Dean Smith

[TRO]

1 hour ago, foreveryoung said:

Dean's never been ready for what the Premier League requires. Yes you can blame the players and other staff,  but one thing you need playing in the this league is discipline, something I think someone of Dean's stature and experience is finding it hard to install.  Not to mention your Sheffield man again, but he seems like a manager not to be messed with, an to be fair they don't really have many superstars, just grafters who wanna play football.

Always thought it was a huge step for Smith, just too soon. I will stick to what I said at Christmas, that we wouldn't be in this position if we had a more experienced manager.

I am not sure, if he wasn't ready for it i.e experience......or he just simply has an expansive vision that has scant regard for defending.

Managers do tend to stay with what they believe in, which is a worry, if its not working, like in our case...or great if it is working.

I too am not convinced on the discipline either, but if things are not working on the pitch, that is hard to get over, players start to disbelieve.

Edited May 1, 2020 by TRO

[Tomaszk]

1 hour ago, Eastie said:

Train wreck ? Grealish, mcginn, Tammy ,  tuanxebe were among the best in the league - smith inherited a very good championship team .

Yes, a train wreck. A burning, fiery one with no survivors.

He performed a miracle getting us up.

[Eastie]

10 minutes ago, Tomaszk said:

Yes, a train wreck. A burning, fiery one with no survivors.

He performed a miracle getting us up.

We saw how things went without jack - it was jacks form and  return to fitness that made the huge difference - granted dean did a good job but let’s not be in any doubt Grealish made the Main  difference in the run in . 
 

I will always be grateful to dean for helping us bacK to the premier league but I think he is out of his depth at this level and should have gone in December . 

[Tomaszk]

3 minutes ago, Eastie said:

We saw how things went without jack - it was jacks form and  return to fitness that made the huge difference - granted dean did a good job but let’s not be in any doubt Grealish made the Main  difference in the run in . 

Jack needed the team playing a certain way to have the effect he did. Dean provided that. He was being strangled horribly under Bruce, as were all the other players and fans.

4 minutes ago, Eastie said:

I will always be grateful to dean for helping us bacK to the premier league but I think he is out of his depth at this level and should have gone in December . 

You're probably right sadly.

However, I'm certain he was given plenty of players that weren't what we needed, and even still if we had a proper striker we would have picked up plenty more points early season. The team could only take so many kicks in the balls to confidence before it was going to stop working entirely.

[Chindie]

I like Smith but it's obvious he's not really a top level manager. He can't make a team defend (and since our defence has been shite all season, he's had time to get it right) and he doesn't have much beyond 1 plan. He's been given a rough hand this year but his job is to make that hand perform. And it hasn't, consistently.

He probably should be out.

[foreveryoung]

41 minutes ago, Tomaszk said:

Jack needed the team playing a certain way to have the effect he did. Dean provided that. He was being strangled horribly under Bruce, as were all the other players and fans.

You're probably right sadly.

However, I'm certain he was given plenty of players that weren't what we needed, and even still if we had a proper striker we would have picked up plenty more points early season. The team could only take so many kicks in the balls to confidence before it was going to stop working entirely.

If we had a proper striker his vison would have been to score lots defo, but I think also sacrificing the defence maybe even more. He is a great guy wears his heart on his sleeve, but never a manager to take us into the Premier League unfortunately. I just think the board thought they owed him a go, but for me it lacked thinking, like it was the easy route, with little regard for success and results. The renewed contract was amateur at least.

Grealish and Tammy took us to the Premier League, and at that that time you could argue Smith had the best team in the League.

Again some might argue, but Brentford is a better more defensive side without him, investment or not.

Edited May 1, 2020 by foreveryoung

[Tomaszk]

10 minutes ago, foreveryoung said:

He is a great guy wears his heart on his sleeve, but never a manager to take us into the Premier League unfortunately.

He took us into the Premier League. That is fact.

11 minutes ago, foreveryoung said:

I just think the board thought they owed him a go, but for me it lacked thinking, like it was the easy route, with little regard for success and results. The renewed contract was amateur at least.

A ridiculous decision, yes.

11 minutes ago, foreveryoung said:

Grealish and Tammy took us to the Premier League, and at that that time you could argue Smith had the best team in the League.

And yet, we were sat bottom half, unable to string two passes together under Bruce. Smith gets a lot of credit for the promotion.

13 minutes ago, foreveryoung said:

Again some might argue, but Brentford is a better more defensive side without him, investment or not.

