Dean Smith

[Guest av1]

11 minutes ago, M_Afro said:

We are at our best defensively when Thor plays there but he is also not the answer. I wonder whether Smith thinks JDH could do a job there which is why he was on the bench the other day?

 

I'd be tempted to give JDH a shot myself. 

I think we lack a bit of energy in that position. McGinn obviously has that in abundance but is playing much further up the pitch under Smith so I think it's asking a lot of McGinn to provide legs in both defence and attack. I must admit that I've not seen an awful lot of JDH but one would assume that his youthful exuberance alone would inject a lot of energy into the side?

Again, I've not seen a lot of the kid so maybe that's nonsense?

[Vive_La_Villa]

1 hour ago, av1 said:

I'm all for constructive criticism but I'm really struggling to understand how anyone can find fault atm. 

Nothing wrong with discussing how we can be even better than we are surely? I think those quick to jump on criticism are confusing discussion with complaining. There’s a big difference, 

[Vive_La_Villa]

Just now, av1 said:

I'd be tempted to give JDH a shot myself. 

I think we lack a bit of energy in that position. McGinn obviously has that in abundance but is playing much further up the pitch under Smith so I think it's asking a lot of McGinn to provide legs in both defence and attack. I must admit that I've not seen an awful lot of JDH but one would assume that his youthful exuberance alone would inject a lot of energy into the side?

Again, I've not seen a lot of the kid so maybe that's nonsense?

I think McGinn could play that role but then we lose a large presence further forward. 

[Guest av1]

1 minute ago, Vive_La_Villa said:

Nothing wrong with discussing how we can be even better than we are surely? I think those quick to jump on criticism are confusing discussion with complaining. There’s a big difference, 

I couldn't agree more, but some posters are just being critical for the sake of it. 

 

[Dave-R]

If things were going horribly wrong (bruce style) I could understand the critism. However we are still in early days under DS, we have come far so fast, it's to early for people to be overly criticle. I personally did not expect to see the changes we have seen before our eyes this early on, I certainly didn't expect the possibility that we could contend for the championship and a chance at promotion. Steve Bruce had me thinking there was no light at the end of the tunnel for us to the point I felt very negative in everything that we did for some time. Dean Smith has changed so much but with having to make do with a team he inherited,  damn I'll give credit where credits due and the coaching staff certainly deserve it.

We all know full well where our troubles lie, I was willing to give nyland a fair chance but I just don't think he can handle it. Between our keeper and a couple of defenders not matching up, it's leaving our team open and tbey are exploiting that. Can Dean sort it out, of course and I'm confident he can with ease once he's given a transfer window, he knows what the team needs and he's most likely got his short list now.

Playing attacking football, can always leave you open to counter attacks, the chance the opposition fights back and catches you off guard. I don't think theres ever a full proof plan, bring in some defenders and a new keeper and just keep on banging away and scoring those goal and things will work out all ok in the end.

We're doing very well now compared to a season that at one point looked all but lost. So far Dean Smith is laughing it up, the only draw back is we should of got Dean in at the start of the season, we mite not be trailing in points if we had of done..

 

Edited November 30, 2018 by Dave-R

[Keyblade]

18 hours ago, Thug said:

