Dean Smith

[villa4europe]

18 hours ago, foreveryoung said:

Trying to justify our poor form 'may' be down to Covid is utter bollox. I have not heard or seen no other team or single player in the whole of Europe having poor form which may be down to the effects of Covid, or any other athlete to be honest. It just seems some are finding anything to deflect the blame, that Smith, may just have run out of ideas without Grealish. I'm not saying he has, but it must be purely coincidental, Jack out, Villa shite.

Personally I think it's a mixture of covid + lack of pressure due to the good league position + Jack's injury

I don't think you can just write covid off though cos none of us even know which players had it let alone how bad it was and the longer term impact, you can't compare us to other teams either because they're the same

[Vive_La_Villa]

26 minutes ago, JAMAICAN-VILLAN said:

Been away for a couple days... I see nothing has changed.

Anybody ever realise we are literally having the same exact posts/counterparts every single day?

If groundhog Day was a forum. Lol

We need a match asap, so we can have the exact same circular arguments, but with the latest data.

 

It’s absolutely mental isn’t it?

[nick76]

52 minutes ago, Vive_La_Villa said:

It’s absolutely mental isn’t it?

It might actually be a good thing because everything else is really good throughout the club and we all generally agree.  We thus have just a couple of issues that we disagree on, it gets inflamed because that’s all we disagree on and there isn’t anything else really that we have any variance on to have a discussion.  It’s hard to get discussion going on other topics when we are agreeing with each other.

Edited April 15, 2021 by nick76

[barry'sboots]

1 hour ago, nick76 said:

It might actually be a good thing because everything else is really good throughout the club and we all generally agree.  We thus have just a couple of issues that we disagree on, it gets inflamed because that’s all we disagree on and there isn’t anything else really that we have any variance on to have a discussion.  It’s hard to get discussion going on other topics when we are agreeing with each other.

Yay, we agree on something on the Dean Smith thread!!  This and how Kienan Davis deserves more game time after the Fulham game (couldn't resist ... !!).

Edited April 15, 2021 by barry'sboots

[TRO]

21 hours ago, nick76 said:

I think timing!

I’m not saying it’s a reason and I’m not saying it’s not, I think a logical conclusion leads to be able not to rule it out until further evidence.  That means we have no evidence it is a reason but we also cannot say with certainty it isn’t a factor.

Our form changed dramatically after then shutdown, not just a bit but dramatically.  You look at the games just before lockdown and we were playing well performance wise. I went back and looked a few weeks ago when somebody tried to argue we weren’t but in my opinion we were.

We then shutdown the training ground and postponed some matches and many of our players we were told had Covid.  The club then opened back up and our form with Jack and then without Jack has been poor, and more importantly our performances have been really poor.

This in itself doesn’t determine covid is a reason but at the same time before shutdown our performances were good, post shutdown our performances have been poor.  Literally that trigger when our performances changed dramatically.

Secondly, we all have been told the symptoms of covid, we’ve all seen the explanations on the impact of certain organs of the body.  These organs are the same organs that elite footballers use, to be such elite footballers, like lung capacity.  For Ollie to do what he does he needs optimal lung efficiency.

We don’t fully know which of the players had covid, we don’t know how that impacted, damaged or there is residual impact or delay of covid out of the system.  For example when you break a bone, it heals in about six weeks but you generally have some aches and pains for a couple of months afterwards sometimes.  When you have the flu, you can get knock that over quite quickly but sometimes a cough can linger for another week or two.  There has been many scientific discussions about long covid but discovery is still in the early days.

For an elite footballer being 90%-95% effective compared to 100% can be huge and they might not fully know they are slightly under optimal.

So a long answer but the timing is the real key why we can’t exclude at the moment.  We can’t say it’s a reason, we can’t say it isn’t a reason but timing of change of form and the organs that are impacted due to covid means without more scientific discovery we cannot definitely rule it out.

Do I think it’s a reason? I honestly don’t know, I think there are so many reasons why our form has dipped that I went through on a recent post that’s it a bit of everything but I can’t agree with people who don’t think, with what seems a level of certainty, that covid wasnt an impact just because the timing.  It’s hard to dismiss the timing because it’s the point of change.

