Dean Smith

[villalad21]

4 hours ago, TheAuthority said:

I caught some of his prematch interview today (just the opening)

He looked a beaten man sadly. First time I've seen him like that - I wonder if Purlsow has had a word that the owners are not happy? Maybe he has just realized that he hasn't got the squad which can play the style he wants at PL level.

Right. His body language is wrong. He goes in defense mode and is looking for excuses if anyone questions him.

Something is wrong. He isn't the same manager we once appointed. He is losing it I'm telling you

[KenjiOgiwara]

Just a shame he got us promoted. He would have had better support on here if he failed promotion and rather developed the squad from the championship. 

[Dave-R]

13 minutes ago, KenjiOgiwara said:

Just a shame he got us promoted. He would have had better support on here if he failed promotion and rather developed the squad from the championship. 

Yes we probably got promoted at the wrong time, may have even been a different set of players. In some way we've tried and will most likely be going down, a rebuild will have to be done again anyway so the chance to start again is there.

Nearly time for a fire sale, where everything must go.

[Demitri_C]

I think as well smith esp the last 4-5 games has been unable to use grealish to his strengths.  You have a player of his quality yet your playing him positions he isnt as effective.

[chrisvilla4]

Ironically I think Smith needs a break. He's lost his Dad recently and seems to have lost his way as well. 

wonder if/when relegation is confirmed he can hand over duties to JT until the season is over then we can take stock. 

[DCJonah]

Are we still talking about Biesla? Is that the guy who bottled automatic promotion and then failed to get to the playoff final, losing to the team smith beat at Wembley? 

That guy? The guy still in the championship? 

If ever there was proof a fancy foreign name appeals to some fans its the fuss made over him while calling smith a disaster. 

Entertaining to read though.

[BleedClaretAndBlue]

14 minutes ago, DCJonah said:

Are we still talking about Biesla? Is that the guy who bottled automatic promotion and then failed to get to the playoff final, losing to the team smith beat at Wembley? 

That guy? The guy still in the championship? 

If ever there was proof a fancy foreign name appeals to some fans its the fuss made over him while calling smith a disaster. 

Entertaining to read though.

To see the transformation of Leeds 17/18 to Leeds 18/19 and again this season with largely the same group of players is night & day. Yes, that was down to Bielsa and Bielsa alone. He is an unbelievable coach. No nonsense, the type you want getting at a team who are slacking. There’s a reason Guardiola calls him the best. What happened against Derby in that second leg was a huge shock, it happens.

[villalad21]

22 minutes ago, DCJonah said:

Are we still talking about Biesla? Is that the guy who bottled automatic promotion and then failed to get to the playoff final, losing to the team smith beat at Wembley? 

That guy? The guy still in the championship? 

If ever there was proof a fancy foreign name appeals to some fans its the fuss made over him while calling smith a disaster. 

Entertaining to read though.

He didn't fail last season.

Mediocre squad. No one expected them to be promoted or to be where they finished.

You must be pretty clouded if you deny Bielsa has done a fine job at Leeds.

Regardless. Leeds will be promoted this season and i think we'll get relegated so no chance in getting him.

Edited June 23, 2020 by villalad21

[useless]

Well it's obviously not as simple as that you could put Guardiola or any other coach in charge of Leeds and they'd be doing well to get them promoted or indeed to have done any better than Bielsa has done, their squad isn't that strong, their eight previous seasons in the championship before he arrived they'd finished 13th, 7th, 13th, 15th, 15th, 13th 14th 7th, and the three seasons before that they were in league one,  you have to go back to 2006 for the last time they reached the championship play-offs before Bielsea, and it's not as if he's had much to spend there either.

So whilst Smith outperformed him last season and did a great job no matter what anyone says, I don't think we can pretend they weren't both working in different circumstances. Bielsa's problem is that he's stubborn, sticks to the same team when players need a rest and can fall out with players, which is why Jansson was dropped from the play-off semi-final and which is why they lost to Derby, and maybe missed out on promotion last year. He's got good points and not so good points.