VS	H/A	Current LP	F	A	Rating F	Rating A	Shots F	Shots A	Poss	Pass F	Pass A	Dribbles F	Dribbles A	Aerials	Aerials A	Tackles F	Tackles A	Corners F	Corners A	Disp F	Disp A	Pts
Hull	A	22	3	1	7.02	6.25	11	9	49.1	78	76	7	5	30	19	14	12	4	2	9	9	3
Wigan	H	15	3	2	6.95	6.36	17	10	48.3	71	70	17	9	35	29	14	9	3	4	6	6	3
Ipswich	A	24	1	1	6.56	6.66	10	9	61	72	55	10	10	30	29	13	26	7	2	20	7	1
Brentford	H	18	2	2	6.85	6.87	17	13	56.6	78	68	10	5	29	22	15	15	13	6	11	10	1
Reading	H	20	1	1	6.91	6.83	21	10	59.4	80	67	9	8	27	34	10	14	4	9	12	8	1
Sheff Utd	A	5	1	4	6.11	7.11	9	9	60.5	83	74	5	5	22	20	8	14	1	9	11	4	0
Blackburn	A	13	1	1	6.75	6.66	15	13	50.9	71	65	6	5	28	27	18	15	3	8	12	12	1
Rotherham	H	19	2	0	7.19	6.42	14	13	59.8	81	66	9	2	24	32	10	25	3	3	16	6	3
Sheff Wed	H	16	1	2	6.53	7.05	18	13	53.9	84	80	5	8	19	19	18	24	3	7	20	13	0
Bristol City	A	14	1	1	6.56	6.68	12	7	54.2	68	54	4	2	29	42	7	20	8	3	14	3	1
PNE	H	17	3	3	6.65	6.77	12	19	42.6	78	82	2	3	23	30	13	9	4	4	5	4	1
Milwall	A	21	1	2	6.44	6.87	6	18	61.9	81	62	5	3	21	23	10	19	4	9	12	9	0
		17.00	1.67	1.67	6.71	6.71	13.50	11.92	54.85	77.08	68.25	7.42	5.42	26.42	27.17	12.50	16.83	4.75	5.50	12.33	7.58	1.25
Swansea	H	11	1	0	6.98	6.61	11	15	47.1	82	83	3	6	12	20	22	18	3	8	13	13	3
Norwich	A	1	1	2	6.8	6.42	8	10	52	81	79	4	6	22	17	18	17	7	7	13	14	0
QPR	A	9	0	1	6.77	7.03	18	16	67.6	86	65	11	6	24	13	9	22	9	5	20	9	0
Bolton	H	23	2	0	7.29	6.34	17	11	59.6	85	73	17	5	23	21	13	22	2	8	13	9	3
Derby	A	7	3	0	7.29	6.11	21	11	53.6	82	80	8	3	18	16	12	18	5	2	13	6	3
Birmingham	H	10	4	2	6.97	6.29	12	9	74.3	86	53	9	0	22	22	12	17	3	6	8	4	3
N Forest	H	6	5	5	6.86	6.8	26	8	62.7	88	79	10	5	16	5	24	16	12	2	10	11	1
		9.57	2.29	1.43	6.99	6.51	16.14	11.43	59.56	84.29	73.14	8.86	4.43	19.57	16.29	15.71	18.57	5.86	5.43	12.86	9.43	1.86

An improvement in pretty much every department. Even defensively!

[Dave-R]

I'd take this Aston Villa team over any from the year 2000 up till now, I don't think I've seen a villa side as impactful since Brian little,John Gregory,, Ron Atkinson days when I was a teenager in the 90s.

Our demise was long and painful which has led us to the championship, I am surprised it took so long for us to be relegated. For well over a decade and half, through bad ownership, through bad management of the club and very good players,our beloved football club failed to deliver first class football that can compete on the highest level. We now have a chance to make a full comeback and be one of the top clubs again and we are very fortunate that we have two owners that seem to really care about our club and want villa back on top. Its just going to take time to deliver that kind on success again. The way i see it is one of those top premiere team is snagging one of our European spots up that we used to get each season, but we can make it happen again one day.

Here to hoping we can claim the championship title, something I'd very much like to be able to say this season or next..

[TRO]

16 hours ago, terrytini said:

Sorry I make no apologies for stating a fact. Nothing holy about it.

” To hell with stats” ..........says it all really. This seems to be the in thing. If you don’t fancy some facts, ignore them.

I will be the first to say our defence is poor if we start conceding significantly more goals than others.

Im happy to comment on a poor performance in any one game.

But it’s you, not me, that’s ignoring the 3 clean sheets and the two other games where we Conceeded just 3 goals.

My point has simply been that ( again) sincecSmith took over our defence has stacked up.

Its even been said that only looking at Smiths time is daft...! On that basis, if we play 1/3 season under Manager 1, and conceed 100 goals, then 2/3 under Manager 2, and conceed None, wed go into our last game “ with a crap defence” because we have to count the time of the previous bloke. Plain nonsense.

You agree, do you not, that prior to last night our defence under Smith has been bettered by only 2 Clubs ? Oh, no, you don’t, because you want to ignore stats.

Yes, they went through us like a knife through butter. Does not mean our defence is crap, any more than them conceding 5 means theirs is. It poured with rain after the game, does that mine it rains all the time ?

