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Dean Smith


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38 minutes ago, foreveryoung said:

Why don't he come out and say this, it'll do him a world of good. I understand he obviously couldn't just say he has changed the style cause the rest of the team is shite. But he could say he has changed us tactically due to Grealish ans Tuanzabe being out injured.

The problem is , when he gets them back, if its still the same or similar, he will look pretty daft....that is the danger.

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13 hours ago, Thug said:

For the love of God.

 

before grealish and axel got injured we were playing the best football I can remember, and I can remember from the GT MK I days.

With the right players, he’ll work wonders. 

chill people, give the man a chance!

 

50% I do agree with - he absolutely should be given more time ( you can't escape the fact he's working without the teams talisman ).

Am I totally convinced he is the right man? No I am not - but I want to see him given a fair crack of the whip - his predecessor was given a fair crack and so should Dean be. Imo 

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1 minute ago, Stevo985 said:

A lot of people are hanging all their hopes on Grelaish and Tuanzebe coming back.

 

Our problems at the moment run far deeper than those two. Especially Tuanzebe. He was having a fine season until he got injured, but he isn't going to transform us into the team that we were when Smith took over.

Grealish will help more in that department, but I still don't think him missing is the sole issue.

Agree here. If he is counting on Grealish that much,  he'll be totally F****** when he loses him at the end of the season.

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3 minutes ago, foreveryoung said:

Agree here. If he is counting on Grealish that much,  he'll be totally F****** when he loses him at the end of the season.

I think it's less about "Counting on Grealish that much" and more about have NO OTHER "Grealish type" player.

Summer should allow us to address this.

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1 hour ago, AntrimBlack said:

OS says they are.

I thought both signed extensions to their deals ? If out of contract in the summer they would both be available on a free so what would be the point of giving them experience elsewhere .

hugely disappointing if we are letting decent young players run out of contract and rewarding the likes of Hutton , did we learn nothing from Marc albrighton - ive been disappointed smith hasn’t used the younger players a bit more since arriving - would have liked to see Davis brought on a couple of times in recent games than kodjia and co 

Edited by Eastie
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35 minutes ago, Stevo985 said:

Grealish will help more in that department, but I still don't think him missing is the sole issue.

 

It is and it isn't. It's not just that we are missing Grealish, but more that his absence has totally unbalanced our midfield. Without Grealish the rest of our midfield are effectively pushed forward. Because we don't have a like for like replacement, we're forced to play McGinn further forward in a role he's nowhere near creative or technically good enough for and where his closing down and harrying is less effective, which means we miss his energy further back as Hourihane is nowhere near mobile or energetic enough to fill McGinn's role when he's pushed into that role. And the three that effectively replace Hourihane all have their own problems. Whelan's legs are gone, and I think he knows it, so he seems to play at about 50% when he starts so he can make the second half, though IMO he has been brilliant when coming off the bench recently, he just can't sustain it for more than 30 minutes. Jedinak can't run or pass, so he's practically useless at replacing anyone in our midfield. And Bjarnasson can run around a lot but not much else, which makes him almost more useless than Jedinak who at least head the ball and foul. So it's not just that Grealish is so good we're lost with him injured, but that without Grealish our entire midfield is less effective because they all have to play roles they're not suited for. He's not the sole issue, but our other midfield issues are solved with him back.

As a side note, when we were linked with Fer most were excited because they thought he'd be a hard tackling DM, but he'd more likely be Grealish's back up as our creative player and help rebalance the midfield. Which is also why I think Carroll signing was irrelevant to Fer, as some have suggested we panic signed him instead of Fer, as I reckon he'll eventually replace Hourihane in that deeper playmaker role.

Edited by MessiWillSignForVilla
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Davis could cover for Grealish while he is out, ok not as good, but could do a job. O'Hare. Green, Clarke to name a few could play the way Smith wants, but he will not risk it.

Problem is Smith has taken the "we cannot lose attitude", so many managers revert to when taking on Villa, take no risks. The way we set up and played until the first went in against Sheffield proved this. We were sitting so far back Abraham was isolated up front. It's only when the game was gone, Smith decided to push up and take the risk.

No one should be jumping on Fans backs when being negative towards Smith. I don't want him sacked right now, but he deserves criticism the way he is playing/setting the team up. I mean he is tactically better than this, an we do have younger fitter players on or off the bench who could do a job!

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1 hour ago, Stevo985 said:

A lot of people are hanging all their hopes on Grelaish and Tuanzebe coming back.

 

Our problems at the moment run far deeper than those two. Especially Tuanzebe. He was having a fine season until he got injured, but he isn't going to transform us into the team that we were when Smith took over.

Grealish will help more in that department, but I still don't think him missing is the sole issue.

I disagree a bit, to me Tuanzebe was almost as important on the ball at the back as Jack was in midfield and I'd hope having them both back would improve the overall team play, and certainly closer to what Smith wants.  Mings is another option now, and is why I'd look at moving Tuanzebe into defensive midfield alongside Jack and McGinn. 

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35 minutes ago, villalad21 said:

It's not like we won 5-6 games in a row when Jack and Axel were playing. 

We still had the same defensive problems which resulted in too many draws.

