Dean Smith

[TheAuthority]

I'm sure I'll regret this as it seems a general consensus has been reached. 

We shouldn't sack him. He's had a bad month of results in an otherwise successful 3 years (relative to where we we when we met.)

Pre-season was a disaster and he hasn't been able to bed in the new purchases due to injury and illness. The backroom shake ups have also had a huge effect and that needs to be sorted, but sacking a manager after 5 or so bad games is a fools game.

Before anyone says it been since last season, well, we lost our star player for months due to injury last year. It would be foolish to sack him now he needs to be backed. Also, who the actual flip is out there to come in and improve us? I haven't read or heard one single suggestion who could do that.

[DJ_Villain]

I feel bad for Dean…

He has tried so hard to build something special and all of his hard work has blown up in his face and fallen apart due to, according to this forum at least, the actions of his own staff and people who he was trying to build it alongside…

Poor bloke

[QldVilla]

19 minutes ago, DJ_Villain said:

I feel bad for Dean…

He has tried so hard to build something special and all of his hard work has blown up in his face and fallen apart due to, according to this forum at least, the actions of his own staff and people who he was trying to build it alongside…

Poor bloke

Agree, a few seem to be piece mealing stats to support their opinion, when the issue is far more complex.

I hadn’t been convinced he should be sacked, but something has been broken since Wolves and my opinion has moved significantly towards him being sacked over the past few weeks as he hasn’t been able to get a reaction from the players.

There were significant changes made over the summer and Smith appears to have been reacting to every issue and he now seems to be out of ideas.

[Villan_of_oz]

My favourite manager since JG, hopefully it's not as long a wait for another good un'. If it's time to go for DS, I'm gonna focus on all the hard work he did and all the good memories he help give me. 

At least if the worst happens and we get relegated, it won't be with a broke nutter in charge of the club.

Edited November 6, 2021 by Villan_of_oz

[AVFCforever1991]

The truth is he's just a very tactically limited manager and hasn't seemed to have grown at all, we're just hoofing it forward with no plan , hoping it would work. 

 

Chucking strikers on had the complete opposite effect, we looked much worse and actually lost intensity in the midfield.

Edited November 6, 2021 by AVFCforever1991

[abdulaziz1]

I think his stats without Jack has been poor in three years has been bad. The other one he only had 2 games so can’t judge. 
2 wins in 13 or 15 in the Championship, something like 3 in 12 last season. 3 out of 10 or 11 this season. 
So 8 wins out 36, including more than third of it in the Championship. That’s really bad and it was my concern when Jack left.

I think he needs to go, as hard as it looks like, we really liked him. But it’s getting worse, and he’s losing it. We aren’t even benefiting from playing the young players too. 
 

We will be fighting for survival soon, there is no time for emotions. If we had more points I’d have calmed but not now. 

[abdulaziz1]

16 minutes ago, AVFCforever1991 said:

The truth is he's just a very tactically limited manager and hasn't seemed to have grown at all, we're just hoofing it forward with no plan , hoping it would work. 

 

Chucking strikers on had the complete opposite effect, we looked much worse and actually lost intensity in the midfield.

He isn’t limited, but he limits himself. He doesn’t change things during a game. He doesn’t know how to change his mistakes. When he do it’s after too long. 
 

We had some good tactical games which suggest there is a manager there. But the lack of courage seems to let him down. Once he wins he keep using the same thing until he’s back to a bad run. 
 

Those are the two things that’s makes me gutted, we all like him and he is good when he’s at his best, but couple of things make him fail to have that consistency.

[El Zen]

6 hours ago, Wurzel said:

My most troubling thing tonight among many, how is a professional footballer who has hardly moved about in the first half, then run about for 20 mins coming off with cramp? How is this possible after a pre-season and a third of the season gone? If that isn't a coaching problem then what is?

To be fair, only one player on the pitch ran more than Buendia in the first half. 

I don’t disagree he should be able to last closer to the full 90 mins, though there are mitigating circumstances, but it’s not fair to say he ‘hardly moved’ before half time. 

[Follyfoot]

3 hours ago, Villarocker said:

I honestly don't know the reason that JT and ROK left. 

The fella on the WM phone in knows ROK, It was agreed last season that he would step down as the bloke wanted to start taking things easy. Nothing sinister at all

[cheltenham_villa]

4 hours ago, TheAuthority said:

I'm sure I'll regret this as it seems a general consensus has been reached. 

We shouldn't sack him. He's had a bad month of results in an otherwise successful 3 years (relative to where we we when we met.)

Pre-season was a disaster and he hasn't been able to bed in the new purchases due to injury and illness. The backroom shake ups have also had a huge effect and that needs to be sorted, but sacking a manager after 5 or so bad games is a fools game.

Before anyone says it been since last season, well, we lost our star player for months due to injury last year. It would be foolish to sack him now he needs to be backed. Also, who the actual flip is out there to come in and improve us? I haven't read or heard one single suggestion who could do that.

This is where I am as well. I'd rather keep and let him work through. Haven't seen any option that doesnt make me feel like we would be having this conversation again in a couple of seasons.