You are right, upcoming games will show whether our defence is useless or not. I am very confident, based on what has actually happened since Smith joined, rather than on how I feel about last night, that those games will show our defence is no worse than most of our competitors.

 

 

Prior to that game Forest had 3 clean sheets, I Believe.....Aitor was fuming…...and rightly so.

I am not talking about Deans early games ...I am talking about the last 2......we conceded 7 at Home.

I am not even having a go at Dean Smith, Brucie shipped 4 at Sheffield....just saying in my humble opinion having watched the WAY we defended in both games, we could have an issue.

on an additional note ….Pulis will not allow us to go free scoring like we have been, so defensively we need to be on our best behaviour, because I don't think we can rely on a recent bail out from the forwards

The reason why I have not been over ecstatic with the last few games, despite the spectacle being top draw offensively.....goals wise it is 9-7

That is 2 goals difference in 2 matches ….AT HOME

call me old fashioned, but I'll bet if you took Deano to one side and whispered in his ear, would you have taken a 1-0 win in both games and collected 6 points towards the cause, he would say yes, I would.

 

[Vive_La_Villa]

19 hours ago, Thug said:

VS	H/A	Current LP	F	A	Rating F	Rating A	Shots F	Shots A	Poss	Pass F	Pass A	Dribbles F	Dribbles A	Aerials	Aerials A	Tackles F	Tackles A	Corners F	Corners A	Disp F	Disp A	Pts
Hull	A	22	3	1	7.02	6.25	11	9	49.1	78	76	7	5	30	19	14	12	4	2	9	9	3
Wigan	H	15	3	2	6.95	6.36	17	10	48.3	71	70	17	9	35	29	14	9	3	4	6	6	3
Ipswich	A	24	1	1	6.56	6.66	10	9	61	72	55	10	10	30	29	13	26	7	2	20	7	1
Brentford	H	18	2	2	6.85	6.87	17	13	56.6	78	68	10	5	29	22	15	15	13	6	11	10	1
Reading	H	20	1	1	6.91	6.83	21	10	59.4	80	67	9	8	27	34	10	14	4	9	12	8	1
Sheff Utd	A	5	1	4	6.11	7.11	9	9	60.5	83	74	5	5	22	20	8	14	1	9	11	4	0
Blackburn	A	13	1	1	6.75	6.66	15	13	50.9	71	65	6	5	28	27	18	15	3	8	12	12	1
Rotherham	H	19	2	0	7.19	6.42	14	13	59.8	81	66	9	2	24	32	10	25	3	3	16	6	3
Sheff Wed	H	16	1	2	6.53	7.05	18	13	53.9	84	80	5	8	19	19	18	24	3	7	20	13	0
Bristol City	A	14	1	1	6.56	6.68	12	7	54.2	68	54	4	2	29	42	7	20	8	3	14	3	1
PNE	H	17	3	3	6.65	6.77	12	19	42.6	78	82	2	3	23	30	13	9	4	4	5	4	1
Milwall	A	21	1	2	6.44	6.87	6	18	61.9	81	62	5	3	21	23	10	19	4	9	12	9	0
		17.00	1.67	1.67	6.71	6.71	13.50	11.92	54.85	77.08	68.25	7.42	5.42	26.42	27.17	12.50	16.83	4.75	5.50	12.33	7.58	1.25
Swansea	H	11	1	0	6.98	6.61	11	15	47.1	82	83	3	6	12	20	22	18	3	8	13	13	3
Norwich	A	1	1	2	6.8	6.42	8	10	52	81	79	4	6	22	17	18	17	7	7	13	14	0
QPR	A	9	0	1	6.77	7.03	18	16	67.6	86	65	11	6	24	13	9	22	9	5	20	9	0
Bolton	H	23	2	0	7.29	6.34	17	11	59.6	85	73	17	5	23	21	13	22	2	8	13	9	3
Derby	A	7	3	0	7.29	6.11	21	11	53.6	82	80	8	3	18	16	12	18	5	2	13	6	3
Birmingham	H	10	4	2	6.97	6.29	12	9	74.3	86	53	9	0	22	22	12	17	3	6	8	4	3
N Forest	H	6	5	5	6.86	6.8	26	8	62.7	88	79	10	5	16	5	24	16	12	2	10	11	1
		9.57	2.29	1.43	6.99	6.51	16.14	11.43	59.56	84.29	73.14	8.86	4.43	19.57	16.29	15.71	18.57	5.86	5.43	12.86	9.43	1.86

I like this. I know this is taking the piss abit but could you compare Smiths record as per above with the current top 6 for all of the season.  I think that would give a good idea of where we are under Smith. 

