Dean Smith

[Stevo985]

15 hours ago, Dave-R said:

Our players start losing and holidays is what they get. While it does look like they have been doing hard work, they shouldnt be rewarded for losing games by being allowed to go on holiday and give time off if that's what's happening. Our players should maybe have a couple days at most and back to it, they need to learn and figure things out and its clear with results that there's still much work to do, so really they should be in on this break off from games training and practising because Spurs game and Southampton plus come to think the rest of our season is only going to get tougher.

In my eyes this isn't being prepared, it certainly isnt soon as the chance there's a break in football they are off on holiday, I hope they are back training come a couple days time and back at it. I dont think there's many of us that will be impressed with them if they have the most of this break off when they could be doing all they should be doing to cement our place in this league.

There are already alot of signs to suggest our lads already don't want this league enough compared to other teams, that we make way to many mistakes, make to many poor decisions, that we don't put away most our chances. 

It's starting to look like Smith is being way to soft on our players, doubt some of the other managers or coaches will be allowing there players this time off when the league is already close in certain positions, they will say to there players your time will be at the end of the season for holidays.

A holiday isn't a reward. It's a break.

We've been given a winter break this season. Every other team are giving players holidays and a chance to recharged. 

A holiday is the perfect way to spend the break. I'm sure they'll be back in training and preparing well in advance of the next game

[Stevo985]

15 minutes ago, Craigy1874 said:

hoping to be on page 1000 

I didn't even realise what I was doing

Well done everyone.

 

We did it. 

[Adam2003]

27 minutes ago, Stevo985 said:

Yeah I don't think it was anything like the game at VP. This one was worse to be quite honest.

The game at VP we were by far the better team, we just gifted them two stupid goals.

This time we were just shit.

Yep.

[TRO]

19 hours ago, The Hawk said:

We can agree on the fact that that is too many goals to be conceding. But of all of the 20 premier league clubs, if I had to guess which club/s would be conceding a lot of goals, I’d guessing the lowest ranked newly promoted side with a completely new look defence and a manager that favours attacking football. 
 

Perspective.

You make your bed and you lie on it.

He does favour attacking football and when those attackers are not quite good enough to overcome the deficiencies of defensive capability.....you face the consequences, which we are.

its naive to come in to this league and expect to stay in it, with those stats.

Just one aspect......We have spent 45 million on Luiz,Nakamba,El Ghazi, Trez.......I have a real doubt that that money was spent wisely for this league.

We have a tendency to encourage other teams in to the game, i think those players contribute to that, with their lack of consistency.....If you think, they will get better, I am not convinced.....Luiz ,maybe, due to his age.

We have 13 games to get 15 points to be reasonably sure of safety, its doable, only if we apply ourselves correctly.

unless it has been an obvious signing like a centre back.....I don't believe enough attention has been given to defensive capability in the team, particularly in recruitment.

 

[New_Hope]

Yay....I'm on the 1000th page!!

Oh and let's keep going Dean old boy!

[DJ_Villain]

Awesome! On the 1000th page!

A moment of history... Just like when Dean Smith engineered our unlikely promotion back to the Premier League!

[TRO]

14 hours ago, Kiwivillan said:

I referenced his tackling. This is ridiculous nitpicking

No it isn't.....tackling is just one aspect of being a DM, staying tight, reading the game, tracking your man and so on.

but you just chose to call out one example, maybe i should have been more explicit, but i would have thought folk, knew what i was getting at........I didn't want to write a manuscript, i was just being brief.

If you had said it is reported he is the 5th best DM in the league.....then thats different.

but you didn't and he isn't.

[TRO]

3 minutes ago, DJ_Villain said:

Awesome! On the 1000th page!

A moment of history... Just like when Dean Smith engineered our unlikely promotion back to the Premier League!

He might be engineering a way back too.

[TRO]

12 hours ago, Dave-R said:

Have you never noticed that on this site Kiwi, sarcasm is on the rise, alot have to 1up the rest for some reason. Last season it wasn't as bad, this season it's like it's back with a vengeance.

Back to Smith though, Smith didn't look pleased after the last defeat that I am surprised that he's allowed anyone on holiday. Smith needs to lay the law into these players as they are living the lifestyle yet not paying it back. The players are more than capable of winning these matches and they were very close many a time early in the season, yet it was clear we need reinforcements and better quality.  What's shocking is that better quality hasn't arrived this window, so really we have not learned anything this window and we could of possibly made mistakes by not bringing in the necessary signings we needed to go that extra further mile than other clubs.

While I like Nakamba i certainly don't agree he doesn't try to tackle and his appetite to tackle isn't there because it is, yet it's Nakambas tackle success rate that doesn't seem to be paying off for him it seems. I have not seen his stats but if his duels won is low then we seriously have the wrong CDM. Nakamba should be cleaning up after messes on the pitch, he's fast enough to get around so he should not have a problem always being near the ball especially in our defensive third. 