I can't argue with that, except to say correlation is not necessarily causation, of which you have alluded to, to be fair.

like you, I have no idea, but whilst, I have suspicions, I guess everyone does....its like many things in life, it could be a combination of many things.

[TRO]

20 hours ago, sheepyvillian said:

You could have fooled me.

That wasn't my intention.

[ciggiesnbeer]

5 hours ago, Tommo_b said:

10 points off a europa spot with a game in hand with 8 games still to go...

It’s a stretch sure... but let’s not pretend our season is over for a second, would you want to give up on a title race if you were only 10 points behind with a game in hand?

Lets not write the season off, let’s try encouraging the team to push on! 

Aye. Also every league position we gain is worth over a million quid in prize money. Not huge money but it all helps the summer window.

[TRO]

20 hours ago, DaveAV1 said:

I wouldn’t really disagree with you there TRO. Why these jobs are no longer being done as well as they were earlier in the season is the question we’d all like the answer too. Probably a number of factors all adding together in some strange complex way. Managers, coaches etc probably never 100% know exactly why they sometimes get everything right, sometimes everything just clicks. Conversely they are at times at a loss to explain why everything they touch turns to shit. 

I wish, i knew the answer, from experience, if you get one or two having a dipper, it takes the edge off performances, get 4/5 having a dipper and it affects the rest.

I think we have too many, not "at it".....and Dean has few options, without taking risks in other ways.

We just have to play our way through it, I guess.

[useless]

I can lift the veil off the mystery, we overachieved earlier in the season and were never going to keep that form up. We're not as good as our earlier season form indicated, sometimes you get some momentum going and it can put you in a false position.

[sne]

1 minute ago, useless said:

I can lift the veil off the mystery, we overachieved earlier in the season and were never going to keep that form up. We're not as good as our earlier season form indicated, sometimes you get some momentum going and it can put you in a false position.

That in combination with us now in poorer form than we're used to with our key player out makes the difference even more striking.

We are a midtable team in poor form. 

[TRO]

On 14/04/2021 at 19:07, Mjvilla said:

This is absolutely fair enough. I've looked at our possession stats between now and the beginning of the season. There's barely any change. I haven't looked in depth at anything like pass accuracy or anything but I would presume that would be far lower the last few months.

It shows to me that we were far more clinical with the ball in the first half to the second half of this season. There's the difference, for me. 

It's up to deano to work on why we have lost that. I'm sure he is, and I've no doubt he will put it right.

 

 

Scoring goals and being more clinical, may have been masking over an existing problem, earlier in the season.....not scoring, and not being clinical....maybe highlighting it.

I am not being faceitious, but its all in the game to be identified.

I was watching a 17 year old kid last night, not losing the ball, and staying in possession of it, whilst being harried and showing the composure of adults.

If you watch our midfield as opposed to stats, the tell tale signs are there.....I am not dismissing stats out of hand by the way.....but the answers are in the spectacle of the games.

 

Edited April 15, 2021 by TRO

[TRO]

44 minutes ago, useless said:

I can lift the veil off the mystery, we overachieved earlier in the season and were never going to keep that form up. We're not as good as our earlier season form indicated, sometimes you get some momentum going and it can put you in a false position.

Its a theory for sure.

[TRO]

20 hours ago, nick76 said:

But this is not true.  If we want to attract players in the summer, the better the league position will enhance our attraction to potential targets.  Finishing on a high and being a top 10 team or maybe 8th or 9th above so of the teams that will be competing for the same players is far better than finishing 11th or12th on a whimper.  It might also be perceived that early in the season was a blip and this was our true form or if we finish on a high that this current form was a blip.

This season more than any recently is a perception season to potential players looking to see if they want to join us.  Getting quality in or not.  It was rumoured some players weren’t interested last summer because of our positioning, so now we are looking even higher in quality we need to finish higher in the league as possible, so the season is far from over.

I think you are going to be massively disappointed expecting the kids in before the end of the season given they aren’t even making the bench at the moment really.  So I guess in a couple of months you’ll be against Smith.

I think you make some pertinent points about setting ourselves up as an attraction, not to mention the £1 mill per placing.

[ender4]

7 minutes ago, TRO said:

I think you make some pertinent points about setting ourselves up as an attraction, not to mention the £1 mill per placing.

£3.2 million per position.

Basically £10 million extra transfer kitty if we finish 8th rather than 11th.

