Dean Smith

[allani]

15 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

Exactly even 6 points from those potential 18 is poor - especially as we probably ended up with more points than our performances deserved.  I don't think anyone genuinely thinks that we should have expected to pick up all 18 points.  But you'd definitely expect to be into double figures and maybe pointing to one or two key instances as to why it wasn't more.

[barry'sboots]

17 hours ago, ozvilla28 said:

That fact is that we couldn't win against the second bottom side to many excuses here that is the reality at the end of the day and it's poor.

I disagree.  This, in itself, is not poor.  Man U lost at home to Sheff U.  Liverpool have had some cracking losses.  That's the great thing about the PL ... anybody can beat anybody on a given day.  What is poor, is the consistently ineffectual performances that we have experienced over the last three months, against all types of teams.  The drop off in performance has been amazing from all but the back five and Ollie, imho and there doesn't appear to be any obvious reason (other than Jack's injury but we were poor in his last couple of games and we should still be able to play to a better standard than we have without him).  Where we have won games, it is typically due to our defensive strengths - often holding on to an early goal advantage - but Smith and his team do deserve credit for getting this right and it is certainly a solid base on which to move forward.  Whoever came up with Signing Emi needs a huge pat on the back!!

This thread is really divided into two camps:

1. Smith is doing a grand job and we are progressing every season; and

2. What is going on at the minute!

There's not too much in the middle.  However, as a few have said, all of us are making these comments from a Villa supporting perspective and only wanting the best for our club.  We may differ in how we see that being achieved but I have no doubt we all want the best for the Villa.

As some will know, I am firmly in the latter camp.  I do recognise the progress and I am massively thankful for that, but I also recognise that we are lucky enough to have owners who have invested heavily over the last two seasons (I don't doubt that it was necessary BUT my Baggie's supporting mate, for example, is massively jealous of this huge benefit that we have) coinciding with us just happening to have developed the best attacking English player in the league.  So I don't think our progression in the league is as miraculous as some on here do.

I do also recognise the limitations within our squad but my principal frustration is that Smith won't give KD more of an opportunity.  I have been saying this for weeks and well before the Fulham game.  And this is not because I think he will be the next Ronaldo (although I do believe he has a lot more potential than a lot of Villa supporters give him credit for) but because (1) our wide players have been so ineffectual; and (2) without Jack and a performing Barkley, Ollie is so isolated.  Even Nick76, who clearly doesn't rate KD and is a huge advocate of Smith, recognises that KD should be getting more of a chance following the Fulham game.  I think Smith doesn't give him a chance because he is so wedded to playing with two wingers, even when that clearly hasn't been working for us, and wrongly so in my opinion.  BT has looked poor/inconsistent recently and I also think that he could benefit from playing at "10" behind KD and Ollie with the freedom to float (given three CM'ers behind him) and go either side - if he is central his pace, or lack thereof, is less exposed and he would be more able to find pockets of space.  As an example, I think KD's physical presence and Ollie with support could have really given us an edge against Spurs the other week when their CB pairing looked really shakey - we will never know BUT I do know that what we did put out did not!

Also, what concerns me about the current run is that we are in Sheff Utd territory - a great first half of the season that tails off dramatically and that momentum, or lack of it, is carried in to the following season.  I don't think this will happen with us as (1) the owners will wade in again; and (2) Jack should, hopefully, be back and firing.  However, Dean will be under pressure to deliver next season if he is still here.  I have no doubt that our owners will demand this.  For me, this doesn't necessarily equate to European football at the end of the season, as there are other clubs significantly ahead of us, but it does require a consistent level of performance and competitiveness - something we have certainly not seen in the second half of this season.  We have to be up there with the "best of the rest" and delivering week in week out.  We won't always get results, just as Leicester and Wolves, for example, haven't over the last few seasons, although, like most of us, I would hope that we can, but we want to be consistently giving the big clubs a hard time and an occasional bloody nose, just as we did at the start of this season.

I hope Smith is there delivering the goods as I think the players like and respect him and I don't think that there is anybody on VT that doesn't like him - he is, after all, one of our own.  I just think he needs to develop as a coach at this level - as most would - and my worry for him is that he may not get the time to do that if he doesn't show it quickly/at the start of next season, especially if the owners go big again, as we all hope they will. 

[Davkaus]

I'm very unhappy with that points tally we got form those fixtures. But at the same time, despite that, we're solidly midtable, which suggests we did better than we might expect against better clubs.

There's plenty of room for improvement, and especially over the past couple of months I've been incredibly unimpressed with how poor we are without Grealish. I'm not willing to entertain the idea of replacing Smith when, despite underperforming against lower table opposition, we're still improved year on year, even with our best player out for a couple of months.

[osmark86]

Dean Smith is quickly turning into a subject one simply does not discuss on a first date.

Edited April 26, 2021 by osmark86

[Davkaus]

1 minute ago, osmark86 said:

Dean Smith is quickly turning into a subject one simple does not discuss on a first date.

