Dean Smith

[TRO]

5 hours ago, Keyblade said:

The main problem was the quantity of players we had to sign which inevitably spread the quality a bit thin. If we came up with a strong, settled squad, a la Wolves or even Sheffield United and Norwich, our 120m would have done a lot more for us than what it did.

but we can't sign enough players, that work out for us. so how can we get a settled squad.....it's always likely to be a huge turnover, until we find a manager who can buy and build gradually with players who can make a difference.

its catch 22

signing too many players over a period of time that offer us very little has got us where we are......now that could be poor in the first place or the manager, not getting anything out of them, by poor organisation.

Which ever it is.....it leaves us having to turn players and managers over all the time.

Edited June 27, 2020 by TRO

[sheepyvillian]

8 hours ago, rodders0223 said:

Looking more like he was actually holding Brentford back.

Or laying the foundations for a successful club. 

[Brentfordnylons]

3 hours ago, sheepyvillian said:

Or laying the foundations for a successful club. 

Yes exactly,Dean and Richard O’Kelly both interviewed Thomas Frank for the coaching job.

[JAMAICAN-VILLAN]

As usual, there is no in between, and the fans are split into "groups".

" It's deluded fans who forget the mess he inherited"

" Has not even had a year a full season at the club"

" All the players are turd "

" You can't blame him for individual errors"

"It's Susos fault"

etc.

I wonder if some realise that almost every fan to a man would prefer that Dean Smith was successful and/or rammed opinions down their throats - for a multitude of obvious reasons.

Why is it so difficult to accept that most of us take ALL the mitigating factors around the circumstances which would/could hinder his success but still come to the same conclusion based on current evidence?

We are not seeing the BARE MINIMUM ffs!

"Quality" does not affect basic effort and desire.

Majority of the fanbase would still be staunchly behind him if we saw evidence of us "having a go" or him displaying proactivity - he looks lost on the sidelines these days, and started to look that way on many an occasion before the break.

If we put in the effort, and Deano is proactive and we get outplayed/outclassed or are unlucky, we would be disappointed but still "go again".

But that is not the case, so many of these games have been there for the taking, just in need of a minor tweak or a fresh idea/legs/player etc.

That rarely happens until the game is lost! Furthermore, the "fresh idea" usually comes as a like for like replacement with a "shitter" player. As opposed to maybe shuffling the pack.

Not all of us are "fickle" or 'deluded". I provided the same excuses as everyone else up until a point.

I expected to see fresh ideas after the restart, but have seen nothing.

In an ideal world you allow Deano to continue to learn his trade as a Villa fan and develop into a top manager with us.

However I currently care more about our success than the sentiment.

Will obviously continue to support him as long as he is here, and will gladly be "fickle" to jump back on the bandwagon when he proves me wrong.

For example, against Newcastle, we started well, I felt better, I had hope... then what happened? The inevitable, Newcastle are growing into the game, we are losing grip, obviously needed a change/tweak... f*ck all was done until we conceded. The "Dinosaur" manager outmanaged the "young progressive" with basic proactivity.

 

Edited June 27, 2020 by JAMAICAN-VILLAN

[jim]

10 hours ago, DCJonah said:

I believe so. 

All clubs down there could say the same, why are we the ones who should expect more points than 5 or 6 other teams down there? 

Its just fans ignoring the last 6 or so years and believing we are currently something we are not.

I don’t believe we are something we’re not. I do believe and from what I’ve seen in some games this season we’ve got more than enough to get something out of those teams I previously mentioned.

The fact that we didn’t lies firmly at Smiths door IMO. What he achieved last season was great but let’s not kid ourselves, that squad was massively underperforming and post January was probably the best squad in the league. 
 

All Smith did was take the shackles off. I seem to recall when we went on that awful run many were saying it was the players that weren’t good enough and they couldn’t play Smiths wonder ball. Sound familiar?

I liken his achievement last season to the when Sherwood took over. We were dead and buried under Lambert and he kept us up and got us to a cup final. He then had to completely rebuild the team  yet many believe he is one of the worst Villa managers ever.

The minimum I expect from Smith is to see a well drilled side who show a willingness to win with some fighting spirit. Sadly I haven’t seen any of that. 

[DCJonah]

10 minutes ago, jim said:

I don’t believe we are something we’re not. I do believe and from what I’ve seen in some games this season we’ve got more than enough to get something out of those teams I previously mentioned.

The fact that we didn’t lies firmly at Smiths door IMO. What he achieved last season was great but let’s not kid ourselves, that squad was massively underperforming and post January was probably the best squad in the league. 
 

