Dean Smith

[Vive_La_Villa]

16 minutes ago, onmeedson said:

Most want to beat the teams around them, yes it's nice to beat the liverpools and arsenals but the brightons are more or less 6 Pointers and could make the difference at the end of the season. Survival is the aim and a mid table slot would be nice, but you have to target your rivals for that slot and that sort of game will always be a battle. Was that the new plan B saturday sub the sub?

Give me a break mate, he came on after 2 minutes. 

[TRO]

2 hours ago, cb_82 said:

I have to say firstly that I was pretty disappointed with the overall reaction on social media etc to Sunday, I know people don't like to lose but there needs to be a bit more perspective to things in my opinion.

 

''We should be beating teams like Brighton'' Why? We stunk the league out last season for pretty much all of it and stayed up on the last day, why do we suddenly think we should be beating them and when we don't throw our toys out calling players names?

 

''We should be beating mid table teams like Southampton'' Give me strength, the game its self was a tale of 3 free kicks and stupid decisions but Southampton have been pretty much the form team in the country since lockdown, again why have we got a divine right to beat them?

 

Is Smith perfect? No Or the players perfect? No but the whole plan this year is to improve on last year eg be comfortable before buying another 4 good players in the summer to add depth and to move us forward, I would have bitten your hand off for 15 points and 7th position after 8 games and despite what people say as frustrating as its been to lose to the ''smaller'' names i have thoroughly enjoyed the Arsenal and Liverpool results 

We have a decent run of games coming up where if we can take another 10 points before the Chelsea 28th we will be pretty much there for this season and I think then we can look at pushing on (And maybe have a good FA Cup run!) unlike the excited few who think after a good start we are now pushing for the top 4 and lose complete realism when we lose in what was overall a 50-50 game.

 

Final thing as well re Conor... He played the first two games of the season and we won them both, games like Newcastle/Burnley where its tight and they sit back are when he comes into his own with set pieces - people are talking about him coming in as its me they are starting!!!

Keep the faith 

 

 

Can you explain?......what has the position in the league, which is great, got to do with amaterish defending.

the two are completely different......what we did in the Liverpool or Arsenal games, have no relevance to the last 3 Homes games.....they are all individual games, with their own personalities.

We are all over the moon with the start......but we are discussing why such basic defensive faults are undoing all the good work we have worked hard for......is that so bad.

Its not criticisms, its observations of how we can improve, even more........its also a reminder that overall, we are still not quite as good as some think we are.

The good games have been more than brilliant, totally blown away with some of our play.....but the vulnerabilities still lurk......thats all I am saying.

[Greenfly]

46 minutes ago, TRO said:

Its not criticisms, its observations of how we can improve, even more........its also a reminder that overall, we are still not quite as good as some think we are.

The good games have been more than brilliant, totally blown away with some of our play.....but the vulnerabilities still lurk......thats all I am saying.

Absolutely right. The vulnerabilities are a symptom of us still growing as a team. We've improved massively in a short amount of time; it makes sense that there will still be throwbacks to last season's concerns.

We have seen that we are clearly getting better and better, but it will take time yet. Smith has proven beyond all reasonable doubt that he knows what he's doing, as far as I'm concerned.

[Mjvilla]

47 minutes ago, TRO said:

Can you explain?......what has the position in the league, which is great, got to do with amaterish defending.

the two are completely different......what we did in the Liverpool or Arsenal games, have no relevance to the last 3 Homes games.....they are all individual games, with their own personalities.

We are all over the moon with the start......but we are discussing why such basic defensive faults are undoing all the good work we have worked hard for......is that so bad.

Its not criticisms, its observations of how we can improve, even more........its also a reminder that overall, we are still not quite as good as some think we are.

The good games have been more than brilliant, totally blown away with some of our play.....but the vulnerabilities still lurk......thats all I am saying.

Isn't that pretty simple? The lower you are in the table, the more amateurish defending you tend to see? And Vice-versa?

We are inconsistent, but we are not going from surviving by a scrape to top 6 in one season. We are a slow build. Piece by piece, we are getting there. Smith has been integral to the whole damn thing. 

We didn't defend well, we looked extremely tired. We don't have the squad to cope with key players playing 200+ minutes internationally, all across the globe. This is part of the building process. 

There is such speed to jump and look for fault in defeats. We are not accepting them, we are accepting we are a work in progress and there's going to be bumps in the road. Smith has proven lots of people wrong, time and time again at this football club. I trust him to continue to do that, because he's given me no other reason to think different. 

