Dean Smith

[PussEKatt]

1 minute ago, DCJonah said:

I'm sure the owners thought we could do better. I would imagine their expectations have adjusted after seeing the quality of the recruitment. 

I'd imagine they are not thrilled that we've spent that money and had so many misses and are where we are. 

Guess it depends if they have sympathy with Smith for the state of the squad. I think they must to some extent and its why smith is seeing out the season.

Then they have made the wrong decision.

[OxfordVillan]

25 minutes ago, TreeVillan said:

Anyone thinking were getting promoted back into the Prem without Jack are kidding themselves. 

Anyone who thinks Jack Grealish is the messiah is kidding themselves. Jack Grealish massively let both himself and the club down with his lockdown pi55 up with McCormack and pals, crashing his car in the morning whilst obviously still over the limit. That just hours after preaching to ppl on social media about staying home. His form since the turn of the year has been patchy, and since the return from lockdown hasn’t improved. Constant reports of done deal with Man Utd, reports he could come out and state are 100% untrue. If they are. Jack Grealish hasn’t been great in 2020, that’s the reality. 

[TreeVillan]

5 minutes ago, OxfordVillan said:

Anyone who thinks Jack Grealish is the messiah is kidding themselves. Jack Grealish massively let both himself and the club down with his lockdown pi55 up with McCormack and pals, crashing his car in the morning whilst obviously still over the limit. That just hours after preaching to ppl on social media about staying home. His form since the turn of the year has been patchy, and since the return from lockdown hasn’t improved. Constant reports of done deal with Man Utd, reports he could come out and state are 100% untrue. If they are. Jack Grealish hasn’t been great in 2020, that’s the reality. 

Been our best player this season. Any off field antics doesn't change that. 

[Stevo985]

1 hour ago, DCJonah said:

And yet we have been all year and Smith is still in the job. I think that speaks louder than any PR events last summer. 

That is not proof that he has met the club's expectations.

[DCJonah]

3 minutes ago, Stevo985 said:

That is not proof that he has met the club's expectations.

There is no proof. The most we can go on is the evidence available. If he is failing miserably or is a disaster as some have claimed, then I doubt he would be in a job.

[VillaFaninLondon]

7 minutes ago, DCJonah said:

I think Smith will be able to do that. Or we better bring in a good one if we are getting rid. 

I agree, I want him to go but equally I don't want us appointing someone even worse or another Bruce or Lambert 

 

Ultimately we need someone really proven at top level management, so that they can take us up in 1st place and keep us in the league and pushing on. It needs to be a bold appointment, similar to Ancelotti to Everton or Benitez to Newcastle.

[NeilS]

14 minutes ago, OxfordVillan said:

Anyone who thinks Jack Grealish is the messiah is kidding themselves. Jack Grealish massively let both himself and the club down with his lockdown pi55 up with McCormack and pals, crashing his car in the morning whilst obviously still over the limit. That just hours after preaching to ppl on social media about staying home. His form since the turn of the year has been patchy, and since the return from lockdown hasn’t improved. Constant reports of done deal with Man Utd, reports he could come out and state are 100% untrue. If they are. Jack Grealish hasn’t been great in 2020, that’s the reality. 

That reminds me of The Life of Brian: He's not the messiah, he's a very naughty boy.

Edited June 29, 2020 by NeilS

[VillaCas]

2 hours ago, Laughable Chimp said:

I see a lot of people expecting us to finishing between the 10 to 15 range. Not a single person so far who've said survival or seventeenth was the goal.

On 12/07/2019 at 20:35, VillaCas said:

I hope you’re right about Jota I really do - I’d got him earmarked as a squad player at best

On your other point, My original response was to someone who felt that our midfield was “immense” and the we could be challenging nearer the top than the bottom

Like you I’ll be happy with 17th this time round

 

This was from a thread last year when a number of people were expecting us to rip up the league. Every signing (in this case Jota) was going to be a world beater

My point was that we were barely stronger than the year before - The largest chunk of our spend on making the loanees permanent, The next biggest chunk on second rate replacements for Tammy and Axel and the relatively small remander spread out over (to my mind) squad fillers - We needed to make an enormous changearound

A 17th place finish is never going to be anything other than frustrating as hell - Some of the comments about 'don't mind relegation but wanted to see us play decent football' are crazy - teams in 17th place are not delivering decent football

If you thought anything other than a massive struggle for survival was on the cards you were always heading for disppointment

If a top manager is available to us, great - if not I'm happy to persevere with Smith

Edited June 29, 2020 by VillaCas

[jim]

1 hour ago, TreeVillan said:

Anyone thinking were getting promoted back into the Prem without Jack are kidding themselves. 

