Dean Smith

[villa4europe]

21 minutes ago, nick76 said:

I don’t think he’s happy but your alternatives are just as poor as what has been done.  

Kesler and Barry play? Just not in the real world.

He did try for another striker, which has been talked about on this site for the last week but it didn’t come off because the player ultimately rejected us.

Nobody is happy with the last five games but some fans think our squad is in a difference place to where it is currently.  Rome wasn’t built in a day! It takes time to build a squad and when our first XI go through a poor period we don’t have many alternatives and throwing in kids who aren’t ready is just fantasy football talk.

Agree with this

As much as I'd like to see it and hope it happens as the season dwindles down increasingly to nothing go in the Ramsey thread as see the number of people bemoaning his lack of impact on games 

That is what playing youngsters is, there's such a warped sense of expectation on these kids that it's almost unfair, yes I want to see them playing, yes I want to see them given a chance but the reality is that Barry probably won't do more than el ghazi or traore and he's not going to be ready for the stick that comes his way when he's not the 2nd coming of Jack Grealish 

[DCJonah]

6 minutes ago, Lerner's Driver said:

It just seems odd that people are analysing our season now, as though it's already over and already a success. The only metric by which that is true, is the one that says we are mathematically safe, but do you think our owners spaffed all the cash they did just to finish 13th or 14th? Sure it's an improvement, but is it enough? And yes, we may not finish that low, but it's also not completely unlikely that we will, given how we are playing. It all feels like a missed opportunity to me.

Well we'll see if Smith gets sacked in the summer then. 

We stayed up, we improved in most areas and we finished higher in the league. That's success in my book at this part of our plan.

[tomav84]

8 minutes ago, DCJonah said:

Well we'll see if Smith gets sacked in the summer then. 

We stayed up, we improved in most areas and we finished higher in the league. That's success in my book at this part of our plan.

If we end up 14th I think the owners will consider it personally. Would have meant a pretty dismal end to the season and teams like Leeds and wolves finishing above us 

[nick76]

13 minutes ago, foreveryoung said:

But wheres that form gone?

All teams have bad periods of form....Liverpool six defeats at home on the trot, looking poor.  Man City started the season incredibly poorly.  Add to that we have a small squad that past 15 or so players don’t have the quality at the end of the table.  

Our main creative player is injured. Our loan player, Barkley has been poor since his injury and Traore while some great touches and a few goals has largely been ineffective.  Our team is tired because it’s small, Ollie looks knackered and Jack did before he got injured.  

It’s all explainable.  

Am I happy? No....do I understand why? Yes.

Need more time to build the squad

[foreveryoung]

12 minutes ago, DCJonah said:

Well we'll see if Smith gets sacked in the summer then. 

We stayed up, we improved in most areas and we finished higher in the league. That's success in my book at this part of our plan.

Not win another game this season, still a success story or?

[VillaChris]

1 hour ago, nick76 said:

Wasn’t that pre-agreed

I don't know but it's a 27-28 year old international striker who's scored goals in major leagues and for his country who was available and a club with not much money in covid hit league picked him up.

It would be nice to pick up one of those types at some point in the next 18 months. As the season has gone on it has shown we really need one if only to come off the bench after 60 minutes.

[Villaphan04]

24 minutes ago, LxYoungAVFC said:

We don't seem to be exploiting our opposition's weaknesses at all.

Last season when Targett was having a difficult time, teams were often overloading our left side. This season when Cash was injured, teams were targeting our right side because they know Elmo is past it. Other teams have obviously looked at our zonal/hybrid system from corners and targeted the area McGinn is covering.

I'd like to see us take a similarly ruthless approach.

Just a note I saw from some pre match notes - we've conceded twice from corners this season, which is the fewest in the league 

 

But I definitely agree with your post here. 

[nick76]

2 minutes ago, tomav84 said:

If we end up 14th I think the owners will consider it personally. Would have meant a pretty dismal end to the season and teams like Leeds and wolves finishing above us 

Wolves, 13th, 6 points behind, we have one game in hand and +19 better goal difference.  Wolves have 9 games left and haven’t won in four games.

Southampton, 14th, 8 points behind, we have one game in hand and +24 better goal difference.  They have 9 games left and lost four of their last five games.

Unlikely we’ll end up 14th, even Palace and Leeds aren’t in good form although both won their last game but we have points, goal difference and a game in hand over them.  Still likely to end up a top ten team.

[vreitti]

45 minutes ago, Mark Albrighton said:

Jeeez, the accountants are out again.

Villa have spent about £240m on 18 players. 