 

 

[sparrow1988]

1 hour ago, Mjvilla said:

Isn't that pretty simple? The lower you are in the table, the more amateurish defending you tend to see? And Vice-versa?

We are inconsistent, but we are not going from surviving by a scrape to top 6 in one season. We are a slow build. Piece by piece, we are getting there. Smith has been integral to the whole damn thing. 

We didn't defend well, we looked extremely tired. We don't have the squad to cope with key players playing 200+ minutes internationally, all across the globe. This is part of the building process. 

There is such speed to jump and look for fault in defeats. We are not accepting them, we are accepting we are a work in progress and there's going to be bumps in the road. Smith has proven lots of people wrong, time and time again at this football club. I trust him to continue to do that, because he's given me no other reason to think different. 

 

 

You've obviously never played Football Manager have you?

[TRO]

1 hour ago, sparrow1988 said:

You've obviously never played Football Manager have you?

or watched Leicester.

[Greenfly]

26 minutes ago, TRO said:

or watched Leicester.

To be fair, the pieces were already there for Leicester. They never looked like a team that deserved to go down, and they ended that season in red hot form.

[TRO]

4 minutes ago, Greenfly said:

To be fair, the pieces were already there for Leicester. They never looked like a team that deserved to go down, and they ended that season in red hot form.

they lost 19 games  and gained 41 points the year before they won the league 2015/16.....I think thats a fair illustration of a huge turn around.

I accept these things take time and depending on the skill and nous of the recruitment, dictates primarily how quick you can do it......but when we play games like Brighton with school boy errors, we drift in to topics like, how far we have come and how quick we have done it.

for me the things are entirely different.....IMO those players should know better....even now.

[Keyblade]

34 minutes ago, TRO said:

they lost 19 games  and gained 41 points the year before they won the league 2015/16.....I think thats a fair illustration of a huge turn around.

I accept these things take time and depending on the skill and nous of the recruitment, dictates primarily how quick you can do it......but when we play games like Brighton with school boy errors, we drift in to topics like, how far we have come and how quick we have done it.

for me the things are entirely different.....IMO those players should know better....even now.

Leicester was a once in a lifetime occurrence. Hardly a yardstick.

[Mjvilla]

43 minutes ago, TRO said:

they lost 19 games  and gained 41 points the year before they won the league 2015/16.....I think thats a fair illustration of a huge turn around.

I accept these things take time and depending on the skill and nous of the recruitment, dictates primarily how quick you can do it......but when we play games like Brighton with school boy errors, we drift in to topics like, how far we have come and how quick we have done it.

for me the things are entirely different.....IMO those players should know better....even now.

 

8 minutes ago, Keyblade said:

Leicester was a once in a lifetime occurrence. Hardly a yardstick.

Not just that @Keyblade, but Leicester didn't have to come up and buy a whole new squad because of so much previous Mis management. We had 2/3 players worthy of a shirt in a premier league side. 

Leicester, the season they came up, added 3/4 players to the already decent squad they had. Then added a couple more. Recruitment was obviously very good. Mahrez, Kante stand out.

Our recruitment, now the players have had time to settle and develop, looks ok. One or two excellent signings with players still developing and increasing in value too.

The variables are so different between us and what Leicester did, that it's impossible to compare the 2 instances. I'm not surprised by it though, Dean can't do right for some. He has the wolves waiting after every single defeat. Did Bruce have the same? I think I've proved the answer to that before.

[Vive_La_Villa]

Why it is whenever we lose a game it has to mean there is some fundamental flaw in how we play and how we defend?  It’s individual and collective errors that are causing us to concede goals. But is that not the the case with 90% of teams that concede goals. It’s not often a goal conceding could not have been defended.

If the issues we are facing are a fundamental flaw in how we are coached and set up then then the 5 wins and 4 clean sheets must have been one offs and we’re going to be facing a relegation scrap. 

 

Edited November 23, 2020 by Vive_La_Villa

[Davkaus]

If at the start of the season you'd shown people the league table of where we are at the moment after our opening fixtures, I think people would have been happy. I think people would actually be more content if we'd lost to Arsenal/Liverpool/Leicester and beaten Brighton, Leeds and Southampton. We're doing well, but losing to those teams makes it feel like a missed opportunity, even though it'd be ridiculous to expect us to have won every game. 

We've surpassed expectations in several games, and fallen below them in others. It's certainly progress though.

