Dean Smith

[tomav84]

3 hours ago, TreeVillan said:

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

with all due respect, this is a load of tosh. not every club that gets promoted has a player of jack's quality. in fact, i dont recall a club in recent memory having anyone close to his ability in the championship. as many have speculated, him leaving will force us to develop a style and tactic other than 'give the ball to jack'

we'll be ok - just need to get the recruitment right

[useless]

There will be many obtainable managers that we can get that would be an improvement on Smith, it's not as if you've got Smith and the very next level of manager is a Pochettino type. Also the question of 'who can we get that can do any better' is usually asked when a team is doing relatively well, say challenging for top six but feel they should be challenging for top four or something like that, not when a team is on a bad of a run of form as we are on.

No one would have thought of Pochettino  when Southampton sacked Adkins or Nuno when Lambert left Wolves, I bet many hadn't heard of Hasenhüttl either.

Not sure if Smith will go now though, I think we might change the structure around him, replacing it hopefully with something better than we have at the moment, if that includes a new Director of Football in charge of all footbaling decisons then maybe they'll want to bring in their own Head Coach, but wouldn't be surprised if Smith was given the start of next season, might depend on how this one finishes, if we go down without much of a fight then he'll probably go.

[Stevo985]

3 hours ago, TreeVillan said:

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

I love Jack. He's our best player by a mile.

But the insinuation that we wouldn't be able to get promoted without him is bollocks to be perfectly honest

[jim]

11 minutes ago, useless said:

 

No one would have thought of Pochettino  when Southampton sacked Adkins or Nuno when Lambert left Wolves, I bet many hadn't heard of Hasenhüttl either.

This.
 

I seem to recall there were many on here ridiculing Southampton for the appointment of Poch and they would almost certainly be relegated.

 

[OxfordVillan]

38 minutes ago, sne said:

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.

Exactly. 

[Dodgyknees]

3 hours 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.

Did the owners think we would do better? I think so.

Did the owners do the right thing by talking up our chances? - Yes, otherwise we don't sign who we want.

[TRO]

7 hours ago, VillaCas said:

Maybe Smith trusted Suso to do his job? Suso failed. If Smith learns from that great, if not then I would agree with you

That is all a bit passive.....we have just spent c £140 million, its not monopoly money......you don't get a practice run.

Any manager at this level should know if he is being tucked up with players....This is a tough business, not for the feint hearted and signing players, is one of the most important things to get right to survive.

I don't ignore your point, but it smacks of being tad too naive and compliant.....I hope if Dean does go, he retorts with a few Home truths, because I don't think the club is blameless here.

[TRO]

1 hour ago, useless said:

There will be many obtainable managers that we can get that would be an improvement on Smith, it's not as if you've got Smith and the very next level of manager is a Pochettino type. Also the question of 'who can we get that can do any better' is usually asked when a team is doing relatively well, say challenging for top six but feel they should be challenging for top four or something like that, not when a team is on a bad of a run of form as we are on.

No one would have thought of Pochettino  when Southampton sacked Adkins or Nuno when Lambert left Wolves, I bet many hadn't heard of Hasenhüttl either.

Not sure if Smith will go now though, I think we might change the structure around him, replacing it hopefully with something better than we have at the moment, if that includes a new Director of Football in charge of all footbaling decisons then maybe they'll want to bring in their own Head Coach, but wouldn't be surprised if Smith was given the start of next season, might depend on how this one finishes, if we go down without much of a fight then he'll probably go.

we have 6 games left......I haven't seen that all season.

[TRO]

1 hour ago, tomav84 said:

with all due respect, this is a load of tosh. not every club that gets promoted has a player of jack's quality. in fact, i dont recall a club in recent memory having anyone close to his ability in the championship. as many have speculated, him leaving will force us to develop a style and tactic other than 'give the ball to jack'

we'll be ok - just need to get the recruitment right

Close?......

Jamie Vardy,James Madden ( Norwich), Mason Mount ( on loan at Derby) 

[Dodgyknees]

5 minutes ago, TRO said:

Close?......

Jamie Vardy,James Madden ( Norwich), Mason Mount ( on loan at Derby) 

Norwich and Derby weren't promoted.