All Smith did was take the shackles off. I seem to recall when we went on that awful run many were saying it was the players that weren’t good enough and they couldn’t play Smiths wonder ball. Sound familiar?

I liken his achievement last season to the when Sherwood took over. We were dead and buried under Lambert and he kept us up and got us to a cup final. He then had to completely rebuild the team  yet many believe he is one of the worst Villa managers ever.

The minimum I expect from Smith is to see a well drilled side who show a willingness to win with some fighting spirit. Sadly I haven’t seen any of that. 

I just don't know what you've watched to be angry that we haven't got more points and that we should be doing better than 5 or 6 other teams. 

Why are we so much better than multiple other teams down there? To just say because we played well at times is crazy IMO. Every team down there could point out games where they could have got points. Yet we should be the ones getting them and not them? And its based on really nothing. 

To compare what he did to sherwood just shows that he will never win with some of you. A club record, not just a decent streak, a club record run of wins. Yes our squad was good for that level but that's still an incredible achievement. 

[DCJonah]

23 minutes ago, JAMAICAN-VILLAN said:

As usual, there is no in between, and the fans are split into "groups".

" It's deluded fans who forget the mess he inherited"

" Has not even had a year a full season at the club"

" All the players are turd "

" You can't blame him for individual errors"

"It's Susos fault"

etc.

I wonder if some realise that almost every fan to a man would prefer that Dean Smith was successful and/or rammed opinions down their throats - for a multitude of obvious reasons.

Why is it so difficult to accept that most of us take ALL the mitigating factors around the circumstances which would/could hinder his success but still come to the same conclusion based on current evidence?

We are not seeing the BARE MINIMUM ffs!

"Quality" does not affect basic effort and desire.

Majority of the fanbase would still be staunchly behind him if we saw evidence of us "having a go" or him displaying proactivity - he looks lost on the sidelines these days, and started to look that way on many an occasion before the break.

If we put in the effort, and Deano is proactive and we get outplayed/outclassed or are unlucky, we would be disappointed but still "go again".

But that is not the case, so many of these games have been there for the taking, just in need of a minor tweak or a fresh idea/legs/player etc.

That rarely happens until the game is lost! Furthermore, the "fresh idea" usually comes as a like for like replacement with a "shitter" player. As opposed to maybe shuffling the pack.

Not all of us are "fickle" or 'deluded". I provided the same excuses as everyone else up until a point.

I expected to see fresh ideas after the restart, but have seen nothing.

In an ideal world you allow Deano to continue to learn his trade as a Villa fan and develop into a top manager with us.

However I currently care more about our success than the sentiment.

Will obviously continue to support him as long as he is here, and will gladly be "fickle" to jump back on the bandwagon when he proves me wrong.

For example, against Newcastle, we started well, I felt better, I had hope... then what happened? The inevitable, Newcastle are growing into the game, we are losing grip, obviously needed a change/tweak... f*ck all was done until we conceded. The "Dinosaur" manager outmanaged the "young progressive" with basic proactivity.

 

I'm seeing what I expected to be the bare minimum thanks. My expectation hasn't changed since the summer. This is everything I expected. 

 

[sne]

4 minutes ago, DCJonah said:

I'm seeing what I expected to be the bare minimum thanks. My expectation hasn't changed since the summer. This is everything I expected. 

 

Then I can't understand why you'd want to continue with Smith tbh.

League position and points haul is about what I expected, a bit worse but in the region.

But the way we have looked and performed is way worse than I expected. We look disjointed, unbalanced, tactically inept, and especially disappointing rather clueless when we have the ball.

Yes obviously players play a part but I can count on one hand the times we have looked more than the sum of our parts this season. 

 

 

[AvfcRigo82]

21 minutes ago, jim said:

The minimum I expect from Smith is to see a well drilled side who show a willingness to win with some fighting spirit. Sadly I haven’t seen any of that. 

It's been missing since before lockdown and it doesn't look like it will return.

I recall before lockdown that if he lost to Chelsea that Saturday it would have been hard to see him keep his job.

The league facts and stats of this season is not making for good reading either.

To be fair, he's been allowed extra time to play the game in hand we had, and also been given the Chelsea, Newcastle and Wolves games to try and turn results around and get points on the board.

So far he has managed 2pts from 9pts since the return and if nothing from today's result goes into 2pts from 12 available. I don't see this ratio improving much, if any, going into our next 3 games.