[Eastie]

Expect a club statement today 

[Eastie]

3 hours ago, Villan_of_oz said:

I think it was pretty straightforward,

JT left because he wants a the no.1 job somewhere and didn't want to shaft us half way through the season.

ROK I believe was offered a less senior role and decided he didn't fancy that.

Wrong on Jt for sure - he actually returned for pre season training as did rich - the departure of Jack upset the applecart in more ways than one - as for smith it’s au revoir and he already knows it 

Edited November 6, 2021 by Eastie

[AvfcRigo82]

6 hours ago, Kiwivillan said:

MON was the same. Robertson ran the team and MON was shite everywhere else as they parted ways after Villa

Robertson retired and MON didn't really do much at club level after that happened.

[allani]

4 hours ago, TheAuthority said:

I'm sure I'll regret this as it seems a general consensus has been reached. 

We shouldn't sack him. He's had a bad month of results in an otherwise successful 3 years (relative to where we we when we met.)

Pre-season was a disaster and he hasn't been able to bed in the new purchases due to injury and illness. The backroom shake ups have also had a huge effect and that needs to be sorted, but sacking a manager after 5 or so bad games is a fools game.

Before anyone says it been since last season, well, we lost our star player for months due to injury last year. It would be foolish to sack him now he needs to be backed. Also, who the actual flip is out there to come in and improve us? I haven't read or heard one single suggestion who could do that.

Again this is a general comment rather than specifically a response to you.

For me it isn't about a bad month of results (just as if we go and win 5 on the bounce now I won't suddenly think that Dean is the best things since sliced bread).  This is a longer term thing and there are a number of factors that have now happened several times during his tenure that are concerning.

I have pointed out several times in the last day or so that our poor form extends back to January.  Our stats in 2021 are considerably worse than they were in 2020 - won / drawn fewer matches (despite playing more matches), lost more matches (more than 50% of the matches played), scored fewer goals, conceded more goals, etc.  I think since being promoted we have had four runs of 12 plus matches where we have picked up 9 or fewer points.  We are now on another run of 10 points in 11 matches - which shows no sign of ending at the moment.

When we are "hot", Dean's consistency seems to help us go on excellent runs.  But when we are "cold" we seem to really struggle to turn things around.  This has been my biggest concern for a while - our form seems to be on or off with little in between.  At the start of last season I would have been delighted with our points tally and our final league position - but that ignores the fact that we had spells of relegation form mixed with a spell of title winning form.

My other concern (which is to an extent linked) is that we seem to be too passive to react to what is happening in a match.  Now in the past you can excuse Dean to an extent because our bench has been a joke - but we've upgraded our squad considerably and we still seem too slow to change formation, approach, intensity, personnel, etc.  We improved second half against Arsenal (partly because they'd won the match already and so eased off slightly) and yesterday - but that ignores the fact that their keeper didn't have to make a meaningful save and Emi made two top drawer stops.  We were much closer to a 3-0 defeat yesterday than we were to a 1-1 draw (at least in terms of chances created) and whilst 3-0 would probably have been harsh, us getting a point would have been even more harsh on Southampton.

We have made huge strides under Smith no question.  Getting us promoted, keeping us up and then getting us into the mid-pack are all major plus points.  He has been a big upgrade on what has come before - we'd not have achieved half of that with Bruce or some of our previous managers at the helm.

However, ignoring our first season back when FFP really ****ed our chances of competing because it prevented us from buying quality / experienced players, with the quality of the players at our disposal last season and this season we shouldn't be having the kind of spells we keep having.  The lack of control that we have in midfield has been an issue for a long time now and Smith has clearly not made this a priority.  You can't build a midfield around McGinn - the guy just isn't good enough and the fact that he is almost never subbed / dropped irrespective of how badly he is playing is insane.  We can't use the excuse that "he can only play what he has" because he should have made sure that we signed a proper defensive midfielder that would allow Dougie and maybe McGinn (although the jury is still out on that for me) to play their natural roles.  Our three summer signings have all struggled but Ings, Buendia and Bailey are all excellent players.  But when our tactics seem to be to just play long, high balls down the channels we aren't playing to their strengths.  Buendia's "improvement" yesterday was more down to us suddenly playing the ball on the deck and making runs around him rather than just smashing the ball upfield or giving him the ball in the middle of the park with 6 Southampton defenders and Ollie in front of him.  Unless we are in full attack mode (which happens when we are on one of our "hot" spells) we really struggle to dominate matches and seem to resort to the "tactics" of last night's first half.  Defend deep.  Defend the ball (rather than opposition players) which results in us always leaving opposition midfielders in acres of space at the edge of the area (for all that Dean moans about them scoring a wonder goal last night - they had 6 or 7 other similar chances from the same range).  Pump the ball long, giving the ball straight back to the opposition.  And repeat.

