Dean Smith

[useless]

In terms of results we're not doing bad, lost to Leicester but they're probably the second best team in the league at the moment so won't read too much into that defeat and we were without our best player. Before that we had won two and drawn one and lost one of the previous four games. I think we could do with a win a against Leeds just to put an end to some of the doom and gloom, you'd think we'd have only won one game in ten or something judging by some of the talk.

Edited February 23, 2021 by useless

[Vive_La_Villa]

11 minutes ago, useless said:

In terms of results we're not doing bad, lost to Leicester but they're probably the second best team in the league at the moment so won't read too much into that defeat and we were without our best player. Before that we had won two and drawn one and lost one of the previous four games. I think we could do with a win a against Leeds just to put an end to some of the doom and gloom, you'd think we'd have only won one game in ten or something judging by some of the talk.

I think it’s the performances rather than the results. When we have gone on  poor run of games prior to covid there was still a lot to be optimistic about.  At the moment we are not creating much and conceding a lot of chances every game.  I can see us losing too Leeds but hopefully bounce back with a win against Sheffield United.

[useless]

I made an illuminating post in the Leeds thread that has surprisingly gone unhailed, pointing out that usually after a good win this season Leeds have gone on to suffer an heavy defeat in their next game, not saying we will do the same to them, but not sure why so many are convinced that they will beat us, it seems that on the one hand people complain about them being overrated, but then on the other insist that they're going to beat us as if they're one of the very best teams in the league, they're below us in the table having played two games more, their current form isn't any better than ours, they might beat us, but it wouldn't surprise me in the least if we beat them.

[Tomaszk]

1 hour ago, VillaChris said:

Hause didn't weaken us at all when he had that run of games over xmas. Yes I was amazed aswell. 4 games, 3 clean sheets and one goal so pretty good and he was unlucky to lose his place to Mings again so that's example of much criticised player who just slotted in with ease.

Given how well we've played for most of this season and our organisation being a different league to what we were doing this time last year it's generally much easier for any squad player to come in and not look out of place compared to the situation for most of last season when there was lack of belief in what we were trying to do.

It's very welcome when proper back-ups like Hause and El Ghazi come in and do well for sure. But they're well off the quality of the starting players aren't they? That's all I'm saying.

Centre mid, yes, we now have some viable options with Sanson and perhaps Ramsey if he can keep impressing.

Anywhere else, any other position, you're hoping for some really hot form (which is possible! As Kortney and Anwar showed) but expecting to have a drop off in performance due to the ability of the replacement players.

No one's fault really, we've come a long way quickly.

Does it excuse really flat performances like West Ham and Brighton? No. We should be doing better.

Does it excuse the manager just naming the same underperforming players and watch them bomb over and over? No. He needs to figure something out. It'll be very ugly if we name the same XI at Leeds as Leicester.

But if we name Kesler or an out of position Konsa as RB and they kill us down that side, there are limits to what I think we can do to be honest.

[sharkyvilla]

1 hour ago, Tayls said:

What’s going on then do we reckon? We’ve definitely regressed since the turn of the year both in terms of team performance and (I think) points return. 
I’m expecting us to get beat on Saturday too, as Leeds are just playing better football than us, plain and simple. Really think we need to get to 40pts as soon as possible else we could easily be caught with an extended run of defeats. 

Simply we have a really good first XI but they couldn't sustain it for a whole season, or at least we would have been very lucky to go without injuries and loss of form.  We hit high points I never expected along the way and got to (probable) safety a lot earlier than I thought we would but mid-table would be a success in my book whichever way we did it.  I think we are just at a point where we have to grind out points for the rest of the season, then improve the squad in the summer.

[useless]

The weakness of our squad is overstated, a lot of squad players have come in and done, or can do a good job. Hause has performed well, Elmohamady is adequet back up to Cash, El Ghazi came in and scored five in a row, and has good stats across his time with us, as does Trezeguet, Nakamba, and Ramsey have played well in midfield, and Sanson looks to be a good player.

