Dean Smith

[villalad21]

Just now, useless said:

Having a better workrate than the opposition doesn't guarantee anything by itself, otherwise Leeds would win every game, far from that their workrate often works to their detriment, it's no good running yourself to the ground if you've got nothing to show for it and then you tire so badly before the game is over that you let the opposition take control of the game.

We just need to do our own thing and let the ball do all the hard work.

They will never give us a second on the ball.

I do have my concerns for this game. Will be a very different game to any of our games so far.

[tinker]

30 minutes ago, TRO said:

I still believe "Lockdown" was Deans watershed moment and a time he could reflect, suddenly he could distinguish the woods from the trees.....I am not privvy to his working day, but I suspect the games were coming so thick and fast, he did not have the time to study, Lockdown ,gave him that precious time.

"Everybody has a plan until they get punched in the face" Lemmy 

Smith's  willing to learn, listen, change and adapt. Reckon he's not just talking about the players when he says the right attitude, he was recruited because of his attitude as well. The owners build the culture.

Bruce was thick skinned enough to stick to his principles and on the law of probability his style of play will gather enough points to stay up. Not sure it was enough to gain promotion or win any honours. His player procurement was very hit and miss.

[useless]

Liverpool are much better pressing team than Leeds and their players have excellent workrates as well, in that sense not only have we already played a team that play in similar way to Leeds but also beat them.

I'm less worried about Leeds as a team, and more the fact that we've won four in a row and haven't lost in eight, kind of feels we're due to lose a game.

[useless]

They might beat us, any team in the division is capable of beating us on their day, but I don't think we should fall for all this 'murderball' hype, if we lose it will be either because they played better than us on the day, or they got lucky which can happen.

Edited October 22, 2020 by useless

[villa89]

1 hour ago, villalad21 said:

Although i don't rate Bruce he did stabilize the ship

This is a myth, one widely publicised by cabbage himself to protect his "reputation". He turned us from an underachieving midtable championship team with a huge wage bill to an underachieving mid table championship team with a huge wage bill. 

Edited October 22, 2020 by villa89

[BG_Villa_Fan]

3 minutes ago, villa89 said:

This is a myth, one widely publicised by cabbage himself to protect his "reputation". He turned us from an underachieving midtable championship team with a huge wage bill to an underachieving mid table championship team with a huge wage bill. 

Exactly. And losing to Fulham was a true blessing in disguise. 

[villalad21]

6 minutes ago, villa89 said:

This is a myth, one widely publicised by cabbage himself to protect his "reputation". He turned us from an underachieving midtable championship team with a huge wage bill to an underachieving mid table championship team with a huge wage bill. 

We were in a worse shape when he took over.

I genuinely think Di Matteo could have relegated us

[bannedfromHandV]

28 minutes ago, villa89 said:

This is a myth, one widely publicised by cabbage himself to protect his "reputation". He turned us from an underachieving midtable championship team with a huge wage bill to an underachieving mid table championship team with a huge wage bill. 

My god man, how is it a myth?

We’d just been relegated and had won one game in eleven in the championship, we had a toxic culture that was rife throughout the club and probably made worse with acquisitions such as McCormack, Tshibola and Gollini. We improved instantly under Bruce and his bringing in Terry was, in my opinion, absolutely key in our revival on and off the pitch.

In retrospect I’m glad we didn’t get promoted under Bruce, I was happy when he was sacked as it was the right thing to do and I’m delighted we have Smith, but everything is a means to an end and Bruce played his part in that.

[HKP90]

1 hour ago, tinker said:

Bruce was thick skinned enough to stick to his principles and on the law of probability his style of play will gather enough points to stay up. Not sure it was enough to gain promotion or win any honours. His player procurement was very miss.

FTFY

[jonjon]

5 hours ago, Delphinho123 said:

Congrats mate. Another great bit of business by Brentford. Must be the most well run club in the country. 

How does Toney stack up versus say, Watkins? Attributes wise etc. 

Very similar, in fact watching it on Sky last night it was like a mirror image, Both hard working and very strong when in possession, they both get in the right place at the right time, The only difference I can see at the moment is that Toney tracks back to defend a lot quicker than Ollie did, apart from that they could be twins!!!.