That being said our keeper is having an awful lot being fired at him that it's completely over the top crazy. We all know how horrible that becomes for a keeper yet that fault doesnt just lie with Nakamba for not mopping up, it lies with the defence as well. Our Defence seems to either be scared to confront opposition or scare to step towards opposition in case they get out turned that it's giving opposition space enough to get into shot range which then implies it's a set of balls players are missing, along with courage where that play isnt shut down fast enough. The midfield has to also take blame, one for letting the ball go in the first place (no you can't always keep the ball) and we are losing the ball at times at alarming rates. So our midfield invites pressure and we are not applying the right type of pressure fast enough as some midfielders stop chasing or don't even begin to chase which in turn allows opposition to gsin advantage in territory and position.

At the time the Defence is backing off, Nakamba isn't sweeping up the mess, the keeper is having crazy shots fired at him, what is the midfield actually doing??? The midfield all its doing is adding to the number in the defensive third making the field more congested which is ok, but they are not really going towards the opposition applying pressure and trying to retrieve the ball and help Nakamba out, they just sit with our defence and were then going from side to side defending shots and blocking them. At most our midfielders and defenders are booting it back up field and possession is back in the feet of the opposition which is unacceptable. That's the problem we have is once we've cleared the ball there is no one holding onto that ball so we can begin passing it outwards, we are blindly giving that ball away to opposition, yet we are sposed to be a possession based team and it's not working out where we have possession most through a game.

I watched against Bournmouth that once We had got the ball on the wing That we nearly always had the player isolated with no where to go with the ball, even the pundits mentioned this. We so need to drop this Winger tactic, it is not helping or aiding us and im not enjoying seeing us make crosses that dont go anywhere that we do not benifit from. In fact I would say that we are missing men in the center that it's causing us so many problems that we can not function properly as a team to begin with. Our midfield is ineffective because we havnt the numbers in the center. We may find ourselves on the front foot more if we had two more body's in the centre going out wide, instead of being out wide to begin with.

I feel like our main problems start with the Wingers, if those two players are brought back into the center, then a good portion of the balls going through center may be halted long before our defence or CDM ever start having so many problems or our keeper starts being bombarded with artillery. I just feel our midfield will function way better if we had full service and maximum effect in the middle of the park by having more players playing there, we are severly light in midfield.

Well done Dave.

I think its difficult to argue with any of that and I applaud you for saying it.

I know how positive you are about Villa Dave ,so it was an honest assessment.

but it is quite a worrying set of examples, and despite the argument of our first season, I wasn't expecting all of that, new players or not, there are too many shortfalls is my concern....I thought more than is, would have been ironed out.

I think its healthy to debate these kind of things and 49 goals conceded in 25 games, is a stat, I thought that VT would be keen to analyse.

Edited February 5, 2020 by TRO

[KevinRichardsonsMoustache]

27 minutes ago, New_Hope said:

Yay....I'm on the 1000th page!!

Oh and let's keep going Dean old boy!

We barely broke the 200 page mark for RDM

It took 11 months for Steve Bruce to get to 1000 pages

It took Dean Smith 16 months to get to 1000 pages

 

[briny_ear]

Just now, KevinRichardsonsMoustache said:

We barely broke the 200 page mark for RDM

It took 11 months for Steve Bruce to get to 1000 pages

It took Dean Smith 16 months to get to 1000 pages

 

RDM wasn’t with us for too long. What was his page per day in the job ratio?

[TRO]

18 hours ago, eholm said:

Yep....our team is absolutely crying out for a Ndidi/Fabinho type physicality of CDM. We are still a soft touch in this area and never have a player who exerts their authority here. Power and pace, imo, two of the most important attributes for a good PL player. Unfortunately, in the midfield and the attacking thirds we lack both. 

 

Spot on

Quite frankly, i am staggered more folk have not picked up on it...or if they have, commented on it.

I am disappointed in our attempts to deal with it.

Edited February 5, 2020 by TRO

[TRO]

19 hours ago, JAMAICAN-VILLAN said:

As crazy as this sounds, I would have taken one of those over another striker (If it was one or the other)

I am so frustrated with it, iI guess it shows.

We did need another striker too, but i know where you are coming from.

Luiz and Nakamba, are not the answer, right now, they don't offer enough or consistency.

[sne]

4 minutes ago, TRO said:

 

Spot on

Quite frankly, i am staggered more folk have not picked up on it.

I am disappointed in our attempts to deal with it.

We've spent close to £150m to rebuild the squad from scratch this season.

Perhaps there just wasn't money available for us to do so in January? No millions to spend if you will.

