Dean Smith

[DCJonah]

1 hour ago, Davkaus said:

Is it? By who?

By people who are desperate for it to be true so at one point they can claim to be right. 

Utter nonsense that the CEO would be calling him in to scold him after 1 game. 

 

Edited August 16, 2021 by DCJonah

[stewiek2]

Last summer we saw so many first team players post Instagram posts of them doing fitness regimes whilst on holiday. Hardly any posts from players this summer, the only one I can think of is him how followed the oil money.

The fact they were so up on showing how fit and committed they were last summer yet not this summer, on top of what seems to have been such a laid back organised preseason, from organising such weak opposition compared to last summer, to the timing of coaching staff leaving, doesn't look good to me. Either Smith has got lazy or he's been told he's surplus to requirements as someone else is coming in and wants his compensation. Something just doesn't sit right to me this summer on alot of levels.

Edited August 16, 2021 by stewiek2

[sheepyvillian]

4 hours ago, VillaFaninLondon said:

It's rumored Smith was called into Purslow's office post-match

Absolute hogwash and wishful thinking. 

[danceoftheshamen]

I think we are about to see for sure what DS is truly made of. 

I cannot disagree with some of the posts above that over a considerable number of games without that bloke who used to play for us who left for a scummy 6 team the other week, the performances have been that of relegation candidates. That really is undeniable. However the real test for DS is now. He has lost his right hand man and his big name assistant JT and we got off to an awful start after an atrocious pre season. Some players look unfit & off the pace and even worse just not "at it". 

New players have come in and even yesterday we still had players turning back up after extended breaks (Luiz). Injuries have also disrupted things (Sanson, Watkins & Buendia in Pre season). Other players have not come up to scratch (Wesley).

So this really is where we find out about Dean Smith. He has to try to gel this new team together minus two of his most trusted coaches & with effectively little to no Pre season and a poor opening day result & performance. He also has to try to somehow integrate the youngsters and deliver a European push.

I will watch with great interest and reserve any judgement until the time is right. Pressure is most definately on mind!

 

[VillaFaninLondon]

10 hours ago, DCJonah said:

In theory? 

Mid table championship to mid table prem team. Most progress of virtually any other professional team in the country during the same period. 

What part is just theory? 

The theory part is to caveat that I don't believe our progress is down to Smith's amazing management or tactical brilliance. We've been one of the biggest spenders in the last 3 years, you're making out (as ever) that we should have just stood still in that time but because of Smith we didn't. Rubbish. His record with Grealish was very good. His record without Grealish was woeful, including in the Championship. You do the maths. 

[VillaFaninLondon]

3 hours ago, danceoftheshamen said:

I think we are about to see for sure what DS is truly made of. 

I cannot disagree with some of the posts above that over a considerable number of games without that bloke who used to play for us who left for a scummy 6 team the other week, the performances have been that of relegation candidates. That really is undeniable. However the real test for DS is now. He has lost his right hand man and his big name assistant JT and we got off to an awful start after an atrocious pre season. Some players look unfit & off the pace and even worse just not "at it". 

New players have come in and even yesterday we still had players turning back up after extended breaks (Luiz). Injuries have also disrupted things (Sanson, Watkins & Buendia in Pre season). Other players have not come up to scratch (Wesley).

So this really is where we find out about Dean Smith. He has to try to gel this new team together minus two of his most trusted coaches & with effectively little to no Pre season and a poor opening day result & performance. He also has to try to somehow integrate the youngsters and deliver a European push.

I will watch with great interest and reserve any judgement until the time is right. Pressure is most definately on mind!

 

It absolutely is on. You don't fork out the amount we have on our squad to just be scrapping for survival. Minimum expectation this season will be to at least be roughly where we were last season in midtable. Realistic expectation will be top half. And the hope/ideal will be top 7.

I sill think we need a top quality CDM to push for Europe but even with the current squad midtable is more than a capable achievement. 

Terry and O'Kelly both going in the same summer was odd. Shakespeare is still here, which is fortunate because a lot of people said it was his ideas that helped us progress last season.

All I know is that the manager is yet to prove himself without JG. Wins without JG: 5 wins out of 28 games. Win % without JG: 18%. 13 of those 28 games came in the Championship.  It's an abysmal record. 

[Danishlad]

I was really disappointed. There seemed to be absolutely no team cohesion against Watford. And also no team cohesion in the friendly matches. Even Stoke beat us the same way. 

I really could t see what we were trying to do- apart from long balls forward. Added to the fact that we don’t look dangerous from set pieces at all. I think we are in for a long season. I hope I’m wrong. 
It doesn’t look like the team has improved since last year. In fact it has got worse.

If Smith keeps us up , he will have done well.