[Keyblade]

27 minutes ago, useless said:

I made an illuminating post in the Leeds thread that has surprisingly gone unhailed, pointing out that usually after a good win this season Leeds have gone on to suffer an heavy defeat in their next game, not saying we will do the same to them, but not sure why so many are convinced that they will beat us, it seems that on the one hand people complain about them being overrated, but then on the other insist that they're going to beat us as if they're one of the very best teams in the league, they're below us in the table having played two games more, their current form isn't any better than ours, they might beat us, but it wouldn't surprise me in the least if we beat them.

We match up horribly against them. Smith has picked up just 1 point out 9 against Bielsa's Leeds so far and that was a dead rubber game for Leeds where they literally allowed us to walk the equalizing goal into the net.

[useless]

They allowed us to score after they cheated to score their goal, so that evens itself up. Plus I think we've only played them three times with Smith as manager, I wouldn't read too much into Smith's Brentford games against them, Brentford then had a much weaker squad compared to now.

[Zatman]

1 hour ago, VillaChris said:

Tom I generally agree with most of your posts but I'm a bit bemused why you think our squad players are consistantly the root of all evil. This isn't 19/20 anymore.

Hause came in and was surprisingly outstanding. El Ghazi reverted to type but he did win us points in December just when we needed it as we were on run of 4 defeats out of 5 at some point and Nakamba did well in the recent Arsenal win. AEM past it now I'd accept given how poor he was on Sunday and Leeds will expose him as weak link

If we're demanding the squad players go toe to toe with the Manchester clubs then of course that's beyond them but they've generally done well when they've come in v bottom half teams unless I'm missing some obvious performances.

Think now we've got to look a bit more long term and start giving Sanson and Jacob Ramsey serious minutes. Again Ramsey was another who came in at Wolves when our season could've gone bottom half with a loss and didn't let us down and Sanson is hardly some YTS kid so he's well overdue a start and has profile we need to counter Leeds strengths.

We still have the issues but its improving, Elmo, Davis and Taylor for a start. Trezeguet well is more miss than hit

[Tomaszk]

32 minutes ago, useless said:

I made an illuminating post in the Leeds thread that has surprisingly gone unhailed, pointing out that usually after a good win this season Leeds have gone on to suffer an heavy defeat in their next game, not saying we will do the same to them, but not sure why so many are convinced that they will beat us, it seems that on the one hand people complain about them being overrated, but then on the other insist that they're going to beat us as if they're one of the very best teams in the league, they're below us in the table having played two games more, their current form isn't any better than ours, they might beat us, but it wouldn't surprise me in the least if we beat them.

This league is ebb and glow, we'll see which way it goes.

[Keyblade]

7 minutes ago, useless said:

They allowed us to score after they cheated to score their goal, so that evens itself up. Plus I think we've only played them three times with Smith as manager, I wouldn't read too much into Smith's Brentford games against them, Brentford then had a much weaker squad compared to now.

Yeah 3 times, 1 point from an available 9. Didn't lay a glove on them in any of them really. Hopefully we can do a Southampton and break the curse but you could understand why people aren't exactly confident about this game. We'll also be missing Jack again.

[useless]

I'm not confident about the Leeds game, but at the same time I don't think it's a certainty or anything like it, that they will beat us, because despite the exaggerated and uncontrollable doom and gloom that seems to have cast it's wicked shadow, we're not actually doing that bad, Leeds aren't actually doing as well as us, even based on recent form we're doing just as well as them, they're very inconsistent, and we've beaten better teams, as recently as a few games ago against Arsenal. So whilst they might beat us, I'd say we have as good of a chance of beating them.

[VillaChris]

46 minutes ago, Tomaszk said:

It's very welcome when proper back-ups like Hause and El Ghazi come in and do well for sure. But they're well off the quality of the starting players aren't they? That's all I'm saying.

Centre mid, yes, we now have some viable options with Sanson and perhaps Ramsey if he can keep impressing.