We'll be fine, we just need to get 3 players in who combined will get the same goals and assists combined.

I read a book about it, think it was baseball, I reckon it could be good for us...

 

[DCJonah]

2 minutes ago, jim said:

We'll be fine, we just need to get 3 players in who combined will get the same goals and assists combined.

I read a book about it, think it was baseball, I reckon it could be good for us...

 

I do like the OP that suggests this squad is midtable championship without jack, yet I keep getting told by others how the manager should be doing so much better with them. 

[SuffolkVillan]

5 minutes ago, jim said:

We'll be fine, we just need to get 3 players in who combined will get the same goals and assists combined.

I read a book about it, think it was baseball, I reckon it could be good for us...

 

It is called "Moneyball" also a movie about it same name.

[Stevo985]

1 hour ago, DCJonah said:

There is no proof. The most we can go on is the evidence available. If he is failing miserably or is a disaster as some have claimed, then I doubt he would be in a job.

Agreed.

But disagree that him being in a job is evidence that he's met his expectations, which is what you said.

[DCJonah]

7 minutes ago, Stevo985 said:

Agreed.

But disagree that him being in a job is evidence that he's met his expectations, which is what you said.

Fair enough. I disagree, I think he was expected to keep us up and at the moment there is still a chance of that happening. If he was way off what they expected I don't think they would keep him. They showed with Bruce that they weren't really willing to accept huge under performance. 

[Stevo985]

2 minutes ago, DCJonah said:

Fair enough. I disagree, I think he was expected to keep us up and at the moment there is still a chance of that happening. If he was way off what they expected I don't think they would keep him. They showed with Bruce that they weren't really willing to accept huge under performance. 

But again that’s not what you said. Yes if he was way off he’d have been sacked. 
 

I think it’s entirely possible that he’s not meeting expectations, and won’t meet expectations this season, but the board have decided its best to stick with him rather than roll the dice on another manager again. 
 

Not being sacked doesn’t mean he’s met the expectations of the club. Doesn’t matter what happened with Bruce. It should be what’s the best for the club going forward, not “he hadn’t hit this target so sack him”. Not meeting a target shouldn’t be an automatic sacking. 

[DCJonah]

3 minutes ago, Stevo985 said:

But again that’s not what you said. Yes if he was way off he’d have been sacked. 
 

I think it’s entirely possible that he’s not meeting expectations, and won’t meet expectations this season, but the board have decided its best to stick with him rather than roll the dice on another manager again. 
 

Not being sacked doesn’t mean he’s met the expectations of the club. Doesn’t matter what happened with Bruce. It should be what’s the best for the club going forward, not “he hadn’t hit this target so sack him”. Not meeting a target shouldn’t be an automatic sacking. 

As previously said, you can only go on the evidence out there and I think not being sacked points more to meeting expectations than not meeting expectations. There is no way to know for sure but IMO that seems obvious to me. We've been where we are for a large part of the season, its not like there has been a sudden drop off. I think the board would have acted if what he has delivered for most of the season, wasn't something they expected would happen. 

I think the board, while having hopes for better, probably realistically knew early on that this was a real possibility this season given the quality we had brought in. 

[Stevo985]

4 minutes ago, DCJonah said:

As previously said, you can only go on the evidence out there and I think not being sacked points more to meeting expectations than not meeting expectations. There is no way to know for sure but IMO that seems obvious to me. We've been where we are for a large part of the season, its not like there has been a sudden drop off. I think the board would have acted if what he has delivered for most of the season, wasn't something they expected would happen. 

I think the board, while having hopes for better, probably realistically knew early on that this was a real possibility this season given the quality we had brought in. 

But you seem to be ignoring the evidence pointed out to you that expectations were higher than what we are currently achieving or will achieve this season. 
 

I don’t think there’s any chance our supposedly ambitious board went into this season with a target or expectation of being relegated. If they did then serious questions need to be asked. 
 

I don’t think Smith will get sacked if/when we go down. That isn’t evidence that he’s met expectations

Edited June 29, 2020 by Stevo985

[DCJonah]

1 minute ago, Stevo985 said:

But you seem to be ignoring the evidence pointed out to you that expectations were higher than what we are currently achieving or will achieve this season. 
 