As much as I'd loved for us to sign Sander Berge I don't think we could.

Edited February 5, 2020 by sne

[KevinRichardsonsMoustache]

5 minutes ago, briny_ear said:

RDM wasn’t with us for too long. What was his page per day in the job ratio?

Oh my dear @briny_ear, I lay the foundations and other glorious VTers will take on the baton..!

 

 

[TRO]

13 minutes ago, sne said:

We've spent close to £150m to rebuild the squad from scratch this season.

Perhaps there just wasn't money available for us to do so in January? No millions to spend if you will.

As much as I'd loved for us to sign Sander Berge I don't think we could.

Well, it wasn't entirely scratch, we still had 2 very good midfielders, who can be expensive to buy.

I still think we could have bought better...albeit we had to get squad fillers too, which in the main we have.

we wouldn't go without a striker or a goal keeper......so why do we go with such inexperience at CDM......its the engine room of the team....its a crucial position.

when teams with good ones, miss them through injury, it affects them badly, and its noticable.

I think we could have spent more prudently, but thats just my opinion.

Edited February 5, 2020 by TRO

[TRO]

20 hours ago, sheepyvillian said:

The dark period came after Dalglish resigned, who, by the way, succeeded Fagan, who in turn, succeeded Paisley. Their so called dark period came long after Paisley. 

It was just a generalisation, without specific research......but you recognise they did go in to the doldrums, by there own standards.....that was my point......and how they have drove their way out.

[Rolta]

4 minutes ago, TRO said:

Well, it wasn't entirely scratch, we still had 2 very good midfielders, who can be expensive to buy.

I still think we could have bought better...albeit we had to get squad fillers too, which in the main we have.

we wouldn't go without a striker or a goal keeper......so why do we go with such inexperience at CDM......its the engine room of the team....its a crucial position.

when teams with good ones, miss them through injury, it affects them badly, and its noticable.

I think we could have spent more prudently, but thats just my opinion.

We are missing McGinn to be fair. I think back to when we were linked to Kalvin Phillips—I think we would have been in a much better position with him. I agree that the inexperience at CM has put us in a bit of a bleak position. Nakamba and Luiz have both had good games, but they're inconsistent.

[Dave-R]

5 minutes ago, sne said:

We've spent close to £150m to rebuild the squad from scratch this season.

Perhaps there just wasn't money available for us to do so in January? No millions to spend if you will.

As much as I'd loved for us to sign Sander Berge I don't think we could.

Spending above what we already have spent is one massive gamble for a first season.  I think we could of spent the money easy on better quality players. I think everyone in charge wanted to play this smart and sign players who may just be able to get the job done who cost much cheaper than world class names. What would of been the point in spending 300 million on a team we couldn't keep in the premier that would invite massive gambles, if we get relegated with a team that cost that big of a price then when we go down those players move on for peanuts compared to what we bought them for. There is also the fact that any players we couldn't sell on would be on massive wages and we'd ha e them in the EFL where you earn around 10k a game through tv rights, we wouldn't be able to sustain ourselves, so we had to plan properly. If we make survival we will then have a tram to build off, we sell any highlighted players who we think need to be replaced and much better quality will be bought and signed. We will next season be able to spend more on fewer players all because we don't have to buy as many players and do a complete rebuild. Our first season was always going to be walking through fire because of the team we had to put together as cheap as we could, next season I'm sure of it, we will see some decent players who are well known named come in provided we can survive. as it stand if we go down we may be able to keep many of our signings apart from a few, I think that is what was planned for, a worse and best case scenario, if so then that was the smart way to do business in football.

Question is will we be calling ourselves a Premier team next season or an EFL team, that will depend on the players we have now and how much they want success, if they want to play right next to better quality players they need to go out and prove they can fight for there place as a Premier league team. As it stand it's debatable whether they deserve to be playing alongside the best in the world all because of how they are playing from one week to the next, consistent players for a run of wins would be lovely..

 

[sne]

1 minute ago, TRO said:

Well, it wasn't entirely scratch, we still have 2 very good midfielders, who can be expensive.

I still think we could have bought better...albeit we had to get squad fillers too, which in the main we have.

we wouldn't go without a striker or a goal keeper......so why do we go with such inexperience at CDM......its the engine room of the team....its a crucial position.

when teams with good ones, miss them through injury, it affects them badly, and its noticable.

I think we could have spent more prudently, but thats just my opinion.

2 players of the ones playing regularly this season for us were left when the summer begun. That's unheard of.

I mean we could have any experienced midfielder in the world and it wouldn't work without a goalkeeper and striker. Both also crucial positions.

Again, same with GK and striker.

The sheer amount of work that had to be done in a very short time thanks to the previous regimes Short-sightedness was Herculean, we were never going to get it spot on.