[Vive_La_Villa]

31 minutes ago, TRO said:

Prior to that game Forest had 3 clean sheets, I Believe.....Aitor was fuming…...and rightly so.

I am not talking about Deans early games ...I am talking about the last 2......we conceded 7 at Home.

I am not even having a go at Dean Smith, Brucie shipped 4 at Sheffield....just saying in my humble opinion having watched the WAY we defended in both games, we could have an issue.

on an additional note ….Pulis will not allow us to go free scoring like we have been, so defensively we need to be on our best behaviour, because I don't think we can rely on a recent bail out from the forwards

The reason why I have not been over ecstatic with the last few games, despite the spectacle being top draw offensively.....goals wise it is 9-7

That is 2 goals difference in 2 matches ….AT HOME

call me old fashioned, but I'll bet if you took Deano to one side and whispered in his ear, would you have taken a 1-0 win in both games and collected 6 points towards the cause, he would say yes, I would.

 

Agree with a caveat. I think Smith would  rather see a good performance and the team playing the way they had planned than a 1-0 result. 

Edited November 30, 2018 by Vive_La_Villa

[TRO]

18 hours ago, Vive_La_Villa said:

It felt like villa had to work hard for their goals whilst forest would put 3 passes together and score.  I’m sure we will be a lot more compact against Boro when we do not have the ball. 

Anyway Albion and Derby have conceded a lot of goals recently as well so it’s fine  

Precisely

Its a shame we can't report on what we see, without appearing to **** on someone else's chips....of which that is not the intention.

[TRO]

25 minutes ago, Vive_La_Villa said:

Agree with a caveat. I think Smith would  rather see a good performance and the team playing the way they had planned than a 1-0 result. 

I accept that many would, not sure I would, not really sure the manager would despite the great excitement.

My sole aim is the get out of this division and only points will do that.

 in isolation goals for or against or swashbuckling performances will not get us out( necessarily only possibly)......ONLY POINTS WILL.

I accept the spectacle and all the waxing lyrical to go with it....but its only points that will get us out.

and before I am Misconstrued....no I don't wish Steve Bruce was back.....I am totally behind Dean Smith and his approach, just want us to tighten up without losing our ability to score goals.

The forwards are a delight to watch and the style lends itself to believing we can win every game....just mentioning a danger....onward and upward.

Edited November 30, 2018 by TRO

[Vive_La_Villa]

18 minutes ago, TRO said:

I accept that many would, not sure I would, not really sure the manager would despite the great excitement.

My sole aim is the get out of this division and only points will do that.

 in isolation goals for or against or swashbuckling performances will not get us out( necessarily only possibly)......ONLY POINTS WILL.

I accept the spectacle and all the waxing lyrical to go with it....but its only points that will get us out.

and before I am Misconstrued....no I don't wish Steve Bruce was back.....I am totally behind Dean Smith and his approach, just want us to tighten up without losing our ability to score goals.

The forwards are a delight to watch and the style lends itself to believing we can win every game....just mentioning a danger....onward and upward.

I see where you are coming from but I do believe if you play well every game the results will eventually come. We played well against QPR and Norwich and lost both games. But then won 3 on the bounce after playing the same way. 

Under Bruce I always felt more often than not we played poorly regardless of the result. I don’t get that feeling anymore.

Edited November 30, 2018 by Vive_La_Villa

[Dave-R]

What we all have to remember is our team is still fresh in what Dean is getting them doing. Mistakes are going to happen, all while teams who were playing against have adopted whatever philosophy they are playing and have been doing it for a while now.

There is also the fact Dean needs to bring in some more players to either sort out the keeper and defence situation and strengthen us. If it wasn't for Bruce messing up leaving us high n dry in the areas he did, we mite not be having such a tough time the past couple of games with letting as many in as we have done. I really am pissed at Bruce for the mess he's created and were still feeling it now and it's a shame because our team is really trying and it's undoing there hard work.