I don’t think there’s any chance our supposedly ambitious board went into this season with a target or expectation of being relegated. If they did then serious questions need to be asked. 
 

I don’t think Smith will get sacked if/when we go down. That isn’t evidence that he’s met expectations

Oh I agree, maybe I'm not making myself clear. 

I'm sure the boards aim was to survive this year. I'm 100% sure they spent the money rebuilding this squad to stay in the league. If we go down then there is no doubt that Smith would have failed to meet the expectations the owners had for this season. 

I think the fact we are still right in the battle for survival means that currently he is close to meeting that expectation. I think the board, while not happy with what is happening, probably knew that it was very probable that our fight for survival was going to be ugly and come right down to the wire. I think that's why we have decided to stick with him all year. 

[OxfordVillan]

I think what anyone who wants Dean Smith gone needs to consider is, “who next”? I can sit here and say he’s not the best manager, that we’re not doing as well as we should be. But the overriding question is who would we/could we get to replace him that brings any sort of guarantee of improvement? Now, if the Villa owners suddenly announced that they’d secured the services of, say, Pochettino, then I’d be thinking, “wow, that’s an appointment that is next level”. But come on, that’s not going to happen, not a chance whilst there’s a chance we could end up in the championship. So who could Villa get, even in the summer. I hear ppl say Rafa, but potato head Bruce is out performing Rafa at Newcastle......and most of us think potato head is useless. Rafas best days are long gone, it’s 15yrs since that fluke in instanbul. Brendan Rogers got closer to a Premier League title than Rafa. Now, Rogers is a manager that I thought we could prise away from Celtic when Bruce was sacked, but there’s not a hope of getting him away from Leicester now. Good manager. Not obtainable. So who? What type/level manager are we talking about? Could we tempt Hasenhuttl, and is he that good that we’d view an appointment like that as a definite step or two up from Dean Smith? You  see, it’s so easy to say sack the manager, let’s get someone better in. But it’s harder to give names, realistic names, that can be viewed as a step up, isn’t it? At this moment in time I can’t think of anyone who is obtainable, and who would be an undoubted improvement on Dean Smith. Those type managers are in top club’s already. 

[sne]

2 minutes ago, OxfordVillan said:

 You  see, it’s so easy to say sack the manager, let’s get someone better in. But it’s harder to give names, realistic names, that can be viewed as a step up, isn’t it? At this moment in time I can’t think of anyone who is obtainable, and who would be an undoubted improvement on Dean Smith. Those type managers are in top club’s already. 

We go through this every time.

Every name is met with either "he would never come here anyway" or "how do you know he would do better than (insert name)?"

It's pointless to bring up names other than for speculation because we have no idea about the terms being offered to the potential targets. 

Could be high wages but little budget, or the other way round. Or both, or neither. We have no idea. 

Every appointment is a gamble of sorts.

[AntrimBlack]

9 minutes ago, OxfordVillan said:

I think what anyone who wants Dean Smith gone needs to consider is, “who next”? I can sit here and say he’s not the best manager, that we’re not doing as well as we should be. But the overriding question is who would we/could we get to replace him that brings any sort of guarantee of improvement? Now, if the Villa owners suddenly announced that they’d secured the services of, say, Pochettino, then I’d be thinking, “wow, that’s an appointment that is next level”. But come on, that’s not going to happen, not a chance whilst there’s a chance we could end up in the championship. So who could Villa get, even in the summer. I hear ppl say Rafa, but potato head Bruce is out performing Rafa at Newcastle......and most of us think potato head is useless. Rafas best days are long gone, it’s 15yrs since that fluke in instanbul. Brendan Rogers got closer to a Premier League title than Rafa. Now, Rogers is a manager that I thought we could prise away from Celtic when Bruce was sacked, but there’s not a hope of getting him away from Leicester now. Good manager. Not obtainable. So who? What type/level manager are we talking about? Could we tempt Hasenhuttl, and is he that good that we’d view an appointment like that as a definite step or two up from Dean Smith? You  see, it’s so easy to say sack the manager, let’s get someone better in. But it’s harder to give names, realistic names, that can be viewed as a step up, isn’t it? At this moment in time I can’t think of anyone who is obtainable, and who would be an undoubted improvement on Dean Smith. Those type managers are in top club’s already. 

It is not realistic for posters on an internet site to expect to know what managers are out there who would come to us in the CH and take us into the PL and keep us there.

But I would be convinced that they would be out there. The question is whether we have anyone at the club at present who would know who they are.