They look great. I think they've continued to build on what Smith was a part of. Possibly the best run club in the country, they'll be a Premier League staple within five years.

For the first time in their history, Brentford spent some real money on seven or eight first team players to improve their squad, not young players not ready to play. Not surprised they are better defensively signing a very good Championship keeper and two good Championship CBs.

I'm very unsure Smith is the right man for us mainly because I don't think he knows or wants to play any other formation than 4-3-3. But he'd have given it a better go if he wasn't given sub-standard players.

[villalad21]

10 minutes ago, Tomaszk said:

He took us into the Premier League. That is fact.

A ridiculous decision, yes.

And yet, we were sat bottom half, unable to string two passes together under Bruce. Smith gets a lot of credit for the promotion.

They look great. I think they've continued to build on what Smith was a part of. Possibly the best run club in the country, they'll be a Premier League staple within five years.

For the first time in their history, Brentford spent some real money on seven or eight first team players to improve their squad, not young players not ready to play. Not surprised they are better defensively signing a very good Championship keeper and two good Championship CBs.

I'm very unsure Smith is the right man for us mainly because I don't think he knows or wants to play any other formation than 4-3-3. But he'd have given it a better go if he wasn't given sub-standard players.

Brentford started seeing defensive improvements right after Smith left. Mid season. Before any summer transfer window.

[foreveryoung]

7 minutes ago, Tomaszk said:

He took us into the Premier League. That is fact.

A ridiculous decision, yes.

And yet, we were sat bottom half, unable to string two passes together under Bruce. Smith gets a lot of credit for the promotion.

They look great. I think they've continued to build on what Smith was a part of. Possibly the best run club in the country, they'll be a Premier League staple within five years.

For the first time in their history, Brentford spent some real money on seven or eight first team players to improve their squad, not young players not ready to play. Not surprised they are better defensively signing a very good Championship keeper and two good Championship CBs.

I'm very unsure Smith is the right man for us mainly because I don't think he knows or wants to play any other formation than 4-3-3. But he'd have given it a better go if he wasn't given sub-standard players.

Give any manager great players and they will do well, though wouldn't say Sheffield is full of great players, great discipline yes, something we will always lack under Smith unfortunately.

 

[A'Villan]

If we were in 13th position with 8 more points than we currently have, would Smith be Premier League quality then (considering it is his debut season)?

The first and ultimately most important job of a coach is recruitment. Any philosophy, strategy, tactics, organisation, drills for skills, whatever, is null and void until there's players.

There was something like (excuse any misrepresentation) a 40% turnover in playing personnel in the transition from last season to the current for Aston Villa.

I also seem to recall that the remaining 19 Premier League clubs this season averaged between 5-10% turnovers in playing personnel.

Even with a squad as talented, skilled, and capable (for the division) as the one we got promoted with, it wasn't until March that we cracked the top six. Why?

Back to recruitment. If we keep Grealish, and build around him adequately, I believe we've got a coach who can compete with his rivals in this division.

Dean Smith stays for me, but there's still quite a bit of recruiting to be done.

 

Edited May 1, 2020 by A'Villan

[useless]

19 minutes ago, useless said:

Brentford had one of the better defensive records in the championship when Smith left them, they were also sixth in league, It was after he left that they started conceding more goals and plummeted down the league. Was only last summer when they spent a lot of money that they improved. We wouldn't have gone for him if he was doing such a poor job at Brentford.

 Yes in the 2018-19 season for the first twelve games that Smith was in charge of Brentford they only conceded 12 goals, and were sixth in the league when he left them to join us. In their next twelve games with Frank in charge they conceded 21 goals and dropped down to eighteenth in the league.

Edited May 1, 2020 by useless

[Tomaszk]

1 minute ago, foreveryoung said:

Give any manager great players and they will do well, though wouldn't say Sheffield is full of great players, great discipline yes, something we will always lack under Smith unfortunately.

You'd have to define "well", otherwise I'd have to heartily disagree. Pep isn't doing well this season, City have great players. Steve Bruce did terribly with great Championship players.

I didn't say we needed great players, we needed players that weren't substandard which we bought plenty of.

Smith would do better with Sheff Utd's squad, than Wilder here with ours IMO.

[foreveryoung]

5 minutes ago, A'Villan said:

If we were in 13th position with 8 more points than we currently have, would Smith be Premier League quality then (considering it is his debut season)?