[TRO]

7 minutes ago, avfcDJ said:

Norwich and Derby weren't promoted.

fair comment.

but in terms of being close to jacks talent, they are, without getting promoted.

[Mjvilla]

30 minutes ago, avfcDJ said:

Norwich and Derby weren't promoted.

And clearly James Maddison has developed a heck of a lot since going to Leicester.

[TRO]

7 minutes ago, Mjvilla said:

And clearly James Maddison has developed a heck of a lot since going to Leicester.

Well, yes.....but it was his form at Norwich, that attracted them.

[VillaCas]

55 minutes ago, TRO said:

That is all a bit passive.....we have just spent c £140 million, its not monopoly money......you don't get a practice run.

Any manager at this level should know if he is being tucked up with players....This is a tough business, not for the feint hearted and signing players, is one of the most important things to get right to survive.

I don't ignore your point, but it smacks of being tad too naive and compliant.....I hope if Dean does go, he retorts with a few Home truths, because I don't think the club is blameless here.

Thats not how things work these days - the manager is no longer all-powerful. He says what he wants and the DofF uses his network to identify the target - For example, I doubt DS had much information on Wesley when he turned up. Like in any endeavour when you work as part of a team, you trust your colleagues to know what they are doing.

That said I don't think we have been greatly 'tucked up' - Wesley and Trez look poor signings (the fault here lies with Suso) but the rest look worth about what we paid for them - this has been gone over again and again, to be sure of getting quality PL players you need to be paying more money than we did.

If Smith had had his choice Benrama and Maupay would be here instead of Wesley and Trez (and I expect we would be doing a hell of a lot better)

It is imporant to get the right players but for that look to Suso before laying blame at Smiths door

As for the £140m spend thats peanuts spread over 12-15 players

[Blasterpocket68]

2 hours ago, tomav84 said:

with all due respect, this is a load of tosh. not every club that gets promoted has a player of jack's quality. in fact, i dont recall a club in recent memory having anyone close to his ability in the championship. as many have speculated, him leaving will force us to develop a style and tactic other than 'give the ball to jack'

we'll be ok - just need to get the recruitment right

Agreed 100%  the key is recruitment and the team upstairs who make decisions  smith included  - If it remains as it is today i fear we will will endure more pain and a long long road back. 

[TRO]

31 minutes ago, VillaCas said:

Thats not how things work these days - the manager is no longer all-powerful. He says what he wants and the DofF uses his network to identify the target - For example, I doubt DS had much information on Wesley when he turned up. Like in any endeavour when you work as part of a team, you trust your colleagues to know what they are doing.

That said I don't think we have been greatly 'tucked up' - Wesley and Trez look poor signings (the fault here lies with Suso) but the rest look worth about what we paid for them - this has been gone over again and again, to be sure of getting quality PL players you need to be paying more money than we did.

If Smith had had his choice Benrama and Maupay would be here instead of Wesley and Trez (and I expect we would be doing a hell of a lot better)

It is imporant to get the right players but for that look to Suso before laying blame at Smiths door

As for the £140m spend thats peanuts spread over 12-15 players

Tell that to Klopp, Guardiola or Mourinho.....you make your own Power as manager.

• Firstly you expect improvement from those players, to develop in to say £200 mill.....thats why we went for younger players as opposed to the older ones we got burnt with.....i.e look at Traore and Madden.....thats what we used to do....thats what I thought was going to happen and it hasn't, they have arguably go worse.
• Personally, I don't see the guarantee of Benrama and Maupay making it all that much better...there again just opinions......now a player like Dendonker, I would have gone for over Nakamba.
• Suso must take blame, but the manager must also take his share and maybe the CEO
• I think most managers coming up would be delighted in having such a huge sum at their disposal.....I don't see the equation as simple as £140 mill over 12-15 players, it doesn't have to be equally shared....i.e Hause was only £3 mill....Heaton was only £8 mill. I don't think we could expect any owners to come up with more.