Our stats for the whole season are starting to mirror those in the season we got relegated too and I see nothing to inspire me that this team will sudden turn a corner and go on a run to save our season in anyway under the current coach.

I didn't think he was the man to take this team forward but giving him benefit of the doubt, I was willing to give him this season for his efforts and deserving a shot at the PL and show us what he could do armed with the big amount of money at his disposal to do it with...

It's sadly not turning out to be as good as we had hoped and therefore a change is needed if we are to salvage our season before it becomes too late to do anything.

[Stevo985]

11 minutes ago, sne said:

Then I can't understand why you'd want to continue with Smith tbh.

League position and points haul is about what I expected, a bit worse but in the region.

But the way we have looked and performed is way worse than I expected. We look disjointed, unbalanced, tactically inept, and especially disappointing rather clueless when we have the ball.

Yes obviously players play a part but I can count on one hand the times we have looked more than the sum of our parts this season. 

 

 

Yeah this is it for me at the moment. 
We’ve got fewer points than I’d have expected, although not by a huge amount. 
 

But we look absolutely dreadful at the moment in terms of how we play. We barely ever look like scoring and don’t look capable of winning a game. 
 

At the most crucial point in our season that’s disappointing 

[AvfcRigo82]

3 minutes ago, Stevo985 said:

Yeah this is it for me at the moment. 
We’ve got fewer points than I’d have expected, although not by a huge amount. 
 

But we look absolutely dreadful at the moment in terms of how we play. We barely ever look like scoring and don’t look capable of winning a game. 
 

At the most crucial point in our season that’s disappointing 

It's hard to see where our next point will even come from.

 

[Villarocker]

54 minutes ago, JAMAICAN-VILLAN said:

As usual, there is no in between, and the fans are split into "groups".

" It's deluded fans who forget the mess he inherited"

" Has not even had a year a full season at the club"

" All the players are turd "

" You can't blame him for individual errors"

"It's Susos fault"

etc.

I wonder if some realise that almost every fan to a man would prefer that Dean Smith was successful and/or rammed opinions down their throats - for a multitude of obvious reasons.

Why is it so difficult to accept that most of us take ALL the mitigating factors around the circumstances which would/could hinder his success but still come to the same conclusion based on current evidence?

We are not seeing the BARE MINIMUM ffs!

"Quality" does not affect basic effort and desire.

Majority of the fanbase would still be staunchly behind him if we saw evidence of us "having a go" or him displaying proactivity - he looks lost on the sidelines these days, and started to look that way on many an occasion before the break.

If we put in the effort, and Deano is proactive and we get outplayed/outclassed or are unlucky, we would be disappointed but still "go again".

But that is not the case, so many of these games have been there for the taking, just in need of a minor tweak or a fresh idea/legs/player etc.

That rarely happens until the game is lost! Furthermore, the "fresh idea" usually comes as a like for like replacement with a "shitter" player. As opposed to maybe shuffling the pack.

Not all of us are "fickle" or 'deluded". I provided the same excuses as everyone else up until a point.

I expected to see fresh ideas after the restart, but have seen nothing.

In an ideal world you allow Deano to continue to learn his trade as a Villa fan and develop into a top manager with us.

However I currently care more about our success than the sentiment.

Will obviously continue to support him as long as he is here, and will gladly be "fickle" to jump back on the bandwagon when he proves me wrong.

For example, against Newcastle, we started well, I felt better, I had hope... then what happened? The inevitable, Newcastle are growing into the game, we are losing grip, obviously needed a change/tweak... f*ck all was done until we conceded. The "Dinosaur" manager outmanaged the "young progressive" with basic proactivity.

 

I'm sort of with you on this JV. I was totally for giving Deano the beginning of next season even if we got relegated but I'm leaning more now to sacking him whatever happens. 

I was in the sympathy camp, believing that he had brought us up and got us to a final etc. He has had young, foreign players to work with and nearly all the new players and coaching staff are new to the league. 

However, for me personally, at ownership level we now always seem like we are a Lerner-style capitulation away from going down the pan so need to be at it on the pitch and find a solid base but, right now we look anything but solid. We fans see it game in game out and nothing seems to change. 

Deano isn't manager, he is head coach. I don't see much in terms of coaching improvement with our players. There's only one player returned from lockdown with any sign of improvement and that is Luiz. Other than him the rest look edgy. 

The problem for the owners is, we are not down and out. Mathematically we are bang there with a shout at survival so to sack Deano now is a massive gamble. We go down and there would be a lot of "what ifs."