Edited June 23, 2020 by useless

[Zatman]

2 hours ago, villalad21 said:

Imo Bielsa didn't fail last season. They were never favorites to get promoted in the first place.

The man gets a lot out of very little.

Leeds were 7/2 for promotion last season 4th favourites

The 3 teams that got promoted weren't in the top 7 in the odds 

[Eastie]

2 hours ago, villalad21 said:

Right. His body language is wrong. He goes in defense mode and is looking for excuses if anyone questions him.

Something is wrong. He isn't the same manager we once appointed. He is losing it I'm telling you

Seems to me to be similar to Brian little before his departure - the pressure has told on him 

Edited June 23, 2020 by Eastie

[Eastie]

1 hour ago, Dave-R said:

Yes we probably got promoted at the wrong time, may have even been a different set of players. In some way we've tried and will most likely be going down, a rebuild will have to be done again anyway so the chance to start again is there.

Nearly time for a fire sale, where everything must go.

Only 4 or 5 will go ,  there will still be enough quality for the championship with a few additions 

[useless]

Bielsa is the very reason that Leeds' odds last season would have been that short, the bookies know his reputation as a top manager so weren't going to take any risks. That and you'd probably have Leeds fans putting money on them as well just because of Bielsa, so that would shorten the odds too. Season before they'd finished in 13th place and in the summer that Bielsa joined sold their best player Viera, and their big signing was Patrick Bamford, wasn't any reason to consider them one of the favorites for promotion other than the fact that they had Bielsa as manager.

Edited June 23, 2020 by useless
Pointless talking about him as a new manager for us though, as won't happen.

[tinker]

12 hours ago, DCJonah said:

All flaws worthy of criticism. 

To call him a disaster is just laughably over the top. 

Your right, hes not been a disaster, hes been a good manager....... but something has been wrong with us since xmas and thats led to some disastrous performances. I cant see him turning this around , once the players dont care about upsetting the manager then its over , theres no coming back from it. You cant build respect once its gone, not in a group of players or any team in a reasonable amount of time to turn us around in time to compete in the championship next season,  let alone this season .

Its not easy for us to say no thanks Dean, he is one of our own and always will be but the club is bigger than that and it takes difficult decisions to build success .

[VillaFaninLondon]

7 hours ago, Tomaszk said:

Mendes brought Nuno in. Did you know Nuno was his first ever client as a player? Their relationship goes back a very long way.

Perhaps he thought...if I bring Nuno in, I can get better players. Then said "Hey Nuno, go to this shite little hole in England and I'll bring you loads of great players"

I've spoken to Wolves fans, it's always a frustrating conversation because sadly only one of our clubs has a super agent running the show and making them into a Champions League club.

Mendes brought Nuno in. Mendes brought the players in.

Of course they want to go and play for Nuno, he's brilliant.

Mendes brought Nuno in.

You can't compare us to Wolves. They have Mendes, we don't.

Their success has all come from Mendes, nowhere else.

Same people just talking themselves into a circle. They'll read this and still just refuse to even see the point, I find it funny.

NO, WE SHOULD BE WINNING. THEY JUST HAVE TO TRY HARDER.

Proper boomer mindset. I can't believe people have watched Smith manage us for 18 months, and watch him rip us the shreds with Brentford every time we played them, and think he's telling the team to not pass it and clearing in the woods it long constantly. He has a squad of players unfit for purpose.

If the team do what Smith wants, we'll trash Newcastle. One way traffic for the last six or seven meetings between a Dean Smith side with a plan and Steve Bruce side without a plan.

There is the caveat here of their players being better, but we can do it if the team will show some bollocks and pass the ball.

Stop being cowards and hoofing it because it's easy. Pass and move. It'll take about 3 sequences and Newcastle will retreat back into their box like they have all season and we'll beat them.

