Dean Smith

[gilbertoAVFC]

I'm all in for long ball til Grealish gets back.

4-4-fookin-2. Ping it up to Ollie and Keinan to bully the defenders. I don't even care. A failed experiment if nothing else, or a legitimate Plan B if we can master it. Big Wes to come on too.

Edited April 26, 2021 by gilbertoAVFC

[vreitti]

9 minutes ago, AvfcRigo82 said:

We didn't in our last game though.

My point I originally made is that we should be taking maximum points from these teams, not 50% of them.

Can you please enlighten me, as to why we "should be taking maximum points" from those teams? 

[AvfcRigo82]

3 minutes ago, vreitti said:

Can you please enlighten me, as to why we "should be taking maximum points" from those teams? 

In all fairness mate, if you cannot see it then it's going to be a waste of my time explaining it further.

[Rightdm00]

4 minutes ago, vreitti said:

Can you please enlighten me, as to why we "should be taking maximum points" from those teams? 

We are probably going to finish just a couple places above the bottom 6 yet we are supposed to maintain a perfect record against them as well. A top 4 team doesn't even have that requirement. 

[AvfcRigo82]

12 minutes ago, Rolta said:

If your point is to show you have unrealistic expectations and seem to think we're entitled to wins just for turning up then point well made.

[sheepyvillian]

2 hours ago, DaveAV1 said:

One maybe two players with a bit of bite could change things quite a lot. A busy and aggressive midfielder who could actually play a bit too could transform us. 

Spot on, Dave. Some strong bite required in the midfield. A Dennis Mortimer type would be ideal. I think you have to take into account that the game is a bit different from the era of midfield enforcers. The likes of Souness, Keane and others wouldn't last the 90 minutes in today's football. It is what it is, but I agree, we are short on aggression in the middle of the park.

I'm confident next season will be one of continual progress, hopefully we can push for a spot in Europe. What I do know is building a team requires patience from all involved, most importantly the fans.

Edited April 26, 2021 by sheepyvillian

[PaulC]

29 minutes ago, AvfcRigo82 said:

They were when we played them.

Newcastle (who were in the bottom six at the time we played them).

We never beat Sheff Utd either.

But they are not a bottom 6 team to be fair, they are better than that and will finish the season not far behind us. 

[abdulaziz1]

7 minutes ago, DCJonah said:

Again, expectations getting out of control is not Dean's problem. 

West Brom put 5 past Chelsea. Sheffield United beat Man U. 

But the way losing these results is the painful part. Against Sheff Utd they had one sent for almost one half. Yesterday we all saw the improvement after Davis came in. It’s clearly DS fault for thinking that Barkley, El Ghazi and Trez are solutions of Jack absent. We clearly need to change to a diamond, Ramsey is doing better than all three up there, and if Davis is only better in controlling the ball (which he is) he should play instead of them let alone he’s better in many other aspects. 
I thank DS for all of what he done to us, I’m still wishful he can improve us. But yesterday for example, he didn’t change anything until 70’s, the game was crying for Davis he should atleast got him at 60. El Ghazi has his moments but he doesn’t know how to control a ball, against teams that park the bus it will be useless. 
Yes DS lost us couple of points because of his whishful thinking about some players, he seems to think (I will regret it if I take this player or that out). It took him 8 bad games for Barkley to show him the bench way. 
Even big managers loses points because of some bad decisions such as Klopp and Pep. So I’m not saying anything. But we could avoided loss at Liverpool, Sheff Utd and avoided draws against Newcastle and West Brom. 
Playing without wingers is our main solution without Jack. 
For example, Watkins was bullying Liverpool defenders, what would Davis has done to them that day? Yet he got Barkley who lost us the game. 
It’s not about expectations, it’s about not trying the obvious changes to the tactics or players. And here we’re speaking about the weak links, we’re not saying take good players because of a bad form, we’re not saying take Martinez, Watkins, Konsa, Mings, Targett or even McGinn because of a drop in form. We’re mentioning the wingers who are bad. Use one of them or two from the bench. But try other things which will definitely work. 
 

