Dean Smith

[KentVillan]

6 minutes ago, MaVilla said:

 

 

 

unless im doing something wrong, those points tallies for/between X or Y matches dont add up.

For example, if you look at our actual results over say....the last X games, then do the same on that selection table, the figures dont match!

for example:

Transfermarkt vs Actual:

Last 15 games - TMkt 16 points VS Actual - 18 points

Last 17 games - Tmkt 22 points VS Actual - 19 points (19 points over the last 17 games would actually put us 15th on that table - assuming other teams are correct)

 

I wonder if its aligning the results as per the original schedule (pre covid and game cancellations), rather than the actual live result order??

Dunno, but it doesnt add up from what i can see, and it makes our recent 15-17 game form look better than it is (overall it reflects fine (ie: whole season table), but not when you try to break it down)

Yeah it might be thrown out by the rescheduling. Having said that, it's still not far off - 15th still isn't relegation form?

[MaVilla]

11 minutes ago, KentVillan said:

Yeah it might be thrown out by the rescheduling. Having said that, it's still not far off - 15th still isn't relegation form?

true it isnt, but its borderline relegation battle form.

[TRO]

7 hours ago, foreveryoung said:

Exactly!! Yes he tells it how it is ,but saying we were poor after nearly every game and not correcting it, is getting a  bit boring. 

Well, its starting to make you feel, what are they doing at BMH.

Look it may well be he is doing everything, humanly possible.....but the way we are playing, raises the same issues after every game....Lets be fair the last 15, bailed us out against Fulham.

The general play is lowgrade.

[TRO]

7 hours ago, DaveAV1 said:

The simple remedy, which I’m sure Dean and the rest of the coaching and recruitment staff are fully aware of, is to increase the quality of the squad. We have become very jaded and high energy was the basis of our early season success. Many of our better players have played the majority of games and the options on the bench just aren’t there this season. Klopp and Pepe never shut up about players being tired and playing too many games. Just look at their squads compared to ours. 

I’m not suggesting for a minute that Dean Smith is a perfect manager that doesn’t make mistakes. I’m pretty sure he doesn’t see himself that way either but at the end of the day we have an average squad that is probably a below average squad when you take Jack out of it. To criticise what he says in public is frankly daft. Would you suggest he says stuff like, the players are all knackered but I have to keep playing them because the rest of the players aren’t very good? Or perhaps, me and the rest of the coaches have told player x not to do that until we’re blue in the face but he’s clearly an idiot and we’re dumping him at the end of the season? 

The club, the team and the manager are all a work in progress and over a reasonable amount of time we are progressing. If after every dozen games or so we decide that we need to make a change as fundamental as changing the head coach, we would rightly be viewed as a complete basket case of a club, which for once in a long time we’re not. 

With the army of data and other analysts the club employs and with a co-owner that is very publicly supportive of such a set up, there’s absolutely no way that we aren’t fully aware of all the faults and failings of the first team including the head coach. However don’t expect those faults and failings or indeed the strengths to be aired in public or the future plans to be generously shared with the outside world either. 

I heard a radio interview with a singer, whose name escaped me, in which he was described as an overnight success. He said something like, yeah I’m an overnight success after 15 years of playing in small clubs and bars to audiences of a dozen blokes with nothing better to do. That pretty much applies to most jobs and aspects of life too. 

Dave....just one point to consider, some players have not played every game, Hause, Jack, Nakamba, Ramsey, Sanson, Barkley, Cash, we are not in any cups or in Europe.....so I don't see how the fatigue argument has any legs.

[VillanousOne]

10 minutes ago, TRO said:

Dave....just one point to consider, some players have not played every game, Hause, Jack, Nakamba, Ramsey, Sanson, Barkley, Cash, we are not in any cups or in Europe.....so I don't see how the fatigue argument has any legs.

It would be interesting to find out who has had Covid in our team and how that has affected them.

I think the sudden break in our season seems to have destabilised confidence and momentum, even if before the outbreak we were incredibly inconsistent - (as in one week a great win then next week a humbling loss. Then injuries to Cash and then Grealish just completely derailed our season.

Either way we are playing the same as we were last season, we don't seem to press high enough and break quickly enough and even when we do we just give possession straight back to the opposition.

As much as I can see the improvements and still back the owners and Dean, I was enjoying experiencing that rare thing this season 'pride in our team kicking ass at Premiership level' it's like a rare drug and now we are playing like the first part of the season was a random anomaly, like we've forgotten how to win (20 mins against Fulham aside) it is crushing to know that high is probably gone for at least the rest of the season and getting our arse handed to us is now once again the norm.
 

[Panto_Villan]

5 minutes ago, VillanousOne said:

As much as I can see the improvements and still back the owners and Dean, I was enjoying experiencing that rare thing this season 'pride in our team kicking ass at Premiership level' it's like a rare drug and now we are playing like the first part of the season was a random anomaly, like we've forgotten how to win (20 mins against Fulham aside) it is crushing to know that high is probably gone for at least the rest of the season and getting our arse handed to us is now once again the norm.
 

