Dean Smith

[DCJonah]

9 hours ago, Stevo985 said:

Yes. He gets part of the credit for improving Luiz as he gets part of the responsibility for any loss of form in Jack. 
 

He also gets part of the responsibility of the loss in form of the entire team.

Stop being so black and white. I didn’t say it was all down to Smith. I said Smith’s job is to get the best out of his players. It’s his job to motivate them, use them correctly, and manage the team in a way that gets us points in football matches. He’s not doing his job very well. 
 

If you’re going to absolve him of responsibility for everything then what exactly IS he doing right?

I wasn't being black and white, I've given reasons why players and the team have lost form, multiple times. I've mentioned many variables, if anything your point was black and white, hence asking the question about luiz, because your point was making out that it was all down to the manager. 

He's doing very little right at the moment. But we've given him very little to work with to see if he can actually do things right. We've given him one of the worst squads in the league and he's had major injuries to key players to contend with. 

None of our rivals have had to play 3rd choice keepers, play multiple games with no striker and then rotate back up strikers for nearly half a season. 2 or 3 of our players would start for any of our rivals. It is his job to motivate, coach and get the best out of them but we've made it virtually impossible for a manager new to this league to achieve that. 

I'm sure top class managers could have got more points somewhere but that was never a realistic option. 

 

Edited July 11, 2020 by DCJonah

[Morley_crosses_to_Withe]

Given that Dean Smith definitely wasn’t a cog in the machine at Brentford, we should go and nick Thomas Frank. 

[Mjvilla]

10 hours ago, TRO said:

I don't mean that kind of discipline....not in that context anyway.

examples....doing what the manager asks them to do....even Roy Keane gave an example of Mings being 2 yards short of closing down, he said "i can't believe Dean hasn't told him that"....he might have done.....if you don't do as you're told its a lack of discipline.

The discipline of doing the basics right.

Funny you didn't talk about a lack of discipline when it came to Bruce (see quote 3).

On 26/08/2018 at 12:40, TRO said:

Here we are.....so my point is to throw 3 seasons in to the pot ( the argument) to ease the pain or prove the point, is a bit harsh, without a bit of consideration for the amount of disruption of the squad.

I accept the view that he come to stop the rot, but we might want to remind ourselves that he has a better win ratio than Dean Smith who is fancied by many.

Yes @TRO, absolutely absobloodylutely. So, why can we use it as an excuse for Bruce but not for Smith? What's good for the goose?

Seems like you didn't want Smith from back when Bruce was in charge. Smith got us promoted, Bruce didn't. 

On 27/08/2018 at 09:36, TRO said:

closing a man down or getting your foot in, or stealing a ball off an opponent......you don't need coaching for that....Its basic stuff for an amateur footballer ,never mind a Pro.

And back to my original point. You make different points for Bruce to what you do for Smith. All of a sudden its basic for an amateur footballer? Bruce wouldn't need to tell them? Why didnt you talk of a lack of discipline here?

You treat these manager so different because of your perspective of them. You think Dean is soft so not doing the basics is a lack of discipline. You didn't think Bruce is soft so it's all on the players. I don't understand how one man can change their tune so much from one manager to the other, when the other did more for our club. 

[VillaCas]

10 hours ago, TRO said:

you challenge my views, fair enough, but then offer no substance to substantiate you're own.

That’s all I do TRO! My view is absolutely clear. I’ve said the same thing since before the first ball of the premier league season was kicked.

Firstly, I believe our squad is very poor and  that we would have a struggle to achieve 17th.

Secondly, Smith is a very inexperienced/average PL manager and has made mistakes but unless a clearly better manager is available I would rather stick with Smith and hope he is now a better manager for the experience than take another inexperienced/average manager and have him have go through the same learning

I make this view plain to you in every discussion we have.

[hippo]

2 minutes ago, VillaCas said:

That’s all I do TRO! My view is absolutely clear. I’ve said the same thing since before the first ball of the premier league season was kicked.

Firstly, I believe our squad is very poor and  that we would have a struggle to achieve 17th.

Secondly, Smith is a very inexperienced/average PL manager and has made mistakes but unless a clearly better manager is available I would rather stick with Smith and hope he is now a better manager for the experience than take another inexperienced/average manager and have him have go through the same learning

I make this view plain to you in every discussion we have.

But if someone suggested - Chris Hughton, Sean Dyche....what would you say ?

They both have more promotions than Smith 

 

[sne]

11 hours ago, TRO said:

Its an excellent point.....I am far more aware of the finer arts of the game, than i was in my 30's......that is not being disrespectful to younger fans.

Fans are like players that get better with experience, sure you get old heads on young shoulders.....but watching too is a learning process.

I think i mentioned on here before, i used to grimace at Des Bremner, thinking he lacked the talent of the others,what an idiot i was, i was not appreciating the job he did....I told him once just to purposely embarrass myself as penance....he smiled " better late than never"....... defending is an art, usually created by organisation and group effort and synchronised action in a galvanised format.....managers and coaches do that and get the right players to do it.....without it attacking football cannot prosper and grow.......its like a pretty flower with no support stick, the wind will just break it....and end up with nothing.

