Dean Smith

[Sulberto21]

2 minutes ago, MattVillaPortsmouth said:

For all his turdiness I would wager he would have scored the AEG chance.

 

back on subject, I would have had McGinn off for Nakamba, and prob would have gone guilbert not AEG.  The moment the commentator brought up how many we conceded in last 15m and we only had 8 to hold out you could tell it was coming. 

I wager he wouldn't have got in that position in the first place. Personally I think Connor was starting to pay a little.

[Sulberto21]

4 minutes ago, PieFacE said:

Potentially. Though, do you think Smith wanted to go into the season with just Wesley, Kodjia and Davis as strikers?

Do you think he wanted to go into the season with just El-Ghazi and Trez as wingers?

I think the answers to both of those questions is no. But I could be wrong.

 

One can also ask the same questions in reverse. He bought in Jota remember. It's a collective failure. 

[villa_shere]

I’ve seen more tactics applied by Dean Smith over this season to overcome new players coming in, major injuries and form and any other manager if not all in the last ten years combined. 
 

it’s clear to me that he knows what he’s doing and has a plan and he’s always kept the dressing room and the players on side and trying. 
 

There is no obvious choice out there who would seem a better fit for us next season wherever we are. 
 

The best clubs are the ones who are applying continuity in how they are run. It’s time to stop chopping and changing so many variables 

[Demitri_C]

33 minutes ago, mikeyp102 said:

Agree on the first part.

Second part, we are so mentally weak. I’m just not sure Smith is fully to blame. I don’t think he instructs them to sit back so much. We do need to get a good psychologist in. 

The thing is they are mentally weak with NO FANS what chance we got when fans are back?

They use the villa park is toxic excuse but our forms been just as poor with no fans.  For me the manager has to take responsibility as well as whatever he is doing to get them mor prepared for this is simply not working.  The same things are happening over and over 

[hippo]

1 minute ago, villa_shere said:

I’ve seen more tactics applied by Dean Smith over this season to overcome new players coming in, major injuries and form and any other manager if not all in the last ten years combined. 
 

it’s clear to me that he knows what he’s doing and has a plan and he’s always kept the dressing room and the players on side and trying. 
 

There is no obvious choice out there who would seem a better fit for us next season wherever we are. 
 

The best clubs are the ones who are applying continuity in how they are run. It’s time to stop chopping and changing so many variables 

Maybe so - but he hasn't got the results.

Continuity imo comes from getting the right people in place - not sticking with one who is floundering just for continuity.

The current bottom 3 have all stood by their manager this season for example.

[Sulberto21]

This season the fans have been massively patient and we've been full nearly every game. 

For the record I am in the if we can get better then he should go but if not then he should stay. Simple lol.

Better? Marcelo Gallardo will get us playing with the intensity we have lacked for large parts this season. Although I doubt he'd come to a championship club.

I couldn't find the article and Petrov has said the same thing that we don't press well enough from the front and it's only in our defensive third the pressure starts. Even then we stand off too much except Luiz post restart. 

We need to press from the front. Dean Smith HAS to improve us in this area. It's been garbage all season. Our pressure on the ball has to be on the money for the entire game too. This collectively has also been garbage this season. 

 

Edited July 16, 2020 by Sulberto21

[Blasterpocket68]

4 minutes ago, villa_shere said:

I’ve seen more tactics applied by Dean Smith over this season to overcome new players coming in, major injuries and form and any other manager if not all in the last ten years combined. 
 

it’s clear to me that he knows what he’s doing and has a plan and he’s always kept the dressing room and the players on side and trying. 
 

There is no obvious choice out there who would seem a better fit for us next season wherever we are. 
 

The best clubs are the ones who are applying continuity in how they are run. It’s time to stop chopping and changing so many variables 

Guess its all about opinions, but i would disagree with you .

His tactics have been absolutely appalling for most of the season, cavalier open football with a brand new squad just promoted to the Premiership! Had we applied the more recent conservative  tactics of keeping the game a little tighter we may have had a chance! Its not clear to me or most  pundits on what he is doing as a coach at the training ground   . The defending as a team has been dreadful. 

If we are a big club with ambitious owners there are always options, chopping and changing,  no not a fan but i believe Smith has to  go at the end of the season. 

[M_Afro]

I have been against Dean from day 1 but oddly he has started to win me around. We are getting better. You can see the players start to improve. We look more like a team now. You can see the plan but sadly it’s all probably come too late. I am pretty sure though that if we could start again now that we would be ok.

So, stick or twist? I have been twist all the way but if we do go down, maybe we should stick. Particularly if there is no obvious replacement who can really improve things. Big decisions ahead

[jim]

26 minutes ago, Mjvilla said:

Were you here after palace when this thread went onto page 2?

Yes, and I praised the result. I had nothing to complain about

[Mjvilla]

5 minutes ago, M_Afro said:

I have been against Dean from day 1 but oddly he has started to win me around. We are getting better. You can see the players start to improve. We look more like a team now. You can see the plan but sadly it’s all probably come too late. I am pretty sure though that if we could start again now that we would be ok.

So, stick or twist? I have been twist all the way but if we do go down, maybe we should stick. Particularly if there is no obvious replacement who can really improve things. Big decisions ahead

This. Smith will take a battering for the early season but is getting little to no praise for the improvement.

[MaVilla]

6 minutes ago, M_Afro said:

I have been against Dean from day 1 but oddly he has started to win me around. We are getting better. You can see the players start to improve. We look more like a team now. You can see the plan but sadly it’s all probably come too late. I am pretty sure though that if we could start again now that we would be ok.

