Dean Smith

[HKP90]

1 minute ago, Zatman said:

but we have to blame somebody. Whelan and Hourihane are gone so we need some sort of scapegoat

[Blasterpocket68]

2 minutes ago, HKP90 said:

Not 3 5 2 

[zab6359]

2 hours ago, Laughable Chimp said:

At what point are we considering the beginning of a team's "rebuilding" phase? And at what point does a team finish their rebuilding phase. Because honestly, I could argue pretty much every team that's not having success atm are in their "rebuilding" phase, which makes the meaning of rebuilding a bit useless.

 

In the league currently I'd say only us, Brentford, Leeds, Watford and Norwich are in the rebuilding phase everyone else is an established PL team and out of those listed only us and Leeds have potential to reach a high level (consistant top 8 ) all the others could be consistent PL teams the same as teams like Crystal Palace and Brighton but will never seriously challenge as they have limited means. I'd say the rebuilding phase if you are out of the PL for 3 yrs is around 4/5 yrs.

[villabromsgrove]

30 minutes ago, JAMAICAN-VILLAN said:

A simple " We haven't been good enough, or anywhere near the standards required, but are determined to put it right " or something along those lines would have probably sufficed.

The notion that we've " only had a bad 45 minutes " and have lost the other games " marginally " is frankly, farcical.

The " Margins " have probably been us being large margins shitter than the opposition, and that 45 minutes was us just watching us be shite with no action for 45 minutes.

Not having any emotions about them either way, as right now, it's simply become media, manager speak to me.

It's on the pitch it matters.

If Dean genuinely believes what he is saying about "margins" then he has lost touch with reality.

[HKP90]

I've been looking at some studies online about whether to stick or twist with a manager, and found this article, which I found interesting. 

 

'In 2013 a Dutch Economist did a study on exactly this. He analysed managerial turnover across 18 seasons (1986-2004) of the Dutch premier division, the Eredivisie. As well as looking at what happened to teams who sacked their manager when the going got tough, he looked at those who had faced a similar slump in form but who stood by their boss to ride out the crisis.

"Changing a manager during a crisis in the season does improve the results in the short term," he says. "But this is a misleading statistic because not changing the manager would have had the same result."

 

He found that both groups faced a similar pattern of declines and improvements in form.

Chart compares relative performance of teams over time. At point "t", the manager is sacked or voluntarily departs. The analysis is based on 81 sackings, 103 voluntary departures and 212 performance dips in the Dutch football league from 1986-2004

While the research focused on Dutch football, he argues that this finding is not specific to the Netherlands. Major football leagues in Europe, including England, Germany, Italy and Spain also bore out the same conclusion - teams suffering an uncharacteristic slump in form will bounce back and return to their normal long-term position in the league, regardless of whether they replace their manager or not.

So how can this be explained? It's an age-old statistical phenomenon known as regression to the mean.

"In the same way that water seeks its own level, numbers and series of numbers will move towards the average, move towards the ordinary," David Sally, co-author of the football statistics book The Numbers Game, explains.

"The extraordinary, numbers-wise, is followed by the ordinary; the ordinary is followed by the ordinary; the ordinary is what happens. The average is what happens more often than not."

 "a short term decline in performance is not a good reason to be firing your manager".

"Managers and players sort in such a way that the best end up at the best clubs and the worst at the worst clubs. It is not a coincidence that Mourinho is with Chelsea and Guardiola with Bayern Munich. These clubs only attract the best managers. However, changing managers does not seem to improve the result. After releasing Villas-Boas [in March 2012] the performance of Chelsea did not improve."

According to Sally [the economist], football clubs can be seen as any other business or company. Business research suggests that structural factors - such as how long it has been operating and which industry it is part of - are much more important than who the chief executive is. In money terms, around 15% profitability can be determined by the quality of the man or woman in charge and the same can be said for football managers, Sally estimates.'

 

[IrishVilla10]

54 minutes ago, HKP90 said:

He did say that we've not been on our game. Is that not similar 'not been up to standard'?

Feels like folks are hanging onto semantics.  

If he could tell us what are game is that would be great, because I don’t think he knows what our game is. 10 games in and I certainly don’t. 

