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Dean Smith


Demitri_C

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Hourihane stays put, we do better with him in the team, on too many occasions now he's been unfairly dropped, time to do right by him and allow him to keep his place.  We have a better chance of getting something from the next two games with him in the side.

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24 minutes ago, Keyblade said:

Some interesting stats:

We are 5th in the league for shots per game, and 3rd for shots on target.

According to whoscored ratings, we are actually the 5th highest rated so far this season. The table actually makes for interesting viewing, with the top and bottom 4 the same (albeit slightly different order). The only real major outlier is us being 5th, which kind of reflects how well we've been performing without necessarily getting the points.

We're 4th in the league for chances created and 2nd behind Man City for assists. In Jack Grealish we have the 3rd most frequent chance-creator in the league...the most from open play, tied with Kevin De Bruyne. Predictably, we're also the 5th highest scorers in the league.

Unsurprisingly we're the most fouled team in the league, but also the team that concedes the most shots per game. We're #1 in blocks per game as well as 5th for clearances per game which is unsurprising given that we have Tyrone Mings in defence.

Given that a year ago we were floundering against teams like Ipswich and Preston in the Championship, the fact that we are now performing like this in the PL is truly astounding. Dean Smith deserves all the credit in the world for turning us around like this in such a short space of time. It's been a decade since we were able to hold our own in this division, and we're now doing so in style with a young, growing team and staff. We've had to suffer for years, but we can finally say we have a PL team to be proud of.

Very lovely post Keyblade I enjoyed reading it.

I'd say two decades since we were actually a club who could hold there own in this league, so to read your stats i am more than happy by how good we actually are. I know we have been playing remarkable in every game except spurs, but just didnt relise how statistically we are one of the best in the league on alot of levels.

Fantastic, played- Nas, Wes, Smith, Jesus, Purslow, and all behind the scenes at Aston Villa you all brought the joy and love back to the club-UTV.

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39 minutes ago, Keyblade said:

Given that a year ago we were floundering against teams like Ipswich and Preston in the Championship, the fact that we are now performing like this in the PL is truly astounding. Dean Smith deserves all the credit in the world for turning us around like this in such a short space of time. It's been a decade since we were able to hold our own in this division, and we're now doing so in style with a young, growing team and staff. We've had to suffer for years, but we can finally say we have a PL team to be proud of.

It's amazing. My favourite year as a fan.

If we can stay up, I think we'll cement ourselves in the coming years. Jack and John will stay and the owners have shown they're happy to shell out. I reckon we'd be strengthening the squad with another 4 or 5 good players next summer.

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6 minutes ago, villalad21 said:

Smith.

Can we please stop with zonal marking when defending set pieces?

I hate it.

It's by far the best way to defend set pieces. Never understood why England persisted with man marking. 

But it requires practise and individual ability for sure. 

Edited by KenjiOgiwara
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We have some horrifying fixtures coming up which is a shame because we're on a decent little run and I hope we can at least perform very well and not get destroyed in order to keep some semblance of momentum going.

I absolutely would look to deploy Luiz over Hourihane. The way Brighton cut through our lines was scary at times and Liverpool and City will do that even more and actually exploit it better. I'm not blaming Hourihane for this as such because him and McGinn both put in a poor midfield display between them but ultimately we need to be better defensively and that's what Luiz will bring there and his ability on the ball will help us launch counter attacks.

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6 hours ago, villalad21 said:

Smith.

Can we please stop with zonal marking when defending set pieces?

I hate it.

2nd goal we conceeded from a set piece in 9 prem games.  The first one was an Auba free kick so zonal had nothing to do with that.  Doing just fine there. 

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15 hours ago, villalad21 said:

Smith.

Can we please stop with zonal marking when defending set pieces?

I hate it.

you would probably criticise how Smith makes his cups of tea especially for this non existent zonal marking issue

Edited by Zatman
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put this in the Smith thread as he deserves credit for getting the best out of the 2 of them

Quote

Jack Grealish and John McGinn
Given the rise in broadcasting revenues across the Premier League, it is no longer unusual for lower-half teams to have midfielders of wonderful technical ability. But what makes McGinn and Grealish so special is that they both came up from the Championship and are a homegrown academy kid and a player signed for less than £3m. If that sounds a little patronising, let’s address it with effusive praise: this is one of the best pairs of technical midfielders outside the Big Six.

Against Brighton, who were brilliant in the first 30 minutes and would surely have taken at least a point had Aaron Mooy not been sent off, Grealish and McGinn dictated the tempo of the match and ultimately decided its outcome. They shared nine chances created, 11 dribbles and nine shots. If Grealish understandably took the plaudits after his goal and assist, McGinn’s direct passing from central midfield is the perfect platform for Grealish to drift centrally and pick up possession in dangerous areas.

But that’s nothing new. Grealish and McGinn account for 45% of Aston Villa’s complete dribbles this season, 38% of their chances created, 37% of their shots and 25% of all the passes in the opposition half. Keep those two fit – and the man who gives them freedom – and Villa will stay up.

https://www.football365.com/news/premier-league-winners-and-losers-120

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On 19/10/2019 at 21:39, MikeMcKenna said:

DS needs a rethink. It is little wonder they were playing through us. Marvelous was defending on his own in central midfield for much of the game. Great that we won but it could easily have gone the other way, even when they had ten men. I don’t know what to suggest but something has to change as we look so vulnerable when on the back foot.