Third date, after broaching the topics of politics and anal?

[osmark86]

Just now, Davkaus said:

Third date, after broaching the topics of politics and anal?

Just after gimping.

[Villaphan04]

37 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

Liverpool has 4 points from those same games which include scoreless losses to brighton burnley and fulham 

[AvonVillain]

Speaking as a huge DS fan, and not someone prone to hyperbole or unreasonable (stupid) demands, I am honestly beginning to worry that Dean might be developing his eventual downfall, much like our previous managers, or in fact any manager.

Is it unclear what brings about José Mário dos Santos Mourinho's downfall with every club, and potentially bringing his career to a surprisingly early end? No. But let's stick with what we care about. Martin O'Neill and his lack of rotation, and therefore inability to win when the weather turned nice. Big Eck and his propensity to say 'Free hit' against any above average opposition, thus demotivating the squad and lowering standards, backed up by playing anything up to 7 defenders at once. Paul Lambert's "I thought we were excellent" despite losing at home to a fellow relegation candidate without a shot on target. Steve Bruce playing a respected, solid midfielder in central defence with calamitous results, and shoving the most talented central defender we had to right back or not bothering to use Tuanzebe at all.

There just comes a breaking point, when the manager's belief in a certain action becomes so obviously counterproductive, that even the managers themselves seem not to believe in it, but act instead out of a self-destructive habit. I really hope Dean sees his general lack of decisive action before the 80th minute as not being as proactive as he could be. I really hope that Dean finally sees constantly playing a single striker against even the most modest opposition in fact makes us quite modest opposition. I really hope all this talk; the same as we've heard for many years despite being truly terrible, of a route into the first team for the youth, finally happens, but the evidence of playing players dwindling down their contracts or about to be sent back to their parent club, despite nothing to play for but pride, suggests otherwise.

I mostly hope Dean recognises these flaws because I think having an excellent manager and world class captain who are Villa fans is something of a dream come true, and that I honestly thought Dean Smith just might be the new Ron Saunders (and still do).

[TRO]

1 hour ago, allani said:

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

One of the best, most balanced posts, I have read on here, for some time.....Bravo, my friend.

My sentiments in a nutshell.

[MrBlack]

Take the most creative player in the league out of any team, and you'll see that team a struggle. Take the most creative player in the league out of a team that finished 17th the season before and that team will really struggle. 

Throw in the other circumstances and we're about par for the course with the squad and players we have available to us at the moment.

Dean could have experimented more to try and find a better return, but I'm not convinced we have the players in reserve that would have given us a better return. We have a very finite squad, and the owners will be seeing this. They'll have also seen what Dean can do when things are good. He gets a pass from me for this season whatever now happens. He doesn't get a free ride next year as we need to continue pushing on, at a rapid rate, and to do so we need to add depth to our squad.

[TRO]

18 minutes ago, AvonVillain said:

Speaking as a huge DS fan, and not someone prone to hyperbole or unreasonable (stupid) demands, I am honestly beginning to worry that Dean might be developing his eventual downfall, much like our previous managers, or in fact any manager.

Is it unclear what brings about José Mário dos Santos Mourinho's downfall with every club, and potentially bringing his career to a surprisingly early end? No. But let's stick with what we care about. Martin O'Neill and his lack of rotation, and therefore inability to win when the weather turned nice. Big Eck and his propensity to say 'Free hit' against any above average opposition, thus demotivating the squad and lowering standards, backed up by playing anything up to 7 defenders at once. Paul Lambert's "I thought we were excellent" despite losing at home to a fellow relegation candidate without a shot on target. Steve Bruce playing a respected, solid midfielder in central defence with calamitous results, and shoving the most talented central defender we had to right back or not bothering to use Tuanzebe at all.

There just comes a breaking point, when the manager's belief in a certain action becomes so obviously counterproductive, that even the managers themselves seem not to believe in it, but act instead out of a self-destructive habit. I really hope Dean sees his general lack of decisive action before the 80th minute as not being as proactive as he could be. I really hope that Dean finally sees constantly playing a single striker against even the most modest opposition in fact makes us quite modest opposition. I really hope all this talk; the same as we've heard for many years despite being truly terrible, of a route into the first team for the youth, finally happens, but the evidence of playing players dwindling down their contracts or about to be sent back to their parent club, despite nothing to play for but pride, suggests otherwise.

I mostly hope Dean recognises these flaws because I think having an excellent manager and world class captain who are Villa fans is something of a dream come true, and that I honestly thought Dean Smith just might be the new Ron Saunders (and still do).

I just hope that Dean keeps his job, and turns this around.....but in the event he doesn't, why would we be going in to next season giving him, x amount of games and finding nothing has changed and we are fighting the drop, with yes, a new manager who wants "time"

We have seen these scenario's over the years, so many times, where indecisive hierarchy haved cause us to dither and subsequently find a difficult situation to recover from....I am rather hoping, that is a thing of the past.