So, stick or twist? I have been twist all the way but if we do go down, maybe we should stick. Particularly if there is no obvious replacement who can really improve things. Big decisions ahead

Yeah, we have averaged 6 points from 6 games since the restart, and overall looked a bit better as a team, if we had the 1 point a game average pre lock down we would be safe now, such a pity.

If we had Wesley, engels and Heaton fit, that would have helped probably too. (Also mcginn missing for large chunks)

Injuries haven't helped us at all this season, but at the same time we have been the masters of our own downfall.

 

[Nabby]

Just now, Mjvilla said:

This. Smith will take a battering for the early season but is getting little to no praise for the improvement.

IMO the majority of the improvement is down to Luiz being MOTM in every game. The defending has improved as he is stopping attacks in midfield or is in the right place to get the ball away in the box.Take him out and we would still be all over the place.

I don't think overall the defending is much better , its more we sit deeper to stop counters now especially the full backs.Indvidual wise attacking we have been poor but I also think as a team with carry little threat  the Grealish /Targett combo on the left has not been effective , though I think this is down the fullbacks not venturing forward as much.

 

[Mjvilla]

1 minute ago, Nabby said:

IMO the majority of the improvement is down to Luiz being MOTM in every game. The defending has improved as he is stopping attacks in midfield or is in the right place to get the ball away in the box.Take him out and we would still be all over the place.

I don't think overall the defending is much better , its more we sit deeper to stop counters now especially the full backs.Indvidual wise attacking we have been poor but I also think as a team with carry little threat  the Grealish /Targett combo on the left has not been effective , though I think this is down the fullbacks not venturing forward as much.

 

Another case of smith getting a battering for the bad things and no plaudits at all for better performance. I've never seen anything like it.

[Villa_Vids]

Sadly I think Smith is a "close, but no cigar" man. There has been some encouraging signs in the last two games but it is "too little, too late". 

The team is too mentally fragile under his leadership. For example, dropping 19 points from winning positions, and being the top team for conceding in the last 15 minutes, does not bode well for the future. 

This may seem harsh, but I worry about us next season. I think we may draw too many games, continue our bad habits and hit form at the wrong time. 

I appreciate what he has achieved, but we need a fresh start.

[Fairy In Boots]

Guys we can’t close games out, this is coaching not recruitment. 

[jim]

1 minute ago, Fairy In Boots said:

Guys we can’t close games out, this is coaching not recruitment. 

[Woody1000]

I could be a bit of a d*** and point out that we looked a lot better with Elmo at RB and Konsa at CB, but instead I will congratulate Smith on picking the right team today.

Luiz was good again today (easily our standout performer since the restart ), I thought McGinn had his best game since his return from injury. Tbf, I thought our midfield bossed the game for the majority of the first 75/80 minutes.

A special mention to Keenan Davis, if that boy could score 15 goals a season then he’d be worth £50m! His holdup play is so good, and you have to remember that he’s still only 22. He made such a difference when he came on today.

In typical Villa fashion we threw it away, but I feel like we have a chance of staying up, not a good chance but a chance regardless.

[Davkaus]

1 hour ago, Mjvilla said:

This. Smith will take a battering for the early season but is getting little to no praise for the improvement.

That's because we're doing **** worse.

We got 11 points from our first 10 league games of the season. 6 points from our last 10 games. In fact, you have to go back 16 games to find as many points as we got from the first 10. Please, tell me more about this improvement.

We have looked worse and worse as the season goes on, and for that reason alone, Smith ought to be out of a job.  

 

 

 

Edited July 16, 2020 by Davkaus

[KentVillan]

I'm not saying he's a genius or anything, but I really think Smith is getting a raw deal off our fans.

He has absolutely no options going forward. Trez and Samatta are nothing players who try to beat defenders for pace in a league where every defender is faster than they are. Davis is a useful target man but can't finish. El Ghazi is a prima donna with ideas miles above his station. Wesley was starting to look dangerous until he got Ben Mee'd.

Grealish is our only player in the final third who looks PL quality, but he's actually playing much deeper than the formation suggests. He looks completely burnt out, but you can hardly blame Smith for that, when he's the only player who has created anything in 90% of our games.

I'm fed up of people saying Smith should be coaching players better, when he's clearly dealing with players who can't play better. He's got El Ghazi, who shouldered a "header" in the play-off final now unsurprisingly fluffing an open goal volley that most Sunday League players would tuck away. How the **** is that a coaching problem? What coaching drill or pre-game talk or tactical plan is going to fix that?

Dean Smith can't teach Trez how to be as fast as he thinks he is, or El Ghazi to be as technically gifted as he thinks he is.

I hate watching Villa play this badly as much as anyone else on VT, but it depresses me that people just want to pin the blame on the coach, when it's so much more complicated than that. I really don't think even a Klopp or a Guardiola would have got this squad playing well this year.

[chips'ngravy]

Samatta and Trez were awful from start to finish. That seems to be a pretty unanimous opinion on here. Now, you can understand him going with a player that has just scored 2 goals in the previous game. Samatta, less so. Nevertheless, that's what he chose to go with. The annoying thing for me was not making the change in the first half. We have 5 subs. When something is so clearly wrong then change it, that's what a good manager does. The protocol has always been 'give them an hour no matter what'. Well, we couldn't afford that luxury. 

Likewise, having got our noses in front and being so close to the finish line, make a sub or two...break up the play...do whatever it takes but just see the game out. Across the course of the season this naivety has relegated us. We just haven't learnt.