 

We had gone unbeaten in 7 though, and from the 3 draws in Smith's first 10 games - the games Tuanzebe and Grealish (with the exception of Stoke) were available for - we were kinda screwed over in two of them. In the 5-5, our defence was shit, but Forest also only had 5 shots, at least 2 of which should have been easily saved. Plus we had a goal that IMO was wrongfully disallowed, so we could have easily won that one if we had Kalinic or the Ref did his job properly. And in the 2-2 against West Brom, they created practically nothing other than their goal from what I remember and then they equalised in the last minute with Rodriguez punching the ball in that the Linesman inexplicably didn't see despite staring right at it. Another referee mistake that cost us 2 points. With Stoke game, I didn't watch so I can't comment on it. But of the 3 draws that constitute "too many", at least two we should have won, mainly through poor officiating. Hell, you could argue in the last month and a half the refs have cost us at least 6 points if you include Sheff Utd.

Then our defence really went off the rails with the Leeds match, the first that Tuanzebe missed, which it's also worth remembering Taylor was injured for. So when our defence really got bad, we had only 1 senior CB available (who was also injured) and no LB, resulting in a back 4 consisting of 3 RBs, until Taylor came back and Elphick was recalled. And we only had 2 fit CBs when we managed to get Hause/Mings so Chester could be rested, which has been what, 2 games now? Is 2 games with a fully fit back four really long enough to fix the issues we had with the taped together defensively line we had for over a month and 7 games? now I'm not saying our defence is stellar, but we have had some pretty shit luck since December and some glaring holes that we couldn't really do much about. We have problems, but a lot of them have been caused by missing players, it doesn't help that they're also our best players, we might've limped along better if we were missing Chester and Hourihane instead of Tuanzebe and Grealish.

Edited by MessiWillSignForVilla
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If you produce a league table based on the results since Smith has been here, we'd be 10th.  He of course needs time and I'm sure he'll get it, but the football has been dire for ages now, the transfer window was underwhelming, and he needs to get a grip, and quickly, because he's performing quite badly.

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4 minutes ago, MessiWillSignForVilla said:

We had gone unbeaten in 7 though, and from the 3 draws in Smith's first 10 games - the games Tuanzebe and Grealish (with the exception of Stoke) were available for - we were kinda screwed over in two of them. In the 5-5, our defence was shit, but Forest also only had 5 shots, at least 2 of which should have been easily saved. Plus we had a goal that IMO was wrongfully disallowed, so we could have easily won that one if we had Kalinic or the Ref did his job properly. And in the 2-2 against West Brom, they created practically nothing other than their goal from what I remember and then they equalised in the last minute with Rodriguez punching the ball in that the Linesman inexplicably didn't see despite staring right at it. Another referee mistake that cost us 2 points. With Stoke game, I didn't watch so I can't comment on it. But of the 3 draws that constitute "too many", at least two we should have won, mainly through poor officiating. Hell, you could argue in the last month and a half the refs have cost us at least 6 points if you include Sheff Utd.

Then our defence really went off the rails with the Leeds match, the first that Tuanzebe missed, which it's also worth remembering Taylor was injured for. So when our defence really got bad, we had only 1 senior CB available (who was also injured) and no LB, resulting in a back 4 consisting of 3 RBs, until Taylor came back and Elphick was recalled. And we only had 2 fit CBs when we managed to get Hause/Mings so Chester could be rested, which has been what, 2 games now? Is 2 games with a fully fit back four really long enough to fix the issues we had with the taped together defensively line we had for over a month and 7 games? now I'm not saying our defence is stellar, but we have had some pretty shit luck since December and some glaring holes that we couldn't really do much about. We have problems, but a lot of them have been caused by missing players, it doesn't help that they're also our best players, we might've limped along better if we were missing Chester and Hourihane instead of Tuanzebe and Grealish.

Excuses, excuses...

We will see when they get back how much things in reality will improve

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2 minutes ago, MessiWillSignForVilla said:

But you said before Grealish and Tuanzebe were injured we had too many draws due to our defence. We only had 3 and 2 were because of referee mistakes...

Good teams make their own luck

Good teams aren't dependent on a good ref to win games

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1 hour ago, JAMAICAN-VILLAN said:

I think it's less about "Counting on Grealish that much" and more about have NO OTHER "Grealish type" player.

Summer should allow us to address this.

i think you are right....its more about the " Types " of players....I think we have too many, much the same or similar

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9 minutes ago, Risso said:

If you produce a league table based on the results since Smith has been here, we'd be 10th.  He of course needs time and I'm sure he'll get it, but the football has been dire for ages now, the transfer window was underwhelming, and he needs to get a grip, and quickly, because he's performing quite badly.

Well lets put it like this....The team he presides over is performing badly.

He might be working his nuts off, behind the scenes....but its not evident on the pitch.

It has much the resounding noises that was aimed at Bruce....but admittedly Bruce had much longer to put it right.

This team is not balanced right for me....There is a type of work in a game that needs to be done and it appears that we have players who can't do it, for whatever reason....we chop and change and still the work is not accomplished....That's my take on it.

We have players who some call gutless and lack tenacity or will or even belief ....problem being its more than one and there are little or no alternatives.

I would hate to be the one to try and fix it.

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11 minutes ago, villalad21 said:

Good teams make their own luck

Good teams aren't dependent on a good ref to win games

This statement surely contradict itself because what if a good team got a lucky ref's decision to win a tight game??

Edited by New_Hope
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I see a number of Villa fans on here are going off their minds because off recent poor performances. Here's how I look at this. If I took the starting line-up from Friday, and asked myself how many of this team would I want to see starting the first game of next season, assuming we are still in the Championship?

I had five players that I would want to start next season, irrespective of if we could keep them or not. So if it's only five, it's no wonder we are having problems as over half the team just aren't good enough. You can carry one or two, but not six.

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