[IrishVilla10]

1 hour ago, rbcuk said:

Just listened to this, for Smith to say in the last 4 games we’ve only had one bad 45mins, would love to know what he’s been watching compared to what we’ve seen

 

This is frightening. 

[Vive_La_Villa]

4 minutes ago, HKP90 said:

I've been looking at some studies online about whether to stick or twist with a manager, and found this article, which I found interesting. 

 

'In 2013 a Dutch Economist did a study on exactly this. He analysed managerial turnover across 18 seasons (1986-2004) of the Dutch premier division, the Eredivisie. As well as looking at what happened to teams who sacked their manager when the going got tough, he looked at those who had faced a similar slump in form but who stood by their boss to ride out the crisis.

"Changing a manager during a crisis in the season does improve the results in the short term," he says. "But this is a misleading statistic because not changing the manager would have had the same result."

 

He found that both groups faced a similar pattern of declines and improvements in form.

Chart compares relative performance of teams over time. At point "t", the manager is sacked or voluntarily departs. The analysis is based on 81 sackings, 103 voluntary departures and 212 performance dips in the Dutch football league from 1986-2004

While the research focused on Dutch football, he argues that this finding is not specific to the Netherlands. Major football leagues in Europe, including England, Germany, Italy and Spain also bore out the same conclusion - teams suffering an uncharacteristic slump in form will bounce back and return to their normal long-term position in the league, regardless of whether they replace their manager or not.

So how can this be explained? It's an age-old statistical phenomenon known as regression to the mean.

"In the same way that water seeks its own level, numbers and series of numbers will move towards the average, move towards the ordinary," David Sally, co-author of the football statistics book The Numbers Game, explains.

"The extraordinary, numbers-wise, is followed by the ordinary; the ordinary is followed by the ordinary; the ordinary is what happens. The average is what happens more often than not."

 "a short term decline in performance is not a good reason to be firing your manager".

"Managers and players sort in such a way that the best end up at the best clubs and the worst at the worst clubs. It is not a coincidence that Mourinho is with Chelsea and Guardiola with Bayern Munich. These clubs only attract the best managers. However, changing managers does not seem to improve the result. After releasing Villas-Boas [in March 2012] the performance of Chelsea did not improve."

According to Sally [the economist], football clubs can be seen as any other business or company. Business research suggests that structural factors - such as how long it has been operating and which industry it is part of - are much more important than who the chief executive is. In money terms, around 15% profitability can be determined by the quality of the man or woman in charge and the same can be said for football managers, Sally estimates.'

 

This reminds me of when United sacked Jose. The next run of games United had were easy ones that they would have won anyway but Ole got all the credit and a new contract ! 
 

I don’t think the club would sack Smith just in current form. We’ve struggled for nearly a calendar year now.

[Laughable Chimp]

9 minutes ago, HKP90 said:

I've been looking at some studies online about whether to stick or twist with a manager, and found this article, which I found interesting. 

 

'In 2013 a Dutch Economist did a study on exactly this. He analysed managerial turnover across 18 seasons (1986-2004) of the Dutch premier division, the Eredivisie. As well as looking at what happened to teams who sacked their manager when the going got tough, he looked at those who had faced a similar slump in form but who stood by their boss to ride out the crisis.

"Changing a manager during a crisis in the season does improve the results in the short term," he says. "But this is a misleading statistic because not changing the manager would have had the same result."

 

He found that both groups faced a similar pattern of declines and improvements in form.

Chart compares relative performance of teams over time. At point "t", the manager is sacked or voluntarily departs. The analysis is based on 81 sackings, 103 voluntary departures and 212 performance dips in the Dutch football league from 1986-2004

While the research focused on Dutch football, he argues that this finding is not specific to the Netherlands. Major football leagues in Europe, including England, Germany, Italy and Spain also bore out the same conclusion - teams suffering an uncharacteristic slump in form will bounce back and return to their normal long-term position in the league, regardless of whether they replace their manager or not.

So how can this be explained? It's an age-old statistical phenomenon known as regression to the mean.

"In the same way that water seeks its own level, numbers and series of numbers will move towards the average, move towards the ordinary," David Sally, co-author of the football statistics book The Numbers Game, explains.