Well, that's exactly it. Our first half of the season was exceptional and it carried on for just long enough to make us believe that it represented the new normal.

Then our form dipped and key players got injured, and we're playing like a bottom half side. This hurts more than it should because we had come to expect better, even though I think everyone knew deep down that we weren't actually quite good enough to finish top 6 after barely surviving relegation last season (I know I find the current results disappointing because of that.)

[NeilS]

21 minutes ago, VillanousOne said:

It would be interesting to find out who has had Covid in our team and how that has affected them.

I think the sudden break in our season seems to have destabilised confidence and momentum, even if before the outbreak we were incredibly inconsistent - (as in one week a great win then next week a humbling loss. Then injuries to Cash and then Grealish just completely derailed our season.

Either way we are playing the same as we were last season, we don't seem to press high enough and break quickly enough and even when we do we just give possession straight back to the opposition.

As much as I can see the improvements and still back the owners and Dean, I was enjoying experiencing that rare thing this season 'pride in our team kicking ass at Premiership level' it's like a rare drug and now we are playing like the first part of the season was a random anomaly, like we've forgotten how to win (20 mins against Fulham aside) it is crushing to know that high is probably gone for at least the rest of the season and getting our arse handed to us is now once again the norm.
 

Looking back on our season, we played Man Utd at Old trafford on the 1st of January 2021 and by all accounts we were pretty unlucky in that game to lose and the stats show we matched up against them pretty well. Then covid struck, we put out the kids against Liverpool in the FA Cup the following week and since then we have been patchy with our form to say the least. It may well be down to the effects of Covid whether that has taken 10% off some players performances I don't know. It doesn't take much of a drop off in performance in this league to see results change, it is very much fine margins that define games these days. I don't know whether the loss is down to after effects of Covid or down to loss of momentum/confidence due to the break.

I hope that we can pick things up performace and result wise before the end of the season, as we don't want to end the season on a low feeling as that can often transfer into the following season as can finishing on a high.

[sharkyvilla]

3 hours ago, Demitri_C said:

What are these non sense links lining Gerrard to villa?

There is no chance we are sacking smith. And of we did why woukd we go for gerarrd?

 

Because Purslow was at Liverpool once and the media want to shop Gerrard around the PL for clicks and eventually revel in sticking the knife in when he inevitably fails.  

[PaulC]

I wonder whether Craig Shakespeare is part of the problem. They played a very direct type of football when he was at Leicester. Hoof it up the park for Vardy. we seem to be doing exactly the same thing with Watkins. Its ok blaming players but if the directive is from above then its not their fault. 

[foreveryoung]

59 minutes ago, NeilS said:

Looking back on our season, we played Man Utd at Old trafford on the 1st of January 2021 and by all accounts we were pretty unlucky in that game to lose and the stats show we matched up against them pretty well. Then covid struck, we put out the kids against Liverpool in the FA Cup the following week and since then we have been patchy with our form to say the least. It may well be down to the effects of Covid whether that has taken 10% off some players performances I don't know. It doesn't take much of a drop off in performance in this league to see results change, it is very much fine margins that define games these days. I don't know whether the loss is down to after effects of Covid or down to loss of momentum/confidence due to the break.

I hope that we can pick things up performace and result wise before the end of the season, as we don't want to end the season on a low feeling as that can often transfer into the following season as can finishing on a high.

It's nothing to do with Covid. Yes it may affect 1 or 2 badly, (not that I think it has), but not the whole F***** team. We simply have no idea how to play effective football without Jack, generally everything goes through him, we are so slow and laboured without him its..................well awful.

[TRO]

2 hours ago, VillanousOne said:

It would be interesting to find out who has had Covid in our team and how that has affected them.

I think the sudden break in our season seems to have destabilised confidence and momentum, even if before the outbreak we were incredibly inconsistent - (as in one week a great win then next week a humbling loss. Then injuries to Cash and then Grealish just completely derailed our season.

Either way we are playing the same as we were last season, we don't seem to press high enough and break quickly enough and even when we do we just give possession straight back to the opposition.

As much as I can see the improvements and still back the owners and Dean, I was enjoying experiencing that rare thing this season 'pride in our team kicking ass at Premiership level' it's like a rare drug and now we are playing like the first part of the season was a random anomaly, like we've forgotten how to win (20 mins against Fulham aside) it is crushing to know that high is probably gone for at least the rest of the season and getting our arse handed to us is now once again the norm.
 

its happening, every game lately.

[Denaldinho]

It's depressing reading some of these comments smith should be sacked? Won play off final, avoided relegation and now were in top 10 of premiership.  That says to me he as made progress as a manager.  Dean is a villa fan and he gets the club so why not back him instead of taking the easy way out.