Go back to the end of the 2018/19 season, make a first xi from that squad at Smith’s disposal to compete in the premier league. You don’t get to pick Mings, El Ghazi, or Hause if you feel inclined. They weren’t permanent squad players. 

Go on, try and make a decent first xi. Can’t do it? Thought not. So money had to be spent. Could they have spent it on 3 or 4 elite players? Theoretically, yes, would they have come, probably not. And they might have got injured, but you know, we’d have solid back ups like Thor and Whelan, so people would probably be happy with the squad depth.

Let’s look at tonight’s opponents. At the end of 2018/19 Spurs finished 4th. They have spent around £220m on about 9 players. They might finish fifth. And like Villa they have a world class player they have for “free” in Kane to help them out not spending too much.

So Villa had more holes to plug and have incrementally improved their league position. Spurs have spent a similar amount from a FAR higher position and look like they will have regressed come the end of the season. 

I think most on here are in agreement that at the start of the season, finishing 8th - 12th would represent a significant improvement on last year. For whatever reason, some on here seem to think that finishing mid table wouldn’t involve losing more than a couple of matches or having a period of bad form.

It’s fine to criticise Smith, the performances, whatever. But **** me, I honestly think for some on here we may as well have gone bust three years ago when we nearly did as I think they’d be equally as (un)happy in the lower reaches of the championship or League One as they are suffering the indignity of not finishing in the top 8 of the premier league.

Mods, how do I like this post twice!? 

[VillaChris]

1 minute ago, nick76 said:

Wolves, 13th, 6 points behind, we have one game in hand and +19 better goal difference.  Wolves have 9 games left and haven’t won in four games.

Southampton, 14th, 8 points behind, we have one game in hand and +24 better goal difference.  They have 9 games left and lost four of their last five games.

Unlikely we’ll end up 14th, even Palace and Leeds aren’t in good form although both won their last game but we have points, goal difference and a game in hand over them.  Still likely to end up a top ten team.

Leeds were a fair bit behind us when we beat them end of Feb. They have Sheffield United at home next game so unless we pick up something v Fulham we will very likely be bottom half.

I expect us to still win 2-3 games in run in so we still should be o.k to finish 10th but if we don't I'm not really sure how 1 win in about 15 games can be just excused, particularly as we have future ambitions to finish much higher up the league.

It's a bit like West Brom getting to 40 points around Feb under Pulis and then going on holiday, Charlton under Curbishley used to do it years back aswell. Shows a chronic lack of ambition which wouldn't impress the owners imo.

We need to finish top half just to keep Jack sweet imo.

[ciggiesnbeer]

gaffers thoughts. glad he included himself and coaching staff in the criticism as well as the players. he is very good at calming me down after losing I have to say. gives me confidence he saw the same game I did.

onwards!

Edited March 21, 2021 by ciggiesnbeer

[Sulberto21]

One thing not having Jack in the team has shown is that apart from Watkins our off the ball movement is shit. Whether it's the players or Deano this has to improve for next season.

 

[nick76]

19 minutes ago, VillaChris said:

Leeds were a fair bit behind us when we beat them end of Feb. They have Sheffield United at home next game so unless we pick up something v Fulham we will very likely be bottom half.

I expect us to still win 2-3 games in run in so we still should be o.k to finish 10th but if we don't I'm not really sure how 1 win in about 15 games can be just excused, particularly as we have future ambitions to finish much higher up the league.

It's a bit like West Brom getting to 40 points around Feb under Pulis and then going on holiday, Charlton under Curbishley used to do it years back aswell. Shows a chronic lack of ambition which wouldn't impress the owners imo.

We need to finish top half just to keep Jack sweet imo.

I wouldn’t put Leeds down for a certain win yet against Sheff Utd.  Leeds are patchy and concede goals and Sheff Utd had something of last season in them today and played well second half against Chelsea and could’ve got a draw in a couple instances before Ziyech got the 92 minute goal.

Plus having Jack back will give us a big lift

Edited March 21, 2021 by nick76

[Sulberto21]

One thing I will say someone is due an absolute pasting from.us.

[nick76]

Just now, Sulberto21 said:

One thing I will say someone is due an absolute pasting from.us.

Jack back, 2 weeks break to freshen up and I’m hoping it’s Fulham.  While they have come back a bit they have still lost 3 of their last 4

[Johnnyp]

Win rate of 18% without Grealish. Just saying.

[VillaChris]

37 minutes ago, Johnnyp said:

Win rate of 18% without Grealish. Just saying.

Very much Zaha and Palace syndrome. Even worse is a large chunk of that was in our promotion season.