[vreitti]

4 minutes ago, AvfcRigo82 said:

In all fairness mate, if you cannot see it then it's going to be a waste of my time explaining it further

Is it because two years ago we finished 5th in the championship? Or is it cus we managed to stay in the PL by the skin of our teeth last year? Or is perhaps cus we are Aston Villa and we're just that good? You're probably right. I wouldn't understand. 

[foreveryoung]

When we lose against the crap teams, we play crap this is the frustration. It's not as though we play out our skins, but just could not manage, it's like we to go into the games thinking it's too easy. The Sheffield United game against 10 was the one of the worse I seen us play this season, even the first half against Fulham recently was awful, but we proved we can do it. It's a rare occasion, we play to the best of our ability and lose.

[DCJonah]

57 minutes ago, abdulaziz1 said:

But the way losing these results is the painful part. Against Sheff Utd they had one sent for almost one half. Yesterday we all saw the improvement after Davis came in. It’s clearly DS fault for thinking that Barkley, El Ghazi and Trez are solutions of Jack absent. We clearly need to change to a diamond, Ramsey is doing better than all three up there, and if Davis is only better in controlling the ball (which he is) he should play instead of them let alone he’s better in many other aspects. 
I thank DS for all of what he done to us, I’m still wishful he can improve us. But yesterday for example, he didn’t change anything until 70’s, the game was crying for Davis he should atleast got him at 60. El Ghazi has his moments but he doesn’t know how to control a ball, against teams that park the bus it will be useless. 
Yes DS lost us couple of points because of his whishful thinking about some players, he seems to think (I will regret it if I take this player or that out). It took him 8 bad games for Barkley to show him the bench way. 
Even big managers loses points because of some bad decisions such as Klopp and Pep. So I’m not saying anything. But we could avoided loss at Liverpool, Sheff Utd and avoided draws against Newcastle and West Brom. 
Playing without wingers is our main solution without Jack. 
For example, Watkins was bullying Liverpool defenders, what would Davis has done to them that day? Yet he got Barkley who lost us the game. 
It’s not about expectations, it’s about not trying the obvious changes to the tactics or players. And here we’re speaking about the weak links, we’re not saying take good players because of a bad form, we’re not saying take Martinez, Watkins, Konsa, Mings, Targett or even McGinn because of a drop in form. We’re mentioning the wingers who are bad. Use one of them or two from the bench. But try other things which will definitely work. 
 

I was responding to someone who claimed not taking maximum points from the bottom 3 wasn't good enough. That's expectations.

[Rightdm00]

3 minutes ago, foreveryoung said:

When we lose against the crap teams, we play crap this is the frustration. It's not as though we play out our skins, but just could not manage, it's like we to go into the games thinking it's too easy. The Sheffield United game against 10 was the one of the worse I seen us play this season, even the first half against Fulham recently was awful, but we proved we can do it. It's a rare occasion, we play to the best of our ability and lose.

That's the issue with young teams the variance in performance level is large. Sometimes they will look like world beaters and then others completely inept. That's why managers tend not to trust youth players because you don't know what you will get day to day. A big part in the maturation of a footballer is learning how to deliver your best effort game after game. We have to give this team time to grow. 

We have Mings as one of the older heads trying to bring a level of calmness on the pitch but even he is vastly under experienced for his age.  I think patience is the name of the game or we start buying older, more experienced players. 

[AvfcRigo82]

1 hour ago, vreitti said:

Is it because two years ago we finished 5th in the championship? Or is it cus we managed to stay in the PL by the skin of our teeth last year? Or is perhaps cus we are Aston Villa and we're just that good? You're probably right. I wouldn't understand. 

Whatever you want it to be.

[barry'sboots]

17 hours ago, Dave-R said:

I would most likely give Smith a summer spend, it is probably the way to go about it and the right thing to do.it wouldn't stop me as an Owner though having someone lined up the moment things do start going wrong next season. Any new guy coming in would need as much time to start as he could get. I'm not saying get rid of Smith next season but being prepared in case you do is a wide move.