Could this also be down to the amount of football to watch that is available now?

30 years ago you got a game or 2 a week on the telly and whatever games you were able to watch from the stands.

Now you got unlimited amount of football almost every day from leagues all around Europe with different styles of play, different cultures in and around football. There is also tons of information , articles, videos and analyzes available for anyone interested. You can watch a replay of any game or situation whenever and wherever you are. It's all there. If you are interested it's really easy to learn and educate yourself.

When I was a kid in the 80' you had 1 television channel, 2 newspapers with maybe 2 guy writing about football and 1 guy on the radio who covered all sports pretty much. What they said was law. You then got those who had been at the game who could tell you the what's what, and that was it. There was no tactical breakdown for the most part.

No idea how it was in England in the 80's - early 90's but I imagine there wasn't much coverage of leagues outside the UK? Maybe it wasn't so much that you got older and wiser but that you got to watch more football and expanded you mind.

 

Edited July 11, 2020 by sne
Typo

[VillaCas]

11 hours ago, TRO said:

all season they have faltered after 70 minutes, thats not a fit team, they do not physically indulge themselves like most of the division, they don't look like fitness is high on the agenda to me.....John MCGinn doesn't look fit, in fact he looks overweight, if anything.

This is plain wrong and a slur to the strength and conditioning team who do an excellent and conscientious job. They are well respected and professional and work above and beyond to deliver

Nakamba, Luis, Samatta and Wesley we’re not as fit as required when they arrived and took time to catch up. The rest of the squad are as fit as any squad in the PL 

[Mjvilla]

5 minutes ago, sne said:

Could this also be down to the amount of football to watch that is available now?

30 years ago you got a game or 2 a week on the telly and whatever games you were able to watch from the stands.

Now you got unlimited amount of football almost every day from leagues all around Europe with different styles of play, different cultures in and around football. There is also tons of information , articles, videos and analyzes available for anyone interested. You can watch a replay of any game or situation whenever and wherever you are. It's all there. If you are interested it's really easy to learn and educate yourself.

When I was a kid in the 80' you had 1 television channel, 2 newspapers with maybe 2 guy writing about football and 1 guy on the radio who covered all sports pretty much. What they said was law. You then got those who had been at the game who could tell you the what's what, and that was it. There was no tactical breakdown for the most part.

No idea how it was in England in the 80's - early 90's but I imagine there wasn't much coverage of leagues outside the UK? Maybe it wasn't so much that you got older and wiser but that you got to watch more football and expanded you mind.

 

Completely agree with this. We are far more exposed to football now than every before. You can watch football pretty constantly over a weekend if you so choose. 

To suggest that because you are older you have more knowledge is disrespectful to my mind. Since I was old enough, I have played, watched, analysed, discussed football pretty constantly. I don't know all there is to know, at all. But I think I have a pretty good knowledge of the game. And a younger mind seems to be able to accept the more modern ways of the game. I wouldn't, however, say I know more about the modern game because I'm younger as that would just be disrespectful. 

Football is a game of opinions, no one's opinion is wrong. They will always argue their case. Age is no factor when it comes to opinions. 

[Mjvilla]

16 minutes ago, hippo said:

But if someone suggested - Chris Hughton, Sean Dyche....what would you say ?

They both have more promotions than Smith 

 

I'd tell you that Sean dyche only has more promotions because he got relegated in his first PL season. 

[TRO]

10 hours ago, Johnnyp said:

This was one of my very earliest memories of Villa. Again, would of not noticed any of this but this guy....wow. Worth remembering too that Serie A teams were elite these years, better than English league. He could of played Italian football every week and not looked out of place. We've got lucky when we've rolled the dice on players who were perceived as injury prone or not quite good enough when it came to defenders. I'd heard of Laursen, was highly rated in Italy but thought Milan knew something we didn't when i heard he was coming to us for 3 million ! The reality ? Couldn't get in ahead of Nesta, Maldini and Stam. Then Mellberg from racing Santander. Are these guys just not out there anymore. Has the landscape changed that much. How can Celtic pluck the now best CB in the world from Groningen. Have we gone away from the good old fashioned method of sending scouts to games. 

 

 

Its not the modern way, the modern way has just been pants for us, but we still go with it, because its vogue......we need to wake up.

when you think how much Laursen and McGrath cost it would make you cry.

I think it is harder now because, every man and his dog are after players and there are fewer clubs in financial difficulty, due to TV money, so not desperate to sell players....but i think we could do much better than we are.

Its funny, you mention those 2 ......thats what Ron saunders did in the main, raided clubs whose players could not make the first team .i.e Swain,Cropley & Rimmer.

I think we should get as best a manager we can get and the recruitment, reports to him, they are his team of scouts and they get the feel for what he wants.....our managers Authority is too minimised, hence he is a head coach.....it needs a restructure imo.

 

[villa4europe]

16 minutes ago, hippo said:

But if someone suggested - Chris Hughton, Sean Dyche....what would you say ?