What none of us expected, was £140 million worth of talent, get no better.....There are very few clubs who can splash 30-40-50 million on one player......Wolves have certainly not done that or Sheff Utd... most clubs have to develop the players, like we have done with Jack and turn them in to the big money players......£ 140 million is not peanuts, divied out as you describe it maybe, but that is a selected argument to avoid the truth of buying badly.....If you go with your ( and others) interpretation the owners would have had to write a cheque for £ 30 mill x 12 = £360 million and thats just being conservative.....its ridiculous.

The truth of the matter is we are poor talent spotters on the whole.

Edited June 29, 2020 by TRO

[Tomaszk]

3 hours ago, tomav84 said:

We'll be ok - just need to get the recruitment right

Uh oh.

[VillaCas]

49 minutes ago, TRO said:

Tell that to Klopp, Guardiola or Mourinho.....you make your own Power as manager.

• Firstly you expect improvement from those players, to develop in to say £200 mill.....thats why we went for younger players as opposed to the older ones we got burnt with.....i.e look at Traore and Madden.....thats what we used to do....thats what I thought was going to happen and it hasn't, they have arguably go worse.
• Personally, I don't see the guarantee of Benrama and Maupay making it all that much better...there again just opinions......now a player like Dendonker, I would have gone for over Nakamba.
• Suso must take blame, but the manager must also take his share and maybe the CEO
• I think most managers coming up would be delighted in having such a huge sum at their disposal.....I don't see the equation as simple as £140 mill over 12-15 players, it doesn't have to be equally shared....i.e Hause was only £3 mill....Heaton was only £8 mill. I don't think we could expect any owners to come up with more.

What none of us expected, was £140 million worth of talent, get no better.....There are very few clubs who can splash 30-40-50 million on one player......Wolves have certainly not done that or Sheff Utd... most clubs have to develop the players, like we have done with Jack and turn them in to the big money players......£ 140 million is not peanuts, divied out as you describe it maybe, but that is a selected argument to avoid the truth of buying badly.....If you go with your ( and others) interpretation the owners would have had to write a cheque for £ 30 mill x 12 = £360 million and thats just being conservative.....its ridiculous.

The truth of the matter is we are poor talent spotters on the whole.

Hard to know where to start replying to this

- Smith is not Klopp, Guardiola or Mourinho

- Responsibility for player recruitment sits in the main with Suso

- I didn’t expect more from the owners. I suspect that £140m was all that FFP would allow

- I certainly never suggested that the owners needed to buy 12 x £30m players - it’s ridiculous to say that

- The biggest chunk of funds was spent on retaining or replacing loanees and after spending around £80m I would argue that we were worse than the team that finished 5th in the championship (with Wesley and Engels being (far) worse than Tammy and Axel)

That left £60 to find replacements for Adomah, Jedi, Hutton etc. In this respect I think we got what we paid for Nakamba, Hause, Konsa, Trez, Luis etc IE very average run of the mill players

I repeat that £140m does not go a long way when spread over 15 players (Wolves have had the support of one of the world top agents to provide them with cut price bargains, Sheffield United have built a team over some years and are massively over performing (good luck to them))

I agree that we are poor talent spotters - Suso has not lived up to his billing

 

[tinker]

4 hours ago, Stevo985 said:

I love Jack. He's our best player by a mile.

But the insinuation that we wouldn't be able to get promoted without him is bollocks to be perfectly honest

Without him we would have been relegated by now, thats for sure. The squad is weak in all areas, we started the season with one fit striker who had never played in England . 

Without Grealish we would be a terrible team to watch and if I'm honest it would take quite a lot for me to be motivated enough to jump on board a Villa without Grealish fighting for promotion. 

[Stevo985]

8 minutes ago, tinker said:

Without him we would have been relegated by now, thats for sure. The squad is weak in all areas, we started the season with one fit striker who had never played in England . 

Agreed. But I was talking about promotion next season in the a championship. A feat that would be comfortably achievable without Jack. 
 

8 minutes ago, tinker said:

Without Grealish we would be a terrible team to watch and if I'm honest it would take quite a lot for me to be motivated enough to jump on board a Villa without Grealish fighting for promotion. 

Again agreed we would be even more terrible than we are now. 
but not in the championship. We’d have a good squad for the champ and we’d have 100m quid to (partly) use to buy some championship players. 
 

We’d have one of the best squads in the league and the money to add top quality championship players to the team.