I would however expect us to now go after the best we possibly can, we can't keep doing this one man army thing any longer we need two or three signings who can hold there own. If Grealish is out we don't get this one man army tag against us and to get rid we need capable and quality players. With Grealish if we can have a total counting our main man of around 4 players who can do what the skipper does but in there own way, it would signal to us fans that things are still moving in the right direction, it would indeed be another hurdle we have overcome. We have to remove the barrier of who we signed summer gone and replace it with a new barrier with much more expensive players. If we don't buy much much better then we will most likely run into these problems were running into the same consistency as were doing now. We will miss Europe entirely next season as we have this season if we don't improve on who comes into the club.

I think that the good thing about us now is that this would not be Smith's summer spend, it would be the clubs i.e. Lange and his department would ultimately control the recruitment with Dean and the team giving their views/input, but, ultimately, we are buying players to play a certain way that transcends managers.  Should it not work out for Dean, this makes it much easier to remove him and bring in a successor.

I think we need a RW and an ACM/LW (depending how we plan to use Jack - personally I would keep him on the LW) with a back up creative type that can cover LW/ACM.  For me a Rashica/Pereira (I thought he was good yesterday) and a Buendia/Sarr/Brooks with Olise as back up/rotation/bench.  I would also love a new "9" to compete with Ollie and Wes with KD going out on loan to get games.  Beyond that a strong DCM and a back up left back.  We would then have a quality squad and shouldn't be a one man team creatively.  From my perspective, Jack's input is probably more important in this than Smith's, as Jack will need to see sufficient investment/personnel upgrades to convince him to stay which I think 99.9% of us would want.

[TRO]

4 hours ago, vreitti said:

Sure, I misunderstood this at first, but as far as comparisons go, it just isn't that simple in my view. 

I get what you're saying, and it's a real pity we didn't manage to challenge the top6 better, considering our position at the turn of the year... However, the yearly progress is there for all to see. I just have a hard time partitioning progress within a season. It might prove a narrow point you want to make, but I guess I'm not too bothered by that point for the moment.

its the one win in 8 games, that is pre occupying my mind right now, allied to the performances  and speculation of Jack going and bringing in Todd Cantwell,as his replacement doesn't fill me with glee.

 

[TRO]

3 hours ago, DaveAV1 said:

One maybe two players with a bit of bite could change things quite a lot. A busy and aggressive midfielder who could actually play a bit too could transform us. 

I totally agree, just can't see it happening.

I think this window, is going to prove to be difficult for us.

[allani]