[Indigo]

1 hour ago, sne said:

That in combination with us now in poorer form than we're used to with our key player out makes the difference even more striking.

We are a midtable team in poor form. 

Yeah I agree, our early season form was great to witness and I think on our day we can give any team more than a good game, but ultimately as much as I like more or less all of our players there's isn't a huge amount of them that would be getting into the starting XIs of the teams we'd be expected to overtake to get into the European places. 

[villa4europe]

39 minutes ago, ender4 said:

£3.2 million per position.

Basically £10 million extra transfer kitty if we finish 8th rather than 11th.

Which our owners will care about, Smith too, the players though... I doubt they care

Can't imagine Smith would get much joy screaming at Luiz and McGinn to run around a bit more because it puts an extra £3.2m in the clubs coffers 

[Tommo_b]

6 hours ago, VillanousOne said:

Lets look at the fixtures left:

Man City: Yes any game is winnable but without Grealish I can't see us winning against a team we have an absolutely comical record against

West Brom: A team fighting for the lives and on form, we would do well to get a draw

Everton (x2): Still chasing a Europa place - but their form is patchy, we could maybe get a win or draw as we have to play them twice, again without Grealish this will be tough.

Man Utd: See Man City

Palace: It will be two teams who by this time probably have nothing to play for, has draw written all over it. Maybe a win if Grealish is back. Also depends on whether Saha is playing.

Spurs: See Man City, again maybe a chance to get something if Grealish is back

Chelsea: I can't see us getting anything out of this match, they are a different team under Tuchel.

A lot of things can change for all teams involved in the final run in and our season seems to depend on whether we can win games without Grealish, or whether Grealish recovers in time to rescue anything from the run in.

I think we would be lucky to pick up six points.

I am not in charge (thank god) but I hope Dean will use the injury situation to try new tactics and maybe blood some youth, would rather we at least tried something different and still lost rather than the same formation, subs and tactics and losing.

 

 

Lucky to get a draw against West Brom?! 
 

Okay I may perhaps live on the optimistic side of things but I can see us getting 15 points from that lot.

Beat the baggies, toffees twice, palace and Spurs. 

[VillanousOne]

2 minutes ago, Tommo_b said:

Lucky to get a draw against West Brom?! 
 

Okay I may perhaps live on the optimistic side of things but I can see us getting 15 points from that lot.

Beat the baggies, toffees twice, palace and Spurs. 

I would love it if we got 15 points but you are being very optimistic.

If we had a bit of form and Grealish of course we could smash Baggies like we did earlier in the season, but they are winning games and fighting for their lives. We are losing games and most of our players look like they are already on the beach.

Only takes a bit of luck and for some confidence to come back to change things, to be honest I thought we had a 'bit of luck' against Fulham and that could be a turning point, I was wrong.

[nick76]

On 14/04/2021 at 21:38, foreveryoung said:

Trying to justify our poor form 'may' be down to Covid is utter bollox. I have not heard or seen no other team or single player in the whole of Europe having poor form which may be down to the effects of Covid, or any other athlete to be honest. It just seems some are finding anything to deflect the blame, that Smith, may just have run out of ideas without Grealish. I'm not saying he has, but it must be purely coincidental, Jack out, Villa shite.

Another report out yesterday!  I think you need to do a bit more research.

https://www.sbnation.com/2021/4/14/22383455/jayson-tatum-covid-celtics-inhaler
 

Quote

Jayson Tatum needs an inhaler before games due to long-term Covid symptoms

 

Quote

A Baylor School of Medicine study showed that as many as 10 percent of those who contracted the virus could become what are being called “long haulers.”

 

Quote

It raises questions about how sports leagues around the world could be damaged long term by players contracting Covid, even if they’ve seemingly fully recovered.

 

Edited April 15, 2021 by nick76

[nick76]

1 hour ago, villa4europe said:

Which our owners will care about, Smith too, the players though... I doubt they care

Can't imagine Smith would get much joy screaming at Luiz and McGinn to run around a bit more because it puts an extra £3.2m in the clubs coffers 

But separately but somewhat related re money there is talk about Luiz getting a new contract in the summer so when discussing terms we know players play better just before they sign a new potential contract, it gives them leverage.  He’s not showing that at the moment I will give you.

Edited April 15, 2021 by nick76