Our Owners and Christian Purslow, will know Dean ,warts 'n all.....they see him at work every day, they will know, whether all is rosy or whether we will need a change.....I just hope either way the summer is the time to make that decision....not in to a new season.

If we arrest this poor run of form, I favour Dean has nothing to fear.

[foreveryoung]

1 hour ago, AvfcRigo82 said:

You'll be suprised.

The same camp are still going strong Dem.

I like the one "we can lose every game from now until the end of the season it don't matter, we have still progressed".

[osmark86]

8 minutes ago, foreveryoung said:

I like the one "we can lose every game from now until the end of the season it don't matter, we have still progressed".

It too makes me hard

[TRO]

30 minutes ago, MrBlack said:

Take the most creative player in the league out of any team, and you'll see that team a struggle. Take the most creative player in the league out of a team that finished 17th the season before and that team will really struggle. 

Throw in the other circumstances and we're about par for the course with the squad and players we have available to us at the moment.

Dean could have experimented more to try and find a better return, but I'm not convinced we have the players in reserve that would have given us a better return. We have a very finite squad, and the owners will be seeing this. They'll have also seen what Dean can do when things are good. He gets a pass from me for this season whatever now happens. He doesn't get a free ride next year as we need to continue pushing on, at a rapid rate, and to do so we need to add depth to our squad.

but that is not entirely the case is it , after we finished 17th, we spent the best part of £100 mill on new players and fortunately for us they proved to be good signings.....we started very, very well and that is the team that our talisman has come out of.

I understand, your point and it has validity, but other teams of relative comparison have to compensate for these things, thats 2 seasons on the trot, we have lost Jack to a long term absence, to be fair, otherwise he is injury free on the whole....he just has these long spells.

Its without doubt our early season form has quelled any anxiety, but the storm clouds gather and while its not raining, it soon could be, if we don't snap out of this.

This summer will require another bunch of Nous in the market, yet again, and it gets more difficult as the ambition gets higher.....I sincerely hope we can raise the bar.

Edited April 26, 2021 by TRO

[osmark86]

Just now, TRO said:

but that is not entirely the case it , after we finished 17th, we spent the best part of £100 mill on new players and fortunately for us they proved to be good signings.....we started very, very well and that is the team that our talisman has come out of.

I understand, your point and it has validity, but other teams of relative comparison have to compensate for these things, thats 2 seasons on the trot, we have lost Jack to a long term absence, to be fair, otherwise he is injury free on the whole....he just has these long spells.

Its without doubt our early season form has quelled any anxiety, but the storm clouds gather and while its not raining, it soon could be, if we don't snap out of this.

This summer will require another bunch of Nous in the market, yet again, and it gets more difficult as the ambition gets higher.....I sincerely hope we can raise the bar.

I think we will be able to raise the bar as he has in the past. Long spells of excellent vs bad has been the habit under his tenure. But we have always excelled if every so slightly. I'm personally not too worried although I do agree with some of your points about us needing a bit more urgency and aggression. Dean hasn't let me down yet looking at the broader picture. Also I'm happy he's a Villa fan, well spoken and seemingly intelligent.

Plus isn't it nice not going through heaps of new managerial faces for once?

[TRO]

15 minutes ago, osmark86 said:

I think we will be able to raise the bar as he has in the past. Long spells of excellent vs bad has been the habit under his tenure. But we have always excelled if every so slightly. I'm personally not too worried although I do agree with some of your points about us needing a bit more urgency and aggression. Dean hasn't let me down yet looking at the broader picture. Also I'm happy he's a Villa fan, well spoken and seemingly intelligent.

Plus isn't it nice not going through heaps of new managerial faces for once?

I mean who wants that?....but equally, who wants 5 wins since Boxing Day.

He has to address the issues mentioned on this site.

[vreitti]

34 minutes ago, foreveryoung said:

I like the one "we can lose every game from now until the end of the season it don't matter, we have still progressed".

Sometimes the truth hurts mate. 

[osmark86]

1 minute ago, TRO said:

I mean who wants that?....but equally, who wants 5 wins since Boxing Day.

He has to address the issues mentioned on this site.

It's been a bad run agreed and I'm sure a lot of us see the same issues. I'm confident he sees our woes like we do and that him and his team are working on it. For various reasons (pick your poison) it's not 100% working out atm but I have no doubt he'll get us kicking again as he has in the past.

So while I think we've been a little shit lately I've still enjoyed this season. Summer seems like a bit of a blessing though..

[DCJonah]

2 hours 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

It's not really a case of defending it. You've picked a few poor results. On the flipside you can point to a few brilliant results, but of course you wouldn't do that. 

As so many keep trying to explain, it's what midtable teams tend to do. Great results, poor results and then pretty standard what you'd expect results. 

[foreveryoung]

41 minutes ago, foreveryoung said:

I like the one "we can lose every game from now until the end of the season it don't matter, we have still progressed".

Yeah it was you! @DCJonah