Of course it will always go down when he's not around but it's not like we've had the fixture list from hell while he's been out. Failed to beat Sheffield United and Newcastle without him and two goals in last five games isn't great at all and not like we've looked like scoring much more than that.

[Tomaszk]

1 hour ago, Johnnyp said:

Win rate of 18% without Grealish. Just saying.

What is it with him?

Because Grealish is still here.

[VillaFaninLondon]

I think those people on here who continue to defend Smith unconditionally only see that he is a nice guy (which he is) and a Villa man. They continue to look past his deficiencies.

 

It's almost like they want this romantic ideal of him leading us into the future regardless of what's happening on and off the pitch because he's a fan and he supposedly gets the club.

 

What gets thrown around is we're on course to have our best season in a decade in what has been one of Villa's worst decades in their history. That isn't a good benchmark to set for this club. 

 

Every season Smith has been with us we have had long periods of bad form. Usually this occurs when Jack is out because Smith is so damn reliant on him.

 

Season 18/19 (his first with us), Jack gets injured early December. We then win 2 out of 13, failing to beat Stoke (twice), Reading, Preston, QPR and Hull in that time – the finishing places of those teams in order were 16^th, 20^th, 14^th, 19^th, 13^th.  

 

Last season Jack luckily didn’t get any lengthy period of time out. We were generally pretty awful all of last season but that period before the lockdown started we were losing to the likes of Bournemouth and Southampton without so much of a fight and without the season freezing I’m certain we’d have gone down.

 

This season our form tailed off as soon as 2021 hit in my opinion, but since Jack’s last game to now we’ve played Brighton (draw), Leicester (loss), Leeds (win), Sheff U (loss), Wolves (draw), Newcastle (draw), Spurs (loss). The position in the table of those teams are as follows: 16^th, 3^rd, 11^th, 20^th, 13^th, 17^th, and 6^th. So five of the seven are bottom half.

 

Now for all the Smith lovers who say it’s because our players aren’t good enough, of the last seven games, apart from Tottenham and Leicester, and possibly Wolves, can you honestly say the other teams had better players than us? I can’t. Especially when Newcastle were without four key first team players, rock bottom Sheff U had basically a patched up defence, Wolves were missing one of the best strikers in the league in Jimenez. Even Spurs and Leicester had played midweek and were clearly pretty knackered when we played them.

 

I could have taken yesterday’s defeat a bit more humbly if we had beaten the likes of Sheff U, Newcastle and Brighton. Spurs were knackered and without Son, we gifted them the first goal by a catalogue of errors from our goalkeeper and defenders, but they do have better players than us. But when we fail to beat shite teams near the bottom and get told it’s because Smith still needs more quality, that’s where I think what a load of bollocks. We should have with the players we have, even with Jack missing, enough to beat the likes of Sheff U and Newcastle.

 

If Smith fails to get to 50 points this season, I personally feel that we need to explore new manager options in the summer. People will think I’m being overly dramatic but the fall off in form is too much (we had 26 points from our first 14 games, if he fails to take at the minimum a mere 24 points from the next 24 games then clearly that is nowhere near good enough). I believe he should get to that, but right now you wouldn’t bet on it.

 

We go into the summer needing to strengthen again and with Smith I just have no clue which players we will end up with. We need players of real proven calibre that can take the pressure off Jack, but my worry is he won’t be able to attract players of the quality a manager like Rodgers or Ancelotti could and we’ll once again bring players in who aren’t going to elevate us to Everton, West Ham, Wolves level, let alone Spurs or Leicester level.  

 

I’ve wanted Smith to succeed all along, but I just think there are too many flaws in his management for him to be the answer long term for us. How many years are we going to keep saying he’s still learning and he needs better players (incidentally virtually every player in the squad are his own buys btw), we can’t keep using that as an excuse for these dire runs every season.

 

I honestly don't care what's gone before, and how crap we were under Lerner, and how we should be grateful for where we are now. I couldn't care less about the past, Villa is still a big club regardless of Lerner and Xia nearly ending us. I look at the potential of what the club can achieve now, we haven't had owners like we have now for a long time (probably ever), I believe with them our potential is huge and with a manager who knows what he is doing we could very well find ourselves as one of the big clubs of this country again. With Smith we'll only ever be an also ran.

Edited March 22, 2021 by VillaFaninLondon

[M_Afro]

6 hours ago, ciggiesnbeer said:

gaffers thoughts. glad he included himself and coaching staff in the criticism as well as the players. he is very good at calming me down after losing I have to say. gives me confidence he saw the same game I did.

onwards!

And yet seemingly does nothing to address it in between the matches.