They both have more promotions than Smith 

 

For me dyche is a yes all day, Houghton is a maybe, I think he's a bit like Bruce and has a PL ceiling meaning that in 3 years time we'd be calling for his head too

[VillaCas]

13 minutes ago, hippo said:

But if someone suggested - Chris Hughton, Sean Dyche....what would you say ?

They both have more promotions than Smith 

Antithetical I know, but I wouldn’t change at the moment. I think that 90% of our problems are squad-related

I rate Dyche above Hughton but think his ceiling is mid-table.  I’m not claiming that Smith is better than Dyche but I don’t see that there is enough difference to change

I think Smith could become a decent PL manager and will benefit enormously from this season

If you feel the squad we have should be mid-table then I would understand your point of view. 

[Mjvilla]

10 hours ago, Johnnyp said:

This was one of my very earliest memories of Villa. Again, would of not noticed any of this but this guy....wow. Worth remembering too that Serie A teams were elite these years, better than English league. He could of played Italian football every week and not looked out of place. We've got lucky when we've rolled the dice on players who were perceived as injury prone or not quite good enough when it came to defenders. I'd heard of Laursen, was highly rated in Italy but thought Milan knew something we didn't when i heard he was coming to us for 3 million ! The reality ? Couldn't get in ahead of Nesta, Maldini and Stam. Then Mellberg from racing Santander. Are these guys just not out there anymore. Has the landscape changed that much. How can Celtic pluck the now best CB in the world from Groningen. Have we gone away from the good old fashioned method of sending scouts to games. 

 

 

I think the fall in our stature has played it's part. Mellberg was highly rated with big teams in Spain interested but he came here. Do we really think we could fight these clubs for players anymore? Laursen, an international, would he have come to us? I'm not so sure. 

Nowadays, we need to beat the middle man. Get mellberg from Sweden before he made that move to racing. Get laursen before Milan or wherever. But, with our fanbase, as I've alluded to in other threads.... They aren't given a chance. If either of those players came in and didn't show in the opening 10 games, they are written off. (See samatta) It's an absolutely vicious circle where the impatience of the modern day football fan works against them.

[VillaCas]

15 minutes ago, TRO said:

Its not the modern way, the modern way has just been pants for us, but we still go with it, because its vogue......we need to wake up.

when you think how much Laursen and McGrath cost it would make you cry.

I think it is harder now because, every man and his dog are after players and there are fewer clubs in financial difficulty, due to TV money, so not desperate to sell players....but i think we could do much better than we are.

Its funny, you mention those 2 ......thats what Ron saunders did in the main, raided clubs whose players could not make the first team .i.e Swain,Cropley & Rimmer.

I think we should get as best a manager we can get and the recruitment, reports to him, they are his team of scouts and they get the feel for what he wants.....our managers Authority is too minimised, hence he is a head coach.....it needs a restructure imo.

 

Constantly hankering for the past is pointless.  Football is a multi-billion pound game and it will never go back to one man calling all the shots

We have to find a way to make this system work for us. 

[Mjvilla]

Dyche is a interesting point too...

The fanbase hounded Westwood out, a regular starter there. Lowton, another regular starter there. Regularly called shit on here. Players not given a chance by this fanbase, flourishing at other clubs. 

[Sulberto21]

16 hours ago, Zatman said:

We were 12th in February and Purslow said on Smith unveiling in October that promotion next season was the target

If we strolled to promotion like Wolves did I guarantee we wouldn't have signed players like Trezeguet, Jota etc. 

I'm taking about the start of the season. If you're mathematically still in with a chance then you have to do everything to get that goal.

[villalad21]

3 minutes ago, Mjvilla said:

Dyche is a interesting point too...

The fanbase hounded Westwood out, a regular starter there. Lowton, another regular starter there. Regularly called shit on here. Players not given a chance by this fanbase, flourishing at other clubs. 

They aren't shit.

They are regular starters in a mid table pl team.

[Sulberto21]

3 minutes ago, Mjvilla said:

Dyche is a interesting point too...

The fanbase hounded Westwood out, a regular starter there. Lowton, another regular starter there. Regularly called shit on here. Players not given a chance by this fanbase, flourishing at other clubs. 

Westwood and Lowton are still making the same mistakes they made here. Even I could run off the back of them and they wouldn't track my run (more a stumble but you know what I mean).

[Sulberto21]

6 minutes ago, VillaCas said:

Constantly hankering for the past is pointless.  Football is a multi-billion pound game and it will never go back to one man calling all the shots

We have to find a way to make this system work for us. 

I agree with what you say here. Maybe we just need modern people to come in with our old mentality of wanting to be the best in the league and Europe. There's going to be a lot of trial and error though.

[Mjvilla]

5 minutes ago, Sulberto21 said:

Westwood and Lowton are still making the same mistakes they made here. Even I could run off the back of them and they wouldn't track my run (more a stumble but you know what I mean).

And yet they play regularly in a midtable prem league team. How we wish we could be one of those.