I know Mendes has had an influence, the owners knew of his contacts prior to buying Wolves and had invested in shares in Mendes' company. 

 

What you are almost implying here is that Wolves have cheated their way to where they are now and that their fans are in denial about the whole thing. I recall we and a few other Championship clubs reported Wolves to the FA about this in their promotion season but they were found to have not broken any rules. 

 

Even if Wolves do have clear advantages over other teams, it's not like we can't say the same. We spent more than anyone else in the Championship and had Purslow casting his eye over our finances to ensure we met FFP guidelines, including selling the stadium and leasing it back to ourselves. And our key influencer in transfers was supposed to be Jesus Garcia Pitarch, who has made an almighty cock up with the players he's brought in. Shame we had him conducting our transfers and not Mendes. 

 

 

[villalad21]

15 minutes ago, Eastie said:

Only 4 or 5 will go ,  there will still be enough quality for the championship with a few additions 

Problem i see is i don't see where the creativity is coming from.

[brummybloke]

Only thing that concerns me is smith saying he spoke to davis and samatta before the restart and told them they would be sharing the striker role.

Not mixing it up sometimes playing together, sharing the striker position.

 

So a predictable line up for the remaining games with 1 up front.

 

[VillaFaninLondon]

6 minutes ago, useless said:

Bielsa is the very reason that Leeds' odds last season would have been that short, the bookies know his reputation as a top manager so weren't going to take any risks. That and you'd probably have Leeds fans putting money on them as well just because of Bielsa, so that would shorten the odds too. Season before they'd finished in 13th place and in the summer that Bielsa joined sold their best player Viera, and their big signing was Patrick Bamford, wasn't any reason to consider them one of the favorites for promotion other than the fact that they had Bielsa as manager.

Bielsa has transformed the way Leeds play. We played them towards the end of the 17/18 season before he went there and they looked very ordinary, just six months later at Christmas in the 18/19 season Leeds played us again and completely dominated the game. Their passing and movement was exceptional and they looked like the Man City of the Championship and Bielsa had only been there for a few months and it was pretty much the same team as the previous season.

 

In contrast, under Smith, our ball retention is barely any better than under Bruce. Even in the Championship we barely dominated possession. I remember his Brentford team were very good at keeping the ball with lesser players, but I cannot believe this was down to Smith.

[useless]

I wouldn't go as far to say that Wolves have cheated but I think they're stretching the rules somewhat, pretty sure that there's a rule that an agent isn't meant to have a significant say in a club, and it would be hard to say that Mendes doesn't have significant influence over them, but they're not the only club when small heath had Redknapp most of their players came through Derren Dein, but no one took much notice of that because they weren't succesful. There was actually a leaked memo from the Wolves owners stating that originally they only bought them as a means of moving players back and forth via Mendes agency, but then it was bit more succesful than they anticiapted so they started taking it a more seriously.

The interesting thing will be to see how they cope once a few players start leaving and Nuno eventually, if the want to sustain their current position I think at some point they have to become less dependent on Mendes, they will probably get a big fee for Adama in the summer so if the spend that wisely could help them progress.

[DCJonah]

11 minutes ago, VillaFaninLondon said:

Bielsa has transformed the way Leeds play. We played them towards the end of the 17/18 season before he went there and they looked very ordinary, just six months later at Christmas in the 18/19 season Leeds played us again and completely dominated the game. Their passing and movement was exceptional and they looked like the Man City of the Championship and Bielsa had only been there for a few months and it was pretty much the same team as the previous season.

 

In contrast, under Smith, our ball retention is barely any better than under Bruce. Even in the Championship we barely dominated possession. I remember his Brentford team were very good at keeping the ball with lesser players, but I cannot believe this was down to Smith.

And yet he's still in the championship and just lost 2-0 to Cardiff. 

Would you be happy with that at this point?