Both our teams have done some good business with them both and are now blessed with two out and out goal scorers who's price will only increase, I'm well please for DS and Villa who have got of to a great start, you can tell all the players he brought in were his choice, unlike last season when it seemed from the outside he was forced to take some players not entirely his choice? 

[Zatman]

1 hour ago, villalad21 said:

They will never give us a second on the ball.

I do have my concerns for this game. Will be a very different game to any of our games so far.

Saiss and Jimenez had all the time in the world for the goals they scored the other night

[TRO]

1 hour ago, jonjon said:

Very similar, in fact watching it on Sky last night it was like a mirror image, Both hard working and very strong when in possession, they both get in the right place at the right time, The only difference I can see at the moment is that Toney tracks back to defend a lot quicker than Ollie did, apart from that they could be twins!!!.

Both our teams have done some good business with them both and are now blessed with two out and out goal scorers who's price will only increase, I'm well please for DS and Villa who have got of to a great start, you can tell all the players he brought in were his choice, unlike last season when it seemed from the outside he was forced to take some players not entirely his choice? 

how do you rate Maupay v Watkins?

[TRO]

1 hour ago, BG_Villa_Fan said:

Exactly. And losing to Fulham was a true blessing in disguise. 

it was.....and routing out that chinese fraud was a price worth paying.

[villalad21]

1 hour ago, Zatman said:

Saiss and Jimenez had all the time in the world for the goals they scored the other night

It did look like they started to tire in the second half.

[KentVillan]

3 hours ago, TRO said:

Hindsight is an exact science of course.....but Bravo to you KV, for saying these things when folk like me had less faith.....I can't tell you how delighted I am, to say I was wrong.

To be fair, I did start to doubt myself at points in early 2020! Also, I know your criticisms of Smith were always based on your honest view of what was happening on the pitch, which was often very bad football and getting the basics wrong. I'm just glad Smith has been able to prove that he was the man to fix that.

[TRO]

1 minute ago, KentVillan said:

To be fair, I did start to doubt myself at points in early 2020! Also, I know your criticisms of Smith were always based on your honest view of what was happening on the pitch, which was often very bad football and getting the basics wrong. I'm just glad Smith has been able to prove that he was the man to fix that.

me too.....delighted.

[jonjon]

2 hours ago, TRO said:

how do you rate Maupay v Watkins?

Two totally different players, Maupay was/is a poacher who can score goals out of the blue and hasn't got much more in his locker, Ollie is the much better of the two and is almost the complete striker, if he carries on like he's doing at the moment he deserves to be given a try in the England team in the near future.

[Wainy316]

4 hours ago, useless said:

They might beat us, any team in the division is capable of beating us on their day

I have seen no evidence of this yet 

[Only2McInallys]

8 hours ago, TRO said:

have you got a link?

 

[A'Villan]

On 21/10/2020 at 08:34, KentVillan said:

One of the things I think is so key with assessing Dean Smith is listening to his assessment of games.

Whenever we've played badly (many times last season) he always seemed to have the right view of what had happened. Or if he didn't, it was mostly to protect a player from criticism.

As a lot of us said last season there were two major things holding us back:

1. Trying to integrate so many new signings into a first team. The number of new first teamers in last season's Villa squad was unprecedented in the *entire history of the Premier League*. It was always going to take ages for players like Konsa, Douglas Luiz, Trezeguet, and Targett (now all looking very useful) to find their feet.
2. The lack of quality across the squad, despite the money spent. I actually think Suso gets unfair press over this, because he had a bit of an impossible task. Purslow wanted him to sign young potential that would grow in value, and Smith needed players that would hit the ground running.

Smith's critics tended to ignore the first point, and either not accept the second point (Smith should be playing a different formation or wasn't coaching the players well enough) or say it was Smith's fault (even though he's not in charge of transfer strategy).

What we can see now is why we should have 100% stuck with Smith if we'd gone down. He's a good manager who's always trying to improve, he *does* know how to coach a defence, and technically gifted players seem to enjoy playing under him. It's telling how many of his old players at Brentford have jumped at the chance to work with him again, and there's no way we would have hung on to Jack unless he rated him.

In Deano We Trust.

Ace post.