Anywhere else, any other position, you're hoping for some really hot form (which is possible! As Kortney and Anwar showed) but expecting to have a drop off in performance due to the ability of the replacement players.

No one's fault really, we've come a long way quickly.

Does it excuse really flat performances like West Ham and Brighton? No. We should be doing better.

Does it excuse the manager just naming the same underperforming players and watch them bomb over and over? No. He needs to figure something out. It'll be very ugly if we name the same XI at Leeds as Leicester.

But if we name Kesler or an out of position Konsa as RB and they kill us down that side, there are limits to what I think we can do to be honest.

Show me a squad around us that dosen't have the same issues. Sanchez coming in for Toby or Dier has same issues for Spurs at the back and also when Vinicius or Bergjwin start for them in front 3.  Yeah they can stick 6 goals past a non league team in the cup but they do nothing buy make Spurs lose games at prem level.

Everton with likes of Bernard, Delph and Cenk Tosun. Their results dip when some of those get minutes.

Even Leicester dip when their starting 11 has Ayoze Perez, Albrighton, Fuchs and Amartey all in it.

I totally got the argument last season but this season the doom narrative dosen't really add up when you look at the few games Nakamba and Hause have actually started. Our worst games of the season v Brighton, West Ham, Southampton (first half) and Leeds (second half) came with pretty much our full strength first choice team out there.

Only area where we're really restricted is CF where we can't do much at all bar hope ollie can play 90 minutes of every game left.

[Tomaszk]

2 minutes ago, VillaChris said:

Show me a squad around us that dosen't have the same issues. Sanchez coming in for Toby or Dier has same issues for Spurs at the back and also when Vinicius or Bergjwin start for them in front 3.  Yeah they can stick 6 goals past a non league team in the cup but they do nothing buy make Spurs lose games at prem level.

Everton with likes of Bernard, Delph and Cenk Tosun. Their results dip when some of those get minutes.

Even Leicester dip when their starting 11 has Ayoze Perez, Albrighton, Fuchs and Amartey all in it.

I totally got the argument last season but this season the doom narrative dosen't really add up when you look at the few games Nakamba and Hause have actually started. Our worst games of the season v Brighton, West Ham, Southampton (first half) and Leeds (second half) came with pretty much our full strength first choice team out there.

Only area where we're really restricted is CF where we can't do much at all bar hope ollie can play 90 minutes of every game left.

Game of opinions but all these players are well ahead of Elmo/Hause/El Ghazi/Davies etc.

Hopefully a few are called on v Leeds and they impress because the team needs shaking up.

[VillaChris]

17 minutes ago, Keyblade said:

Yeah 3 times, 1 point from an available 9. Didn't lay a glove on them in any of them really. Hopefully we can do a Southampton and break the curse but you could understand why people aren't exactly confident about this game. We'll also be missing Jack again.

The 1-1 I actually thought we did fine for 70 minutes, had a few chances and limited Leeds to a few shots. Was a typical end of season tight top 6 match. Then it all kicked off and given we were down to 10 men and had to finish the game with Mile Jedinak upfront no surprise we were hanging on for dear life in injury time when Steer made a couple of excellent saves.

DS got a 1-1 at Elland Road in his last game in charge of Brentford so he's o.k getting results up there, more in the home games where we are simply too slow altering our game when they start to overrun us.

Can remember AEM getting destroyed by that Clarke kid they had on the left wing when they came from 2 down so Bielsa will probably get all of Dallas, Raphinna, Allioski and Costa on the pitch at some stage to have a run at him so that's going to be a bit of a problem for us.

He wasn't great when he came on but think we really have to start Trez for this and just tell him to help out his mate as much as he can for an hour and then Leeds hopefully will start to tire and we can put on more creative players to use that space.

[VillaChris]

7 minutes ago, Tomaszk said:

Game of opinions but all these players are well ahead of Elmo/Hause/El Ghazi/Davies etc.

