I thought Smith did an amazing job last season but the squad overhaul required, even if it had been very well done which I wasn’t, was always going to make it an uphill struggle Victim of his own success - If we’d missed promotion and were now riding high in the Championship everyone would be singing his praises For me, from the off, 17th place was always going to be the target. This is exactly what I thought this season would feel like - the higher your starting expectations the more disgruntled you’ll be feeling!

Awful comment

Traore taping his wrists?? Prat