The "debate" continues to rage strong on this.  I've tried to take a step back from my frustration yesterday to articulate my concerns about Smith.  At the start of the season I would absolutely have been happy to be looking at finishing in the top half of the bottom half of the table.  I wasn't caught up in our amazing start to the season thinking that we could challenge the Top 6.  I'm not an "entitled" fan who thinks that Villa deserve to be a top half club just because we are Aston Villa.  On paper I think we should be finishing around 14th (I believe we have a better starting XI than Sheffield Utd, West Brom, Fulham, Brighton, Burnley and Palace).  So in theory we are ahead of target.  However, if you take our last 20 matches (which includes a cup match) we are: W5 D5 L10.  Which would get us 20 points.  Now if we followed that "form" across a whole season we'd get 38 points.  Or at this point in the season we'd be Played 32, Points 32.  Which would have us 17th, two points below Brighton with a game in hand, four points adrift of Newcastle, Southampton and Burnley.  Still better than where we were last season but not as much as the actual table suggests.  It just feels like in each of the last three seasons we've had one amazing run of results (admittedly quite a long one in two of those three seasons) that has saved us.  So either you can look at this as - "hey we're 11th / 12th that is amazing" or you can say "hey for the last 2/3rds of the season our return is concerning".  My worry is that we are still massively inconsistent - we'll be amazing for some of the time and awful at others.  But we're not inconsistent for odd games - we seem to have a cycle of being awful / amazing in waves.  This is when the manager / coaching staff have to find ways of reversing a cycle / wave and proactively change the pattern.  When we are doing well - Smith's non-tinkering approach works well (although I am worried that it means that key players are more likely to get injured because they are playing so much).  However, he's always so late making subs and so often just makes like for like changes.  Sometimes these work but for every Fulham recently there have been 3 or 4 times when nothing changed.  I think we have underperformed in the last 20 matches as much as we overperformed in the first 15.  I'd be much, much happier if we were sat here at P 32 Pts 45 - if those points had been spread fairly evenly through the season.  Indeed I'd probably be sat here writing about how it is ridiculous that Smith's position is being questioned.  However, 20 matches is a seriously long time to have gone with form that places us 17th in the league.  So my worry is - what happens if we start next season poorly?  Will Smith get us consistently picking up enough points or will we be relying on another golden spell to keep us out of danger?  For me I just don't see him learning lessons and fixing (or even trying to fix) them.  He's picked the same formation and same tactics for most of this 20 game run - which feels like he is "hoping" that something will click rather than "trying" to make it click.  All teams / managers have good and bad runs and it is undeniably difficult to break a "losing" habit - you also don't want to be chopping and changing tactics the whole time.  But surely it is not too much to ask that when we have tried the same thing over and over without it working that we at least try something a little different.  I appreciate that had this form been season long then 32 points would still only have us 4 points behind my "paper target" of 14th.  But it is also only 5 points ahead of the relegation places (with a game in hand).  Yes for some / most of that run we have been without our best player but other teams have suffered injury issues too and you can't rely on your best player(s) being fit and on form all season.  I don't think we can sit back and just say that everything is OK.  I don't think that most of this season has been as big a progression as the table suggests.  Defensively, we look much stronger.  Ollie is by far more threatening than any of our strikers last season but still gets too isolated.  But the basic problems of our midfield getting over-run, not creating enough chances, hitting too many aimless crosses into the box with no-one attacking them - etc remain.  Yes, we have had to rebuild a team (twice) from the team that Bruce "built" and yes FFP has meant that we've not been able to strengthen as much as Smith and the Board would have wanted. But everything is not rosy.  Maybe it is not as bleak as maybe I felt after 85 minutes last night either.  Should Smith be sacked now?  No.  But should his position be under review?  I think it should.  I'd want him to answer questions about why our form since January has been so poor, why we've stuck with the same system, why our subs tend to be introduced well after our opponents, etc.  Hopefully, he can give good responses to all of those and explain exactly what he needs moving forwards.  Hopefully, with the right investment of the summer, this time next year, we'll all be sitting here, with Villa probably sitting in a similar position in the table but having had a more consistent season that has us (or me!) looking forward to the following season with more optimism than concern, laughing about how ridiculous it was to doubt Deano!!  I appreciate that not everyone will share my views and that there are several "what ifs" in any discussion.  But please be assured my frustration with Smith is not born out of a misguided notion that we are a top half team.  He deserves plenty of credit for the last 3 seasons and the start of this season.  But equally those 3 seasons do not give him a "get out of jail free card" to ignore some of the very evident concerns that our performances over the last four months have raised.  UTV

[Demitri_C]

You cant defend a total of 3 points from newcastle wba sheff utd Burnley and brighton .

Thats awful.

We got 3 against fulham but we were dreadful for 72 .minutes of that game.

Jack or no jack that is not good enough and i expect better

[AvfcRigo82]

2 minutes ago, Demitri_C said:

You cant defend a total of 3 points from newcastle wba sheff utd Burnley and brighton .

Thats awful.

We got 3 against fulham but we were dreadful for 72 .minutes of that game.

Jack or no jack that is not good enough and i expect better

You'll be suprised.

The same camp are still going strong Dem.

[allani]

47 minutes ago, Rightdm00 said:

That's the issue with young teams the variance in performance level is large. Sometimes they will look like world beaters and then others completely inept. That's why managers tend not to trust youth players because you don't know what you will get day to day. A big part in the maturation of a footballer is learning how to deliver your best effort game after game. We have to give this team time to grow. 

We have Mings as one of the older heads trying to bring a level of calmness on the pitch but even he is vastly under experienced for his age.  I think patience is the name of the game or we start buying older, more experienced players. 

The trouble is that it has been a long, long time now since we have looked like world beaters.  If we were in the exact same position as we are now (same games, same points) but we'd been brilliant one match, crap the next, OK the one after - then I would agree with your point (almost) completely.  However, we were amazing for 10 - 12 matches and then largely awful for 20.  So its less about performance variance as described above.  Again age still plays a part in why we seem to play in waves but it probably isn't the primary issue.  I like the current recruitment approach and hopefully this summer we will see a genuine increase in the quality of our recruits but without our average age increasing significantly.