Front foot*

We heavily commit in attack and this leaves us vulnerable to the counter. Brighton did an absolutely fantastic job of exploiting that and beating our high press. The reason they weren't able to capitalise (or have any meaningful shots on target for an hour) was because they sacrificed one of their attackers when down to ten men. That didn't stop them playing some beautiful football up until the final third where they crumbled.

Sometimes you have to tip your cap to the opposition. This will happen to us occasionally because of how we play, it is by design rather than a glitch. We were chasing the win and perhaps over-committed at times, but really we should have been out of sight by the 94th minute anyway, we were wasteful in good positions. Nobody would have minded how open we were if we were 3-1 up by that point as we should have been. 

We can do better, McGinn looked knackered and should have come off, but I'm not concerned really. Certainly not to 'rethink' territory.

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On 20/10/2019 at 20:05, Keyblade said:

Next 2 games we need to have Douglas holding with Marvelous. Our midfield has been way too open recently. Brighton just had the freedom of VP to do what they wanted, and they're not even half the team City is. We'd get ripped to pieces if we play like that against City. I know he's been good since coming in, but having Conor play against City would be suicide.

Having Douglas sitting also has the added benefit of freeing up McGinn to basically play as an ACM without much worry. We'll be really dangerous on the break with Jack, John and Trez floating behind Wesley.

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1 hour ago, dont_do_it_doug. said:

Front foot*

We heavily commit in attack and this leaves us vulnerable to the counter. Brighton did an absolutely fantastic job of exploiting that and beating our high press. The reason they weren't able to capitalise (or have any meaningful shots on target for an hour) was because they sacrificed one of their attackers when down to ten men. That didn't stop them playing some beautiful football up until the final third where they crumbled.

Sometimes you have to tip your cap to the opposition. This will happen to us occasionally because of how we play, it is by design rather than a glitch. We were chasing the win and perhaps over-committed at times, but really we should have been out of sight by the 94th minute anyway, we were wasteful in good positions. Nobody would have minded how open we were if we were 3-1 up by that point as we should have been. 

We can do better, McGinn looked knackered and should have come off, but I'm not concerned really. Certainly not to 'rethink' territory.

I agree we should be going hell for leather v Brighton at home. We'll lose a few along the way but we'll turn draws into wins more often than not.

I've cried like a baby for some time now that I think we need a different system for certain games. Games like City away on Saturday. I hope we don't go with the same gung-ho style as a Brighton at home or we will get seriously trounced. An 8-0 loss will not help confidence and the team needs confidence to play they way they do.

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With those high up stats in most attacking areas just imagine where we would be now if we had managed to keep Tammy or if we had unearthed a goalscoring dynamo in the summer. 

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24 minutes ago, sidcow said:

With those high up stats in most attacking areas just imagine where we would be now if we had managed to keep Tammy or if we had unearthed a goalscoring dynamo in the summer. 

We're a dream to play for as a striker.

You don't need to be a great goalscorer to have an incredible output for this team. We get so many players and balls into the box.

I think if we had a fairly average striker like Chris Wood or Troy Deeney who could just look after the ball we'd be lethal. The hope is that Wes can grow into a better player than both I suppose.

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38 minutes ago, sidcow said:

With those high up stats in most attacking areas just imagine where we would be now if we had managed to keep Tammy or if we had unearthed a goalscoring dynamo in the summer. 

To be fair 4 goals in 9 games for our main striker isn't bad at all, even more so considering he should be able to develop and improve.

What i find better tbh is that we aren't reliant on one player currently to score, Grealish, Mcginn, hourihane and el Ghazi are all chipping in, and overall that's what we need, we did say at the start of the season we would need to spread the goals around to stay up, and currently we are doing that.

I much prefer the goals to be spread like that than the seasons where benteke was pretty much out only goal threat and we were entirely reliant on him for goals, it's nice to habe a few players capable of being a threat and those players actually delivering some goals.

Also i wouldn't underestimate Wesley helping that by his slightly deeper play, pulling players with him etc.

Edited by MaVilla
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41 minutes ago, MaVilla said:

To be fair 4 goals in 9 games for our main striker isn't bad at all, even more so considering he should be able to develop and improve.

What i find better tbh is that we aren't reliant on one player currently to score, Grealish, Mcginn, hourihane and el Ghazi are all chipping in, and overall that's what we need, we did say at the start of the season we would need to spread the goals around to stay up, and currently we are doing that.

I much prefer the goals to be spread like that than the seasons where benteke was pretty much out only goal threat and we were entirely reliant on him for goals, it's nice to habe a few players capable of being a threat and those players actually delivering some goals.

Also i wouldn't underestimate Wesley helping that by his slightly deeper play, pulling players with him etc.

The reason why lambert got fired was because benteke wasn't scoring and we continued to be crap elsewhere. 

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5 minutes ago, Jareth said:

I think there are definitely games where DS can throw caution to the wind and attack, and those where he'll play on the counter - think we'll set up at Citeh like we did at Spurs. 

Or Arsenal. I'm fine with either. We were dangerous in both.

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