Dean Smith

[TRO]

43 minutes ago, Keyblade said:

The unlucky part isn't the goal itself, it was well struck. Those types of goals are statistically much rarer (which is why you'd rather have teams shoot from outside the box), and we've been unlucky that we've conceded so many, in a row I might add. 

Conceding a worldie once every few games isn't unlucky. But 6 in a row in 3 consecutive games definitely is. The chances of it happening are very low, and yet it did.

I think we are the architects of our own demise of late.

[VillaChris]

Steady on....Brighton still going to be 5 points off us with two extra games played so we've still done plenty of good things so far this season.

Was holding they'd hold Saints to a draw though as they're another starting to get a bit of daylight ahead of us in the table.

[useless]

If you're aiming to finish midtable or top half it's less about relying on others to lose games as it's inevitable by virtue of the fact that they're challenging that high up the table that they're going to win games, it's not like when you're battling with the bottom three or five teams and you can hope to finish above them because most weeks they will lose. To finish higher up the table we must win our own games.

[villalad21]

54 minutes ago, TRO said:

er, they will if we carry on defending like we are.

I miss the post lockdown Villa.

Sad it's been abandoned. Was a nice foundation to build from.

[villalad21]

I would take Ralph at Villa. 100 %

Really, really like him.

[VillaChris]

30 minutes ago, useless said:

If you're aiming to finish midtable or top half it's less about relying on others to lose games as it's inevitable by virtue of the fact that they're challenging that high up the table that they're going to win games, it's not like when you're battling with the bottom three or five teams and you can hope to finish above them because most weeks they will lose. To finish higher up the table we must win our own games.

All about the points tallys for me.

In 17/18 season Leicester finished 9th on 47 points and Newcastle were 10th on 44 points.

However last season to finish 9th you needed 54 points and I get the feeling you'd need that this time.

Southampton in 16/17 season actually finished 8th with just 46 points, they only won 12 games all season and lost 16.

They could easily get more points this season and finish 9th.

I want us to finish in top 10 but it's much more likely if we only need 45-50 points to do that compared to 55 + which could happen if bottom 3 continue to be as bad as they've been.

Quite interesting looking at the 16/17 table. The teams that finished 8th-12th all won just 12 games all season. Can see us winning 14 or 15 games this season and finishing about 13th due to lack of draws.

Edited December 7, 2020 by VillaChris

[Tomaszk]

1 hour ago, TRO said:

are you watching the Brighton v Southampton game?

They are closing each other down, quite a nullifying physical endeavour....Southampton relying on the Laursen look alike Vestergard to power in a header.

There is no danger of the Worldies folk talked about why?......because both side ares not allowing each other to do it.

Ward-Prowse is being carefully chaperoned, which is taking that sting away.....Walcott is isolated and starved of the ball.

Interesting game from 2 teams who beat us.....I really don't see any danger from either of them, when you see it like this.

Brighton lost though.

They must have been poor, that's how it works isn't it? They just didn't close down hard enough.

Funnily enough they've drawn to West Brom and Burnley this season. Wonder what happened there? They are bad results. Perhaps they didn't have a screamer fly in in those games? Perhaps they didn't get a very favourable VAR call?

I've never seen a fan with such grass is greener syndrome. 

 

[Tomaszk]

1 hour ago, TRO said:

er, they will if we carry on defending like we are.

I can't help you if you're going to say we'll be conceding screamers every week. How can you think that's true? Sheffield Utd are bottom with one point do you think they concede them every game? Fulham? Albion? Any team bottom of their league? 

I fear you're being led astray by a Leeds fan pretending to be a Villa fan on here.

[KentVillan]

We need to get Chris Wilder in to sort our defence out. 

 

[Rightdm00]

6 hours ago, villalad21 said:

I would take Ralph at Villa. 100 %

Really, really like him.

Well that's the kiss of death right there. 

Edited December 8, 2020 by Rightdm00

[sparrow1988]

7 hours ago, KentVillan said:

We need to get Chris Wilder in to sort our defence out. 

 

He's lost his focus this season. He's too busy having pops at Klopp.

[Vive_La_Villa]

41 minutes ago, sparrow1988 said:

He's lost his focus this season. He's too busy having pops at Klopp.

But on a serious note it’s same coach, same tactics, same players, same attitudes etc. Only difference is the keeper. 

Wilder goes from manager of the year candidate to close to the sack. Such fine margins in this league. 
 

Once you hit rock bottom and struggle to win games. It begins a very difficult place to remain.

Edited December 8, 2020 by Vive_La_Villa

[weedman]

11 hours ago, TRO said:

er, they will if we carry on defending like we are.

I don't think that's how it works. We're conceding shots that have like a 5% chance of being a goal and the vast majority of them are going in at the moment. It's not sustainable and unless your argument is that the opposition should never have a shot on goal against us again I don't see what the issue is. 

Other teams will have shots against us in virtually every game from now until the end of time. The idea is to ensure that those shots have as small a chance as possible of becoming a goal. We're doing that and that is shown by our very low xG against. They just all happen to be flying in at the moment. Eventually this luck will even itself out. 

You really seem fixated on the negatives at the moment and refuse to hear any mitigation despite the circumstances being clear. I suppose it's easier to see goal conceded and assume that equals poor defending I guess. 

