Dean Smith

[JAMAICAN-VILLAN]

The post reactions and turn around (From most our fans) go to show that most of us aren't just d*ckheads who wanted to slag Dean off for the sake of it.

Our doubts and anger were more due to worry for our club than anything else.

Obviously doubts will still linger but I think he definitely deserves at least the first 1/3 - first half of the season.

Let's see how he does with a better squad, hopefully it encourages him to be more proactive with tactics and subs.

This season was a HUGE learning curve for him and he did display some naivety, which in hindsight should probably have been expected due to it all being new to him too.

Ideally he can find some sort of hybrid of his original all out attack style and the newly found solidity. Wouldn't want him to necessarily totally change as a manager.

There will be less excuses for him come the end of this transfer window IMO, and ambition will be higher.

As some others have said, in current mood, the only way I'd feel ok with him going is if some sort of "Out of our league" manager was willing, and even then I might still feel a bit salty if he were replaced, based on us being safe, as fine as the margin was.

Mental how the mood could have been totally different sake of a goal.

Yes as some others have said, over the course of the season, it probably has not been "good enough' but he has earned his place for the near future.

I think these players are also close to him so would not take kindly to him being replaced.

Anyway onwards and upwards. UTV!

[nick76]

Might even be the fans who were more vocal about Smith Out are quiet at the moment because I’m also seeing names commenting that don’t comment as frequent

[jacketspuds]

17 minutes ago, nick76 said:

Might even be the fans who were more vocal about Smith Out are quiet at the moment because I’m also seeing names commenting that don’t comment as frequent

I was one of the ones calling for a change in manager. At the time we looked clueless and bereft of any ideas. We were making mistakes and it seemed like we were going through the motions from one game to the next.

However, I'm so glad that we stuck with Smith and that I was wrong. This is a learning experience for everyone and I'm hoping that next season I don't jump the gun if things aren't going well. As the end of this season has shown, never write anything off.

[Demitri_C]

This pic has to go around villa park on some wall somewhere. It should be put in the villa vault and looked back in our history.  Its just great to see.

[villalad21]

Are they sober?

[The Fun Factory]

1 hour ago, villalad21 said:

Are they sober?

About as sober as Rowley Birkin QC.

[blandy]

1 hour ago, Herman22 said:

I was one of the people that said at the start of the season that a 17th place finish was a successful season.

Exactly this. Before the season started, then all through it season I was telling myself "remember GT" he got us up by the skin of our teeth in 1988, then kept us up by a point the next season. Teams that win the play-offs are particularly likely to go straight back down, both because they are/were not as good as the automatic ones, and also because they have less time to organise. Add on top of that the need to replace so many players and then the injuries to the spine of the team - Heaton, McGinn & Wesley while trying to integrate a load of new players and it's hard to pick a fault. But there is one, and it's the 35 points. That's too low, much too low in some respects. It shows there's a lot of work to be done, still. But Dean Smith is absolutely the right manager for the club. Well done and thanks to him.

[The Fun Factory]

1 hour ago, hippo said:

you mean shots against us ? 

Shots Shots Shotszzz

[Wezbid]

4 hours ago, villalad21 said:

Apart from Liverpool and Man Citeh it's weaker everywhere.

Back in the MON era you needed 70 points to finish in the top 4. This season Chelsea and Man Utd finished on 66 points.

It's not weaker everywhere, it is just far more competitive with plenty of teams able to take points off each other. 

[StanBalaban]

This is Dean's first season where he can build from a level of stability. Now's his opportunity to show that he and the coaching team have a footballing philosophy and the ability to improve the better players that we have.

I know he'll relish the challenge, and I hope he grabs this opportunity with both hands to show that he's a top quality coach. He'll have learnt a lot from this season, and the areas that he needs to work on. Hopefully with better options, we'll see him influence during the game better. Be that a tactical or personnel change mid-match.

Edited July 27, 2020 by StanBalaban

[Zatman]

Quote

Dean Smith

Teams who get promoted through the play-offs are expected to struggle, especially if they lose half their squad straight away. Dean Smith had to adapt to the top flight while blending in over a dozen new arrivals, promising talents recruited at an average price of around £9.5m each, which is small beer in the Premier League saloon. Then, halfway through the campaign, he had to cope with the loss of the spine of his team, with goalkeeper Tom Heaton and main striker Wesley suffering long-term injuries and John McGinn sidelined for several months. Smith showed his skills by successfully changing his approach and tightening up a defence that had been leaky, and he helped newcomers such as Douglas Luiz and Trezeguet to grow into very good Premier League players. Before the season ended it was clear that Villa would be wise to keep Smith irrespective of whether they stayed up or went down.

Getting some media praise and interesting a journalist not going for the usual 120 million crap and actually went for the average price

https://www.theguardian.com/football/2020/jul/27/premier-league-2019-20-review-managers-of-the-season

[MaVilla]

In hindsight, which is a wonderful thing....we did well to stay up with the absences we had.