We are at the crossroads because I feel that if we did stay up there is a basis for a decent team and the recruitment in the summer would be more about quality than quantity. However, who will recruit the players? Can Deano work with them? 

I think if we stay up we need to up our quality at coaching level. I like Dean Smith but unfortunately I think the Premier League is a step too far for him. But, if we go down, it might be worth sticking with him. Either way, if stick with Deano over Sean Dyche any day. 

[cheltenham_villa]

On 25/06/2020 at 09:31, Blasterpocket68 said:

I think you miss understand - In order to get back to be an established premier league side you have to build gradually you cant build a new team then attempt to play the brand of football DS has this season. That was suicide .  Im afraid we are a long way from the club we all think we are, and the gap is growing. I have enjoyed some wembley day trips in the league  cup and  enjoyed the European cup runs in the 80s . This has gone (along with my hair) and we are a club trying to reestablish ourselves as a premier league team. Im  afraid entertainment will have to wait if it takes scruffy football and 1-0 wins to build then so be it short term. If we cant re establish ourselves as a premier league  team  we will never attracts the better players  and those days we both enjoyed in the past will be and even more distant dream.

A good debate but dont think this is always the case, 2 things to consider:

1. Have we got the players to play that way? We came up playing football, to suddenly become a team with 10 men behind the ball camped in our half will not get the best out of our current crop.

2. Wolves, leicester, Bournemouth have all become established to different extents playing football.

I dont think that all promoted sides need to play the same way anymore. 

[TRO]

1 hour ago, JAMAICAN-VILLAN said:

As usual, there is no in between, and the fans are split into "groups".

" It's deluded fans who forget the mess he inherited"

" Has not even had a year a full season at the club"

" All the players are turd "

" You can't blame him for individual errors"

"It's Susos fault"

etc.

I wonder if some realise that almost every fan to a man would prefer that Dean Smith was successful and/or rammed opinions down their throats - for a multitude of obvious reasons.

Why is it so difficult to accept that most of us take ALL the mitigating factors around the circumstances which would/could hinder his success but still come to the same conclusion based on current evidence?

We are not seeing the BARE MINIMUM ffs!

"Quality" does not affect basic effort and desire.

Majority of the fanbase would still be staunchly behind him if we saw evidence of us "having a go" or him displaying proactivity - he looks lost on the sidelines these days, and started to look that way on many an occasion before the break.

If we put in the effort, and Deano is proactive and we get outplayed/outclassed or are unlucky, we would be disappointed but still "go again".

But that is not the case, so many of these games have been there for the taking, just in need of a minor tweak or a fresh idea/legs/player etc.

That rarely happens until the game is lost! Furthermore, the "fresh idea" usually comes as a like for like replacement with a "shitter" player. As opposed to maybe shuffling the pack.

Not all of us are "fickle" or 'deluded". I provided the same excuses as everyone else up until a point.

I expected to see fresh ideas after the restart, but have seen nothing.

In an ideal world you allow Deano to continue to learn his trade as a Villa fan and develop into a top manager with us.

However I currently care more about our success than the sentiment.

Will obviously continue to support him as long as he is here, and will gladly be "fickle" to jump back on the bandwagon when he proves me wrong.

For example, against Newcastle, we started well, I felt better, I had hope... then what happened? The inevitable, Newcastle are growing into the game, we are losing grip, obviously needed a change/tweak... f*ck all was done until we conceded. The "Dinosaur" manager outmanaged the "young progressive" with basic proactivity.

 

Very good post and so apt.

There are 2 major issues for me amongst the many.

• very few of our new recruits look any better....no evidence of player progression.
• We failed to sign a Bulwark midfielder for the team to play off....too many players too samey.

Personally, I think the second issue is so stone blind obvious, i am amazed we have gone in to this league, without one.

The team is not balanced for me and the midfield has been iffy, for some time, the issue was not addressed properly with the right kind of players.

[lexicon]

1 hour ago, JAMAICAN-VILLAN said:

As usual, there is no in between, and the fans are split into "groups".

" It's deluded fans who forget the mess he inherited"

" Has not even had a year a full season at the club"

" All the players are turd "

" You can't blame him for individual errors"

"It's Susos fault"

etc.

I wonder if some realise that almost every fan to a man would prefer that Dean Smith was successful and/or rammed opinions down their throats - for a multitude of obvious reasons.

Why is it so difficult to accept that most of us take ALL the mitigating factors around the circumstances which would/could hinder his success but still come to the same conclusion based on current evidence?

We are not seeing the BARE MINIMUM ffs!

"Quality" does not affect basic effort and desire.