The first and ultimately most important job of a coach is recruitment. Any philosophy, strategy, tactics, organisation, drills for skills, whatever, is null and void until there's players.

There was something like (excuse any misrepresentation) a 40% turnover in playing personnel in the transition from last season to the current for Aston Villa.

I also seem to recall that the remaining 19 Premier League clubs this season averaged between 5-10% turnovers in playing personnel.

Even with a squad as talented, skilled, and capable (for the division) as the one we got promoted with, it wasn't until March that we cracked the top six. Why?

Back to recruitment. If we keep Grealish, and build around him adequately, I believe we've got a coach who can compete with his rivals in this division.

Dean Smith stays for me, but there's still quite a bit of recruiting to be done.

 

You seem to forget the way we play games. You know, the same mistakes time and time again. He is not a very reactive manager, as in he waits to long to change a formation, if ever, or make a sub. We have been screaming at the TV for a change then low and behold the other team score and go on to win. An defensively for me he will never get it right, even with the personnel.

Main thing for me anyway is discipline. We destroy a team one week with great football, an are useless the next, not many teams do that in the Premier League time and time again.

[foreveryoung]

10 minutes ago, Tomaszk said:

You'd have to define "well", otherwise I'd have to heartily disagree. Pep isn't doing well this season, City have great players. Steve Bruce did terribly with great Championship players.

I didn't say we needed great players, we needed players that weren't substandard which we bought plenty of.

Smith would do better with Sheff Utd's squad, than Wilder here with ours IMO.

No, no, no, no, don't agree. Wilder would install some discipline in our team, which would equal better play. I'm not saying he would get us top 6, but I believe we would not be fighting relegation with Wilder.

[A'Villan]

1 minute ago, foreveryoung said:

You seem to forget the way we play games. You know, the same mistakes time and time again. He is not a very reactive manager, as in he waits to long to change a formation, if ever, or make a sub. We have been screaming at the TV for a change then low and behold the other team score and go on to win. An defensively for me he will never get it right, even with the personnel.

Main thing for me anyway is discipline. We destroy a team one week with great football, an are useless the next, not many teams do that in the Premier League time and time again.

Well, we agree about discipline being fundamental. The rest, it would seem to me, you have made up your mind.

[useless]

If he was doing such a fantastic job (which I'm not saying that he isn't) there wouldn't be so many begging for the season to be voided, seems no one has any confidence that we can stay up if expected to earn it on the pitch, yet at the same time seem to think that DS is doing a good job.

[VillaChris]

45 minutes ago, villalad21 said:

Brentford started seeing defensive improvements right after Smith left. Mid season. Before any summer transfer window.

The season DS left to join us Brentford's defence was very good at the start of that season, 14 goals conceded in 12 games.  In the following 10 games after he left they conceded 20 goals.

Edit: Sorry didn't read Useless post just above!

Brentford been good defensively this season but to me that's only been due to signing Pontus Jansson, one of the best CBs in the championship. He probably wouldn't have been a bad pick up for us instead of Konsa.

At Walsall his teams were pretty defensively sound aswell, problem was in the final third until Tom Bradshaw signed.

 Problem here is the same as in other areas, we lack leaders and nous. At Walsall he had Andy Butler and Chambers brothers who were talkers and could read the game.

Edited May 1, 2020 by VillaChris

[Nabby]

I would hope during this downtime he is looking at videos of the corners we have conceded on and is studying what has gone wrong , though if/when we do return from training we can't work on them in groups ...

[VillaChris]

It's also worth noting from Sheffield 3-3 we conceded more than 1 goal in just 2 games (one was the Norwich dead rubber which we largely dominated). In our final 18 games which included the play offs we conceded 15 so under a goal a game for nearly half a season is a good record in any division. Unless I'm missing something I don't really see where this Smith is shambolic defensively in championship narrative has come from.

It's just harder in the premier league in all areas and he's learnt a harsh lesson this season.

Edited May 1, 2020 by VillaChris

[Tomaszk]

3 hours ago, foreveryoung said:

No, no, no, no, don't agree. Wilder would install some discipline in our team, which would equal better play. I'm not saying he would get us top 6, but I believe we would not be fighting relegation with Wilder.

I don't think Wilder would be able to make Targett, Hourihane, Luiz, Marvelous suddenly consistent or win a 50/50 tackle.

Most of the summer signings are not Premier League players, we would absolutely be fighting relegation. We would be if Klopp was here.