[GingerCollins29]

We raise expectations beating the likes of plop, leicester, arse. We start believing and rightly so cus it shows what we're capable of. Then lose to brighton et al and people are bound to question whats going on

[sheepyvillian]

Oftentimes, when reading this thread, I inexplicably start humming in my head that old Pete Burns song, " like a record, baby, right round, right round ", I wonder why ?

[Vive_La_Villa]

25 minutes ago, Davkaus said:

If at the start of the season you'd shown people the league table of where we are at the moment after our opening fixtures, I think people would have been happy. I think people would actually be more content if we'd lost to Arsenal/Liverpool/Leicester and beaten Brighton, Leeds and Southampton. We're doing well, but losing to those teams makes it feel like a missed opportunity, even though it'd be ridiculous to expect us to have won every game. 

We've surpassed expectations in several games, and fallen below them in others. It's certainly progress though.

I like to see it as every single game in the league is a difficult one but we are now able to compete in every one of them.    

[DCJonah]

6 hours ago, Mjvilla said:

Isn't that pretty simple? The lower you are in the table, the more amateurish defending you tend to see? And Vice-versa?

We are inconsistent, but we are not going from surviving by a scrape to top 6 in one season. We are a slow build. Piece by piece, we are getting there. Smith has been integral to the whole damn thing. 

We didn't defend well, we looked extremely tired. We don't have the squad to cope with key players playing 200+ minutes internationally, all across the globe. This is part of the building process. 

There is such speed to jump and look for fault in defeats. We are not accepting them, we are accepting we are a work in progress and there's going to be bumps in the road. Smith has proven lots of people wrong, time and time again at this football club. I trust him to continue to do that, because he's given me no other reason to think different. 

 

 

Yep. I do find it strange that after the last two years, the same crowd want to dissect every mistake whenever we don't win a game. 

 

[Tomaszk]

2 hours ago, Keyblade said:

Leicester was a once in a lifetime occurrence. Hardly a yardstick.

Once in ten lifetimes. The biggest shock in the history of sport for me. It wasn't a one off day, it was a whole season.

Obviously we won't be repeating it and neither will anyone else ever.

[cb_82]

8 hours ago, TRO said:

Can you explain?......what has the position in the league, which is great, got to do with amaterish defending.

the two are completely different......what we did in the Liverpool or Arsenal games, have no relevance to the last 3 Homes games.....they are all individual games, with their own personalities.

We are all over the moon with the start......but we are discussing why such basic defensive faults are undoing all the good work we have worked hard for......is that so bad.

Its not criticisms, its observations of how we can improve, even more........its also a reminder that overall, we are still not quite as good as some think we are.

The good games have been more than brilliant, totally blown away with some of our play.....but the vulnerabilities still lurk......thats all I am saying.

Yes I can explain....

 

League position is false and so we defend like an inconsistent mid table team, unfortunately you will get games like that and as I said before I think saints will finish above Arsenal anyway

I have to say firstly that I was pretty disappointed with the overall reaction on social media etc to Sunday, I know people don't like to lose but there needs to be a bit more perspective to things in my opinion.

Im talking about the way people have expressed it, calling Mings shit, Trez is shit, Dean Smith has no plan B etc etc it was a total overaction. We are aiming to be a mid table side and we lost to a mid table side, pick the bones out of the goals by all means but that overall Saturday was not the worst performance and we could easily have taken something out the game.

 

 

 

 

 

[Vive_La_Villa]

9 hours ago, TRO said:

Can you explain?......what has the position in the league, which is great, got to do with amaterish defending.

the two are completely different......what we did in the Liverpool or Arsenal games, have no relevance to the last 3 Homes games.....they are all individual games, with their own personalities.

We are all over the moon with the start......but we are discussing why such basic defensive faults are undoing all the good work we have worked hard for......is that so bad.

Its not criticisms, its observations of how we can improve, even more........its also a reminder that overall, we are still not quite as good as some think we are.

The good games have been more than brilliant, totally blown away with some of our play.....but the vulnerabilities still lurk......thats all I am saying.

We’d be challenging for the title if they weren’t.

I agree we are not as good as some people thought. But we are much better than season so there is clear progression.  That’s the main thing for me. 

[TRO]

3 hours ago, Keyblade said:

Leicester was a once in a lifetime occurrence. Hardly a yardstick.

I suppose they will say that about our European cup win.

its irrelevant.....they did it and so did we.

its not a yardstick, its a tangible example.