3 (heaton, mcginn, wesley) of our 5 key players (inc grealish and mings), were injured for half the season, that's a massive loss, especially for a team with as shallow a squad as we had.

Granted wesley wasnt blowing teams away, but again, in hindsight he was a core part of our spine in terms of how we wanted to play etc, and the fact we stayed up without a scoring striker for the last half of the season, is pretty mad tbh.

 

[Djemba_Villan]

3 minutes ago, MaVilla said:

In hindsight, which is a wonderful thing....we did well to stay up with the absences we had.

3 (heaton, mcginn, wesley) of our 5 key players (inc grealish and mings), were injured for half the season, that's a massive loss, especially for a team with as shallow a squad as we had.

Granted wesley wasnt blowing teams away, but again, in hindsight he was a core part of our spine in terms of how we wanted to play etc, and the fact we stayed up without a scoring striker for the last half of the season, is pretty mad tbh.

 

Agreed. To add to that, remember that we'd have spent a lot of pre-season time in tactical training designed around him in his Target Man role. So to lose him was damaging, whether someones a big fan or not.

[MotoMkali]

5 hours ago, mikeyp102 said:

(It’s not often I support the OP) I’ve just looked and the only other team to stay up with 35 points was Albion back in 05. In 09/10 Burnley were 18th with 30 points.

Either way it is a low points total to stay up this season. 
We did it, and we beat those around us of which we should be happy. But let’s be honest improvement is needed. 

Yeah but that is because the points totals aren't normally so close. Normally a team will be 2 or 3 points clear when staying up. 

[commander]

Wow he turned it around and I wasn't sure he could. Massive credit has to come his way! He turned us into a team that would fight! 

PROS

Kept us up, despite a huge turn around in players and important players being unavailable to injury; we significantly changed and learnt in lock down, got us to a cup Final, great effort last 4 games

CONS
Hugely niave, we were awful and didn't turn up in a huge amount of games. He seemed to be too stubborn to really try alternatives, 17th was OK but didn't have to be the huge achievement we turned it into (for example, after 5 games we were conceding 20 shots per game this should have been addressed at that point not after a further 20 later). I think he's too nice. 

Overall, it has to be classified as a success because of how weak we looked and how far away we appeared to be. He deserves another chance, but if someone proven and quality is available and wants to join then we should be ruthless

 

[Stevo985]

5 hours ago, villalad21 said:

Didn't know that.

That's surprisingly low. Looks like the league is getting weaker.

Still don't think any of us on here would take 35 points if offered in August.

This is such a weird way to wriggle your way into a criticism of Smith.

Football doesn't work like that.

 

Liverpool wouldn't take 75 points if offered it next season. But if you told them it would be enough to win the title again they'd take it.

[Stevo985]

5 hours ago, hippo said:

At the bottom I would say it is weaker.

The top clubs hardly ever drop any points these days - meaning 36 is the new 40.

It's never been 40 though really. Isn't it only once a points total more than 40 has been required?

it's usually the benchmark used to be "safe" but in reality it's far more often 35 or 36 points.

[Teale's 'tache]

I think the most impressive thing about Smith this season for me is that he was big enough to change things, every manager is stubborn, Smith was wedded to his formation and philosophy but it wasn't working, it took a lot for him to accept that and go back to the drawing board, and he didn't just do it once, a few times he's had to change things around and did. I think he'll be more willing to do so in the future as well.

He will have learnt a whole lot this season, I think we've been naive and at times maybe didn't respect the opposition enough, you can see from our defensive stats post lock down that lessons have been learned. I think the team that finished the season would of picked up a whole lot more points than we did earlier on in the season, and I think the Arsenal result will do us a world of good going in to next season, it just gives those players the belief that they can beat that kind of team, it gives Smith that belief that he belongs in that company.

I don't think the questions about him being good enough will go away any time soon, people will always want more, but he's a top bloke and he's done wonders for this club.

[fightoffyour]

8 minutes ago, commander said:

Overall, it has to be classified as a success because of how weak we looked and how far away we appeared to be. He deserves another chance, but if someone proven and quality is available and wants to join then we should be ruthless

Yes, we would have to be ruthless and turn them down, as we have our man(ager). Mr Aston Villa, who cares as much as we do, who's learning as a coach as we grow as a club back to where we want to be, who has already performed miracles with the team in both of his first two seasons.

[Zatman]

3 minutes ago, Stevo985 said:

It's never been 40 though really. Isn't it only once a points total more than 40 has been required?

it's usually the benchmark used to be "safe" but in reality it's far more often 35 or 36 points.

I think it was 40 points when the Premier League had 22 teams and managers and media still ran with it. 3 teams have gone down on 40 points or more but none since 2003 when West Ham had that incredible team to be relegated