[sparrow1988]

7 minutes ago, Vive_La_Villa said:

But on a serious note it’s same coach, same tactics, same players, same attitudes etc. Only difference is the keeper. 

Wilder goes from manager of the year candidate to close to the sack. Such fine margins in this league. 
 

Once you hit rock bottom and struggle to win games. It begins a very difficult place to remain.

Yeah there is the keeper although I don't think that is the biggest difference. They have had injuries to fairly key players for the system that they play. O'Connell is vital to them both going forward and defending. They were very lucky last year with injuries and this season have been very unlucky. Also they don't have a player like Grealish who can produce something out of nothing or someone like Defoe who just always managed to score goals to keep things ticking over. Players like this are very important when the system isn't working perfectly which needs to happen for Sheff Utd to perform.

Also some of the players were playing out of their skin last season and sustaining that level of performance is not really possible. Their "real level" is probably somewhere in between this season and last.

[Vive_La_Villa]

10 hours ago, Tomaszk said:

Brighton lost though.

They must have been poor, that's how it works isn't it? They just didn't close down hard enough.

Funnily enough they've drawn to West Brom and Burnley this season. Wonder what happened there? They are bad results. Perhaps they didn't have a screamer fly in in those games? Perhaps they didn't get a very favourable VAR call?

I've never seen a fan with such grass is greener syndrome. 

 

 

If you are going to compare us to other teams surely it has to be based on a range of games. You can’t pick one where we were bad and one where they are good and then say why can’t we do that!

[VillaFaninLondon]

11 hours ago, villalad21 said:

I would take Ralph at Villa. 100 %

Really, really like him.

If Smith ends up getting the boot at some point he'd be a great manager to go for. 

[villalad21]

54 minutes ago, Vive_La_Villa said:

Only difference is the keeper. 

And we should know how important that position is.

[Mjvilla]

12 hours ago, TRO said:

are you watching the Brighton v Southampton game?

They are closing each other down, quite a nullifying physical endeavour....Southampton relying on the Laursen look alike Vestergard to power in a header.

There is no danger of the Worldies folk talked about why?......because both side ares not allowing each other to do it.

Ward-Prowse is being carefully chaperoned, which is taking that sting away.....Walcott is isolated and starved of the ball.

Interesting game from 2 teams who beat us.....I really don't see any danger from either of them, when you see it like this.

It's funny you say this, because I watched the game closely last night. 

Both sides created more against each other than they did against us. Both had more chances and shots. Brighton nearly doubled their tally of shots last night as they did against us. Not bad for such a nullifying encounter.

It's also funny how the ball was played to March in almost exactly the same position he scored against us. He was closed down pretty identically to how we closed him down. This chance March had came on his stronger left foot. He completely miskewed his strike and sliced it well wide. On his stronger foot. Against us, it flies in the top corner. On his weaker foot. Can you explain to me what we did wrong here against what Southampton done brilliantly to stop Brighton? Or was it just the luck of the draw in this instance.

It's also interesting to see how, when a decision goes your way, you get a result. It shouldn't have been given a penalty to Southampton. They get a win. Southampton didn't deserve to win. And yet get the win. You talk about making your own luck, yet Southampton twice allowed Brighton free headers/efforts from about 8 yards out when free kicks went behind their defensive line. They didn't make their own luck last night, and yet they still got lucky. We have had very little luck in recent weeks. But we do no different to Southampton last night against Brighton (in fact, we restricted them to less chances and created far more ourselves) and we walk away with 0 points and they walk away with 3.

It's called football. Play like we have been and results will come, I very much believe this to be true. 

[tom_avfc]

12 hours ago, TRO said:

are you watching the Brighton v Southampton game?

They are closing each other down, quite a nullifying physical endeavour....Southampton relying on the Laursen look alike Vestergard to power in a header.

There is no danger of the Worldies folk talked about why?......because both side ares not allowing each other to do it.

Ward-Prowse is being carefully chaperoned, which is taking that sting away.....Walcott is isolated and starved of the ball.

Interesting game from 2 teams who beat us.....I really don't see any danger from either of them, when you see it like this.

This is a strange post. Southampton broke the deadlock with a Vestergard header which has been put down to poor defending by us but for Brighton we're just going to allow it.

There's not much danger of "Worldies" in many football games - they don't happen often which is why such a big deal is made of them. To say that we should legislate for Ward-Prowse banging two free kicks into top corners and Ings smashing one in off the bar is a strange way of viewing football matches.

Incidentally, the one goal that we conceded against both of these teams which was most concerning to me was the opening Brighton goal which was caused by complete defensive naivety.

If teams continue to score goals like Ward-Prowse, Ings and March have scored past us this season then we'd have to be the unluckiest team in Premier League history. If someone like March was capable of scoring that shot on more than about 1 in 50 attempts then he wouldn't be playing for Brighton.

[handsworthvilla]

4 minutes ago, tom_avfc said:

If someone like March was capable of scoring that shot on more than about 1 in 50 attempts then he wouldn't be playing for Brighton.

Haha very true. I personally felt it was a bit of a fluke shot. The ball took a horrible bobble just before it reached his foot, which added pace to the ball so he only had to side foot it in. I could be wrong but felt that without that bobble that wasn't going in