[foreveryoung]

Just now, Denaldinho said:

It's depressing reading some of these comments smith should be sacked? Won play off final, avoided relegation and now were in top 10 of premiership.  That says to me he as made progress as a manager.  Dean is a villa fan and he gets the club so why not back him instead of taking the easy way out.

Who says he should be sacked please quote?

[TRO]

9 hours ago, Mark Albrighton said:

This is another thing that ALL supporters think, that their club is the one that bucks the trend and will give a winless team three points, or allows a striker who hasn’t scored in 10 games to get a hat trick.

I bet Liverpool supporters were thinking “Well Villa haven’t scored 7 in a single game for decades. Of course we wait until  we’re reigning champions turn up and break that run and embarrass ourselves...”

I bet Leeds supporters were bemoaning the fact they bucked the trend and let a Grealish-less Villa take three points “Oh well of course it’s got to be us that let’s them do that...”

I bet Fulham supporters were equally thrilled to hear that Tezeguet got his first and possibly only goals of the season against them. “Typically generous of us” I suspect they were saying. “Nice of us to help him break his duck.”

I could go on.

These kind of things DO happen to Villa, but they happen to pretty much every club, more regularly than you think, people are only aware of Villa’s unwanted facts because you’re probably not interested in other clubs doing likewise. Go on other clubs forum if you don’t think so.

I think its borne out of watching the game.....Your point may have validity, but many students of the game seem to be alluding to this.

We give the ball away too often, too cheaply and too many games....where do you think that will take us.....sure other teams do it, but I watch other teams and only the worst ones do it as much as us....its endemic of our play, we play teams in to the game.

You are right, though, I am not interested in other teams unwanted facts.......Its like a jockey, saying to the owner after finishing down the field, and getting castigated,"I wasn't the only one" and him saying " oh that makes it alright does it"

 

[Zatman]

People on here were praising Hassnhuttl as some managerial expert over Smith, they are the worst team in the league since January 1st and shipped double the amount of goals we have

I wonder would people still take him if Southampton sacked him, bear in mind since Smith is underachieving because we made a great start that Southampton were top at one stage 

[TRO]

6 hours ago, KentVillan said:

It hasn't, though. Relegation form is bottom 3, and we haven't been bottom 3 on form at any point.

https://www.transfermarkt.co.uk/premier-league/formtabelle/wettbewerb/GB1?saison_id=2020&min=20&max=31

You can play around with the start / end gameweeks here. There are a bunch of teams consistently below us - Southampton, Sheff Utd, West Brom, Fulham, Newcastle.

Our form is basically mid table. What we've seen is a dip from Europe form early in the season to mid-table form later in the season post Covid / Grealish injury.

And people are acting on here like it's a catastrophe, when it's basically in line with our expectations last summer. 

Form tables ar usually created from the last 6 games....we are below WBA.

Edited April 12, 2021 by TRO

[useless]

Form tables based on the last six games don't really tell one anything that one doesn't already know without looking at them, it's based on such a small quantity of games, that a single result can change standings drastically.

[TRO]

4 hours ago, MaVilla said:

true it isnt, but its borderline relegation battle form.

We can all call on stats.....but,you only have to watch the games to know, something is amiss....Too many fans know this too.

You simply cannot do some of the things we are doing and expect to win games.....sure, we win a few, but you can't expect to.

Edited April 12, 2021 by TRO

[TRO]

6 hours ago, thabucks said:

Can see both viewpoints - those 100 % behind Smith regardless and then others who hold reservations about his ability long term and open to a change. I’m sort of in both camps as you cannot fault the job he has done. That said I do believe he has reached  his ceiling and to continue us to progress further upwardly he needs replacing long term. When that will be is up to Lange, Purslow & co and trust their judgment (unless it’s that scouse clearing in the woods). 

I think the sort of things that are wrong, Dean has the ability to fix them.

It doesn't take the worlds best managers to fix us.....its doable for Dean.

Dean Smith, is not going anywhere.....Dean Smith just needs to address the issues, being spelled out on this site and it might take alternative playing personnel to do it.....but he must sign the right players.

as an example......Its no good signing a full back, when we need a striker or its no good signng another attacking midfielder, when he need a commanding General.....its getting the round pegs in the round holes and the square pegs in the square holes.

That is not beyond, Dean Smith.....our problems are not Rocket Science.

[Paul33]

So many pages about our manager and speculation that is based on what exactly ? Some tin pot clickbait websites that have no credibility ? Steven Gerrard inbound ? Based on a season of success in a tinpot league ? 

Dean Smith is going absolutely nowhere but Villa Park. He is part of the long term plans at the club and will be here for many seasons to come and if anybody doubts that, I'll take any wager you want to make. Progress this season has been very good and that progress will continue next season so strap yourselves in, stop whinging about the last few games and start thinking long term and beyond the end of your noses because we are going places ..... trust me !

Edited April 12, 2021 by Paul33