"The extraordinary, numbers-wise, is followed by the ordinary; the ordinary is followed by the ordinary; the ordinary is what happens. The average is what happens more often than not."

 "a short term decline in performance is not a good reason to be firing your manager".

"Managers and players sort in such a way that the best end up at the best clubs and the worst at the worst clubs. It is not a coincidence that Mourinho is with Chelsea and Guardiola with Bayern Munich. These clubs only attract the best managers. However, changing managers does not seem to improve the result. After releasing Villas-Boas [in March 2012] the performance of Chelsea did not improve."

According to Sally [the economist], football clubs can be seen as any other business or company. Business research suggests that structural factors - such as how long it has been operating and which industry it is part of - are much more important than who the chief executive is. In money terms, around 15% profitability can be determined by the quality of the man or woman in charge and the same can be said for football managers, Sally estimates.'

 

Someone should tell this to Watford.

[Phil Silvers]

I like Dean and he has done enough good to fairly have a crack at turning this around. Changing the manager now would possibly move us sideways or worse, we may get lucky and find someone that boosts us and gets to where Dean has already got us but in the long run not improve us significantly to achieve the long term goal of getting this club to a competitive level against the best consistently.

If my crystal ball told me that Dean will at best make us a consistent midtable club then I'd still keep him for now and only pull the trigger at his peak when the club could possibly tempt a top manager to come. 

[Mic09]

33 minutes ago, IrishVilla10 said:

This is frightening. 

It is, and it isn't.

I'd say we had a horror show 15 mins against wolves, and 1 'really bad' half against arsenal.

The problem isn't that we had a really bad half against arsenal. The problem is that the last 3 games have all been waaaaay below what we expect, and while not horrendous the points tally still = 0. And I haven't seen a good half in those games either to counter balance the negatives.

But yeah, I would agree that the only, quote, 'really bad' half came against arsenal. 

[Laughable Chimp]

35 minutes ago, Phil Silvers said:

I like Dean and he has done enough good to fairly have a crack at turning this around. Changing the manager now would possibly move us sideways or worse, we may get lucky and find someone that boosts us and gets to where Dean has already got us but in the long run not improve us significantly to achieve the long term goal of getting this club to a competitive level against the best consistently.

If my crystal ball told me that Dean will at best make us a consistent midtable club then I'd still keep him for now and only pull the trigger at his peak when the club could possibly tempt a top manager to come. 

The problem is that the odds of us attracting a top manager whilst Dean has us as a consistent midtable club is minimal. Look at the teams that you expect to be midtable by years end, how many of them have managers that were considered top managers when first hired? Hell, Newcastle have all the money in the world and it looks like they're getting Eddie Howe. 

If we're waiting around for a top manager to become available to want to come to Villa, we'll be waiting forever. Its just not happening. And even if a top manager became available, this forum will throw a hissyfit if we sack Smith when he only has us at comfortably midtable. So 2 rare events have to coincide for it to be "acceptable" to sack Smith. Smith has to severely underperform and a top manager has to be available and want to come to Villa. Both events have to happen simultaneously. The idea that its only acceptable to sack a manager if and only if that exceedingly rare scenario happens is ridiculous. 

 

Edited November 4, 2021 by Laughable Chimp

[MessiWillSignForVilla]

2 hours ago, rbcuk said:

Just listened to this, for Smith to say in the last 4 games we’ve only had one bad 45mins, would love to know what he’s been watching compared to what we’ve seen

 

Not what he's said though is it? He said there's only been one really bad 45 minutes and finishes off by saying we've not been on top of our game and need to turn it around. That's not saying we've only been bad for those 45 minutes, but just that that's the only half where we've been utterly battered by a team.

Sounds to me like a manager saying we've not been good enough but that we've been close enough in games to still believe we can turn it around.

[avfc1982am]

1 hour ago, zab6359 said:

In the league currently I'd say only us, Brentford, Leeds, Watford and Norwich are in the rebuilding phase everyone else is an established PL team and out of those listed only us and Leeds have potential to reach a high level (consistant top 8 ) all the others could be consistent PL teams the same as teams like Crystal Palace and Brighton but will never seriously challenge as they have limited means. I'd say the rebuilding phase if you are out of the PL for 3 yrs is around 4/5 yrs.