Majority of the fanbase would still be staunchly behind him if we saw evidence of us "having a go" or him displaying proactivity - he looks lost on the sidelines these days, and started to look that way on many an occasion before the break.

If we put in the effort, and Deano is proactive and we get outplayed/outclassed or are unlucky, we would be disappointed but still "go again".

But that is not the case, so many of these games have been there for the taking, just in need of a minor tweak or a fresh idea/legs/player etc.

That rarely happens until the game is lost! Furthermore, the "fresh idea" usually comes as a like for like replacement with a "shitter" player. As opposed to maybe shuffling the pack.

Not all of us are "fickle" or 'deluded". I provided the same excuses as everyone else up until a point.

I expected to see fresh ideas after the restart, but have seen nothing.

In an ideal world you allow Deano to continue to learn his trade as a Villa fan and develop into a top manager with us.

However I currently care more about our success than the sentiment.

Will obviously continue to support him as long as he is here, and will gladly be "fickle" to jump back on the bandwagon when he proves me wrong.

For example, against Newcastle, we started well, I felt better, I had hope... then what happened? The inevitable, Newcastle are growing into the game, we are losing grip, obviously needed a change/tweak... f*ck all was done until we conceded. The "Dinosaur" manager outmanaged the "young progressive" with basic proactivity.

 

Not really on the same page as you here, JV. 

You talk about not making changes, yet the starting XI against Newcastle was very different to the XI against Chelsea. 

To continue with the Newcastle game, you're talking like we lost it and Bruce got one over on Smith. He didn't, really. He made a couple of subs who impacted the game, we then corrected and Smith's subs brought it back to 1-1. 

We probably should have won that game, but if we're creating chances and on the front foot, as we were in the first half, why would you blame the manager for the players not finishing them? He's set them up to succeed there, but if they aren't finishing then it's down to the individual involved. Do you really think Trez or AEG are good enough and just not being coached correctly? I don't. 

There's a lot of talk about coaching here, but for me it sounds like some think that by just telling the players something or showing them something, it'll improve their level beyond what they're capable of. You can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear, if we're going for old maxims. 

I don't necessarily think that you're deluded or anything, and I don't think a lot of people are, I just think that people are frustrated that we've gone back to being one of the weakest teams in the league and are looking to blame someone for it. I don't think it was easily avoidable this season, and while we're not doing as well as we hoped, a lot of people said they just wanted to stay up and we're definitely in the mix to do so. 

[DCJonah]

50 minutes ago, sne said:

Then I can't understand why you'd want to continue with Smith tbh.

League position and points haul is about what I expected, a bit worse but in the region.

But the way we have looked and performed is way worse than I expected. We look disjointed, unbalanced, tactically inept, and especially disappointing rather clueless when we have the ball.

Yes obviously players play a part but I can count on one hand the times we have looked more than the sum of our parts this season. 

 

 

This is what i don't get. How can position and points be what you expect but then not performances?

What teams down the bottom are playing well and producing good football? This is what a relegation battle looks like. 

If we were playing well then chances are we'd be well clear, which is just a ridiculous expectation. 

I want to stick with smith because he has more than delivered everything asked of him so far and deserves to see if he can meet this latest target. 

[sne]

1 minute ago, lexicon said:

a lot of people said they just wanted to stay up and we're definitely in the mix to do so. 

Stay up and build a foundation for future seasons.

We look just as disjointed as we did at the start of the season, if not more.

[DCJonah]

42 minutes ago, Stevo985 said:

Yeah this is it for me at the moment. 
We’ve got fewer points than I’d have expected, although not by a huge amount. 
 

But we look absolutely dreadful at the moment in terms of how we play. We barely ever look like scoring and don’t look capable of winning a game. 
 

At the most crucial point in our season that’s disappointing 

But then when you look at our attacking options, i struggle to see how much better attacking wise it can get. 

We look dreadful in the final third but a lot of it seems to be poor decision making and awful quality. 

I thought we created some good chances against sheff utd and Newcastle. Better than we have done in a while. We really failed to take any of those chances. 

[DCJonah]

2 minutes ago, sne said:

Stay up and build a foundation for future seasons.

We look just as disjointed as we did at the start of the season, if not more.

All that matters to me. 

[AvfcRigo82]

5 minutes ago, sne said:

Stay up and build a foundation for future seasons.

And show a bit of ambition hiring a manager/head coach to build on these foundations.

I would prefer that scenario of a satisfying way in remembering what Dean Smith did for us leaving a great memory between coach and fans.