Hopefully a few are called on v Leeds and they impress because the team needs shaking up.

Bet if you went on FoxesTalk and asked them about Perez, loads on there would rather have El Ghazi as squad option, he's scored two goals all season and like AEG tends to score in clusters so I wouldn't say there's a significant difference.

Pretty sure Bergjwin has 0 goals and assists for Spurs in the league this season.

Opinion on glory glory about Davinson Sanchez

Quote

Clown isn't the word for it. Brainless **** bombscare, every **** game.

The only reason I can think of that would forgive him and Dier their utter uselessness, is that they are actually enacting a deep cover performance art routine to reaffirm that racism is and always has been utter rubbish. Because Dav's black and Dier's white, but it makes no difference because they are equally **** sh*te.

https://www.glory-glory.co.uk/community/threads/davinson-sanchez.9113/page-93

Thought he was a 15-20m signing for Spurs. Cost them 42m.

Edited February 23, 2021 by VillaChris

[Keyblade]

6 minutes ago, VillaChris said:

The 1-1 I actually thought we did fine for 70 minutes, had a few chances and limited Leeds to a few shots. Was a typical end of season tight top 6 match. Then it all kicked off and given we were down to 10 men and had to finish the game with Mile Jedinak upfront no surprise we were hanging on for dear life in injury time when Steer made a couple of excellent saves.

DS got a 1-1 at Elland Road in his last game in charge of Brentford so he's o.k getting results up there, more in the home games where we are simply too slow altering our game when they start to overrun us.

Can remember AEM getting destroyed by that Clarke kid they had on the left wing when they came from 2 down so Bielsa will probably get all of Dallas, Raphinna, Allioski and Costa on the pitch at some stage to have a run at him so that's going to be a bit of a problem for us.

He wasn't great when he came on but think we really have to start Trez for this and just tell him to help out his mate as much as he can for an hour and then Leeds hopefully will start to tire and we can put on more creative players to use that space.

The worst part is Trez was nowhere to be seen when Cash was getting killed by Harrison in the reverse fixture. You have to hope he's more charitable towards his national team captain.

[VillaChris]

6 minutes ago, Keyblade said:

The worst part is Trez was nowhere to be seen when Cash was getting killed by Harrison in the reverse fixture. You have to hope he's more charitable towards his national team captain.

Forgot about Jack Harrison. I see he got subbed at half time tonight and Leeds scored 3 afterwards so perhaps we might be spared and he might not start if it wasn't an injury.

One thing I do admire about Bielsa amongst a few things is he's always very quick making substitutions rather than letting things drift until 65-70th mark and being a goal or two down. Just remembered he took off Sturjik when he was on a booking early on at VP so again not something many managers would've done.

I still don't think DS has improved as much in that regard as we hoped, still an element of crossing fingers and hoping the first 11 can see out the job.

Edited February 23, 2021 by VillaChris

[turvontour]

1 hour ago, useless said:

The weakness of our squad is overstated, a lot of squad players have come in and done, or can do a good job. Hause has performed well, Elmohamady is adequet back up to Cash, El Ghazi came in and scored five in a row, and has good stats across his time with us, as does Trezeguet, Nakamba, and Ramsey have played well in midfield, and Sanson looks to be a good player.

The squad is very weak beyond the first 11. Central midfield aside where theres seemingly 6 or 7 vying for the spots.

Hause, Elmohamady, Davis, El Ghazi/Trezeguet, Taylor come in to the team to replace an injured or suspended Mings/Konsa, Cash, Watkins, Grealish and Targett.

That's a set of mid to top half championship players (as an average) replacing a set of top half premier league players (as an average).

That's not even our "squad players", they could easily be starting games or are atleast first sub change. It's a miracle that we have not had any more than 2 of the first team players out for any game this season. Some teams have had 5 or 6 key players out at a time.

[Adam2003]

3 hours ago, useless said:

I made an illuminating post in the Leeds thread that has surprisingly gone unhailed

Happens with all of mine too mate.