I hope that Dean doesn't suffer the ignamy of relegation.  He doesn't deserve that after what he has done to help us over the last 3 years.  He deserves to be remembered as one of the decent / good ones.  But I just don't have faith that even if he saves us from relegation this season that we won't be in a similar position next season or the one after - a team that when "hot" are a delight to watch, with attacking intent and capable of giving almost anyone a decent game - yet at the same time only a couple of results away from a spell of looking like they've never played the game professionally before.

I don't know who the answer is.  Any change is a gamble.  But so is not making a change.  I would have preferred to make the change when a new manager had time to come in assess the squad, target new signings, etc.  In the summer I think we were a potential "hot ticket" - on the back of a decent season, lots of youth prospects coming through, lots of players emerging as important cogs in their national teams, ambitious owners who were prepared to spend relatively big, a side that looked like they might be challenging Europe, etc.  Now I think we might struggle with the sell - we've lost our best player and we are looking more like relegation candidates than European contenders.  I still think that our squad is strong enough and the off-field infrastructure impressive enough to be attractive.  But I can't help thinking that anyone considering taking over will be worrying about the "risk" to their career of a relegation battle rather than the "opportunity" of getting us into Europe.  So I think we have fallen back a rung, maybe two, in terms of the quality of manager that we can bring in.  This would be the only excuse to not make the change now - that the only managers we can now attract are not a big improvement on Dean.  So hold fire and hope that we go on a "Dean special" glory run that gets us back closer to mid-table and a chance to re-sell the opportunity for next season.  But that seems like a massive gamble to me and probably even less fair on Dean.

[Guest av1]

6 hours ago, maqroll said:

The look on his face that last minute of the game made me feel very sad for him. The look of a guy whose dream is being shattered. 

 

5 hours ago, MikeMcKenna said:

It is an incredibly sad situation. For every Villa fan the ultimate dream is to either play for the club or lead us to victory. 

Agree with both of the above. Incredible sad to see. I’m gutted, the bloke has given us some fantastic memories. 

[M_Afro]

I still can’t get over the old passing of the piece of paper before attempting to defend a corner. It just didn’t feel right to me. It actually felt staged as if the players were trying to make a point. Very odd indeed. 

[allani]

31 minutes ago, cheltenham_villa said:

This is where I am as well. I'd rather keep and let him work through. Haven't seen any option that doesnt make me feel like we would be having this conversation again in a couple of seasons.

I kind of agree with that second sentence.  I think our stock was pretty high in the summer and so we could have attracted an "up and coming" manager with the potential to join the managerial elite.  Decent transfer kitty, best keeper in England, most exciting English midfielder, strong youth set-up, etc.

Now we are probably too close to the relegation battle to attract that type of manager who might see the "risk" of damaging their reputation as being much higher than the "opportunity" we were in the summer.

I know plenty think that getting rid of Dean in the summer would have been harsh (and it would certainly have been ruthless) but this was always my worry.  I like the guy. He's done brilliantly to get us to where we were at the end of last season.  But we are just far too "hot" and "cold" under him and my worry has always been that at some point we don't have that "hot" spell.  Had we been more of a team that wins one, loses one, plays well and loses and then plays badly and wins (i.e. like most midtable teams) I may have been less concerned.  But we seem far more prone to long spells of bad form followed by good spells of awesome form.

Edited November 6, 2021 by allani

[Blasterpocket68]

So it’s stick or twist time ! Will the board hold their nerve ?
 This was supposedly  our cup final  where we came out fighting but all we got was another poor  performance in that first half . We were very lucky Southampton we’re not out of site. It was another good goal to be fair .We had good spell in the second half but this isn’t enough. Players are lacking confidence that’s clear but it’s so disappointing again to see how poorly we were initially set up with some players really just passengers in that first half  . 
 

I’ve seen glimpse of a response from the players but something is seriously wrong in the coaching of our team and has been for some time   . Sadly I’m now of the opinion we need to make the change . 

 

  
 

 

[dudevillaisnice]

5 hours ago, TheAuthority said:

I'm sure I'll regret this as it seems a general consensus has been reached. 

We shouldn't sack him. He's had a bad month of results in an otherwise successful 3 years (relative to where we we when we met.)

Pre-season was a disaster and he hasn't been able to bed in the new purchases due to injury and illness. The backroom shake ups have also had a huge effect and that needs to be sorted, but sacking a manager after 5 or so bad games is a fools game.

Before anyone says it been since last season, well, we lost our star player for months due to injury last year. It would be foolish to sack him now he needs to be backed. Also, who the actual flip is out there to come in and improve us? I haven't read or heard one single suggestion who could do that.

Unfortunately the past is the past. This season particularly has been dreadful, losing back room staff in the manner we did also stinks to be honest. The more the season goes on the more I’m convinced it wasn’t as amicable as it was made out. We look worse each week and we have some really rough fixtures coming up. We could quite easily come back a month later with zero points added to the board which will look like a lost opportunity. 

[jim]

We need to make a change. If there had been signs of improvement over the last 5 games there may be an argument to keep him.

We’ve got progressively worse and I don’t see him turning it around. Giving him a few more games is pointless imo. Our form in 2021 has been shocking.