I don't agree with the rebuild comment. Every team continually undergo rebuilds, even established teams. That's just football. Even West ham nearly went down our first year back now look at them. Very seldom does any team not carry out alterations during the summer, most likely championship winning teams but generally even they will turn over staff. You could say that Leeds and Brentford have come up PL ready. There is no example to say otherwise . Whether they are competitive enough to challenge for anything is a different argument but they certainly aren't under some mass rebuilding project.

A lot of people keep going on like we are currently rebuilding.....Rebuilding what exactly? We have a first team from last year, it needed altering. Years 1 and 2 were mass rebuilding because we didn't have the playing staff. We've now brought in playing staff to alter things but we aren't in the midst of some full on rebuild like 2 years ago. I think this is a bit of a myth now..... rebuild, demolition, alterations....it's all the same and every team goes through it annually. Some just a little more than others.

I doubt very much that the owners see this as some rebuilding stage either. They will see it as mid table last year, 1 player out 5 in. Better overall squad, more options, better quality, even with the loss of JG and an anticipated improvement on 11th. Sort it out. That is exactly how they will see it.

[Vive_La_Villa]

5 minutes ago, MessiWillSignForVilla said:

Not what he's said though is it? He said there's only been one really bad 45 minutes and finishes off by saying we've not been on top of our game and need to turn it around. That's not saying we've only been bad for those 45 minutes, but just that that's the only half where we've been utterly battered by a team.

Sounds to me like a manager saying we've not been good enough but that we've been close enough in games to still believe we can turn it around.

I’d actually agree. I only think we’ve shockingly bad first half against Arsenal. Other games haven’t been good enough but hasn’t been shambolic like some would believe. 

[Vive_La_Villa]

2 minutes ago, avfc1982am said:

I don't agree with the rebuild comment. Every team continually undergo rebuilds, even established teams. That's just football. Even West ham nearly went down our first year back now look at them. Very seldom does any team not carry out alterations during the summer, most likely championship winning teams but generally even they will turn over staff. You could say that Leeds and Brentford have come up PL ready. There is no example to say otherwise . Whether they are competitive enough to challenge for anything is a different argument but they certainly aren't under some mass rebuilding project.

A lot of people keep going on like we are currently rebuilding.....Rebuilding what exactly? We have a first team from last year, it needed altering. Years 1 and 2 were mass rebuilding because we didn't have the playing staff. We've now brought in playing staff to alter things but we aren't in the midst of some full on rebuild like 2 years ago. I think this is a bit of a myth now..... rebuild, demolition, alterations....it's all the same and every team goes through it annually. Some just a little more than others.

I doubt very much that the owners see this as some rebuilding stage either. They will see it as mid table last year, 1 player out 5 in. Better overall squad, more options, better quality, even with the loss of JG and an anticipated improvement on 11th. Sort it out. That is exactly how they will see it.

I personally only mention ‘rebuild’ when people compare us to West Ham and why we aren’t more like them. Point buying they have had several more years of building and trying to improve as a stable Premier League club than we have.  Maybe rebuild is the wrong word. 

[Steero113]

10 minutes ago, Vive_La_Villa said:

I’d actually agree. I only think we’ve shockingly bad first half against Arsenal. Other games haven’t been good enough but hasn’t been shambolic like some would believe. 

I agree with you except Watford, first half against Watford was hateful...

[fightoffyour]

He said “one really bad half” not “one bad half” and by that he might’ve meant when the whole 45 mins was really bad while we’ve also had terrible 20 min spells. People’s reading into things can be really bizarre at times.

[vreitti]

1 hour ago, Vive_La_Villa said:

I don’t think the club would sack Smith just in current form. We’ve struggled for nearly a calendar year now.

I seriously doubt the owner or the board feel this way. We've obviously not won every game this calendar year, so I guess you could say we've "struggled".

[AvfcRigo82]

7 minutes ago, vreitti said:

I seriously doubt the owner or the board feel this way. We've obviously not won every game this calendar year, so I guess you could say we've "struggled".

We should have won more than what we have, struggled would be one way of putting it.

Some of the results that seen us collect 0 pts when it should have been 3pts is one example.