Wait till we have some fresh faces in the positions we need them in, we will be tough to beat again.

I think we will see some of those top 6 start to drop games and tire quickly next year, the question is can we capitalise on there tired teams and take the lead.

[Dodgyknees]

On 29/11/2018 at 16:19, briny_ear said:

Will be interesting to see how long Smith continues to get this free pass from Villatalkers. 

Anything good is down to Smith, anything bad down to Bruce?

That’s a no-lose situation for him for sure.

 

[srsmithusa]

interesting to me.  We had a defensive performance that was MUCH worse than what we had seen previously.  DS didn't bury any player while defending the one who took the most blame from fans.

But within days, signed Collins to help fill in at CB and if rumors are to be believed, one of the CB kids traveled with the team.  I draw two conclusions.  DS saw a problem that he wants to aggressively address.  (In itself a welcomed change)  The problem he saw was at CB.

[Newry_Villan]

Bruce left a very unbalanced squad and struggled to get performances out of our very talented attackers. It's almost criminal how he left us so short of cover at the back and the signing of Nyland, whom was apparently on Bruce's radar for 4 years, hasn't worked out. Smith has rectified the attacking side and I bet he can't wait until January to fix the defence. I trust him to do it. Smith has got better performances out of Bruce's squad than Bruce himself ever managed. 

[Vive_La_Villa]

12 minutes ago, srsmithusa said:

interesting to me.  We had a defensive performance that was MUCH worse than what we had seen previously.  DS didn't bury any player while defending the one who took the most blame from fans.

But within days, signed Collins to help fill in at CB and if rumors are to be believed, one of the CB kids traveled with the team.  I draw two conclusions.  DS saw a problem that he wants to aggressively address.  (In itself a welcomed change)  The problem he saw was at CB.

Also going by how young his centre halves were for Brentford he could take a chance on the youngsters if things don’t improve. 

[privateer]

I'm taking a simple approach to this.

Did I like watching Villa under Bruce? Did I hell, it was crap horrible football 99% of the time even when we won.

Did I like his approach to matches, his all round football philosophy, his game management, his representation and presentation of AVFC, his tactics, etc etc? Did I hell. I don't even like him as a bloke, I think he's a brontosaurus dick. Further - and by far the most important - did I have any faith in him to deliver or learn from his mistakes and then deliver. Absolutely not.

Smith, on the other hand, ticks all the boxes Bruce put crosses in. And more importantly, gets more crosses into the box.

I'm as certain as I can be about anything AVFC that Smith and his staff will deliver the performances, the results and on the ambitions of the fans. And probably will do it this season. Things are a bit volatile and it's going to be quite a ride but it'll be a wicked Smith Roller Coaster Thrill Ride rather than a Bruce Ghost Train Through The Dark, Dank Tunnel Ride.

I'm pissed that individual errors cost us but individual errors have cost us previously, The difference is we can now seemingly overcome those errors at will, whereas in the past it would have caused us to withdraw, or be withdrawn, into our shell to try to see out a draw or keep the defeat narrow.

Very exciting times ahead. The chaff will soon be winnowed from the team and then we'll move from a set of players forming an unbalanced, error -prone team to a very scary unit.

[Thug]

4 hours ago, Vive_La_Villa said:

I like this. I know this is taking the piss abit but could you compare Smiths record as per above with the current top 6 for all of the season.  I think that would give a good idea of where we are under Smith. 

Team	Games	Goals For	Gls/gm	Shots/gm	(on target)	Possession	Shots A/gm	Gls against	GA/pg	Rating
Norwich	19	32	1.68	14	4.9	53.9	11.6	21	1.11	6.81
Leeds	19	32	1.68	15.4	4.6	59.2	9.7	17	0.89	6.87
Boro	19	22	1.16	13.6	3.6	46.4	12.4	10	0.53	6.86
WBA	19	41	2.16	14	4.5	52.2	14.7	27	1.42	6.84
Sheff Utd	19	32	1.68	12.9	4.2	52.3	12	23	1.21	6.79
Forest	19	30	1.58	11.5	3.9	51.4	12.6	21	1.11	6.84
Smith	7	16	2.29	16.1	5.1	59.6	11.4	10	1.43	6.99