 

 

[villalad21]

39 minutes ago, VillaFaninLondon said:

It absolutely is on. You don't fork out the amount we have on our squad to just be scrapping for survival.

 

Minimum expectation this season will be to at least be roughly where we were last season in midtable. Realistic expectation will be top half. And the hope/ideal will be top 7.

 

I sill think we need a top quality CDM to push for Europe but even with the current squad midtable is more than a capable achievement. 

 

Terry and O'Kelly both going in the same summer was odd. Shakespeare is still here, which is fortunate because a lot of people said it was his ideas that helped us progress last season.

 

All I know is that the manager is yet to prove himself without JG. Wins without JG: 5 wins out of 28 games. Win % without JG: 18%. 13 of those 28 games came in the Championship. 

 

It's an abysmal record. 

That's the problem when you build your team around one player 

[DaveAV1]

The arguments used against Dean seem to be;

He spent money to rebuild a team full of loan players and players towards the end of their careers. He used, to the best advantage of the team, a player so good that he was worth £100m.

The team wasn’t as good without that player. Having permanently lost the player, he didn’t get the replacements playing brilliantly within 45 minutes.

A player that played throughout the entire summer shouldn’t get a couple of weeks off. 

Ok, if you say so. 

[VillaFaninLondon]

1 hour ago, Danishlad said:

I was really disappointed. There seemed to be absolutely no team cohesion against Watford. And also no team cohesion in the friendly matches. Even Stoke beat us the same way. 

I really could t see what we were trying to do- apart from long balls forward. Added to the fact that we don’t look dangerous from set pieces at all. I think we are in for a long season. I hope I’m wrong. 
It doesn’t look like the team has improved since last year. In fact it has got worse.

If Smith keeps us up , he will have done well.

 

 

He won’t have done well, he’ll have massively underachieved and if there’s any danger of us being in a relegation scrap he’ll be out of a job.

[nick76]

1 hour ago, DaveAV1 said:

The arguments used against Dean seem to be;

He spent money to rebuild a team full of loan players and players towards the end of their careers. 
 

He used, to the best advantage of the team, a player so good that he was worth £100m. 
 

The team wasn’t as good without that player. 
 

Having permanently lost the player, he didn’t get the replacements playing brilliantly within 45 minutes. 
 

A player that played throughout the entire summer shouldn’t get a couple of weeks off. 
 

Ok, if you say so. 

I completely agree.  Some on this thread have gone mental.

[DaveAV1]

2 minutes ago, nick76 said:

I completely agree.  Some on this thread have gone mental.

We could win the league and the CL and some people would say, “We only won it by 7 points a good manager would have won it by 10. As for beating Real Madrid 4-0 in the final, they ain’t the team they were and the fourth goal was a deflection.”

[villa4europe]

5 minutes ago, DaveAV1 said:

We could win the league and the CL and some people would say, “We only won it because we're a one man team, everything went through Chuk"

FTFY 

we have a mid table squad that will finish mid table, not sure what the knicker wetting is about, there's too many who's glass is permanently down to dregs let alone half empty 

[CVByrne]

We want to get a top half finish and improve our points tally from last season. We also want to see a team which is better in second half of season than first, a team who gel well and are competitive with the top teams. We then have Jack money to spend along with new commercial deals which means we sing more players next summer to improve the squad further. 

With NSWE backing us and a club that is clearly run very well we're a top 8 side for the forseeable future and European qualification at some point is almost guaranteed.

[villa4europe]

1 minute ago, CVByrne said:

We want to get a top half finish and improve our points tally from last season. We also want to see a team which is better in second half of season than first, a team who gel well and are competitive with the top teams. We then have Jack money to spend along with new commercial deals which means we sing more players next summer to improve the squad further. 

With NSWE backing us and a club that is clearly run very well we're a top 8 side for the forseeable future and European qualification at some point is almost guaranteed.

that's the way i see it too

but its important to highlight the ideas of next summer, the future and at some point - i completely agree, we will get there - but that's not necessarily right now which is what i think too many of our fans are starting to demand, comments like "we have to get europe this season" and then we lose the first game and comments like "thats top 6 gone" it has to be tempered and more realistic

this is a long long game, that 6 other clubs are trying to do exactly the same thing too

[Phil Silvers]

Almost a year ago our playing stats were amongst the best in Europe, we were possibly the most exciting team in this league. Dean Smith can do it, all that's changed is that we have sold our best player and replaced him with some bloody good ones. 

It takes time to gell and even longer when you have a preseason like ours.

If we add a couple of top class players, these need bedding in too. If we don't, we need Dougie and Sansom to rise to the challenge. 

Above all, we need the players to do what they are bloody told and stop making mistakes.

As Dave as said, we've had a shit 45 minutes, that included 2 flukey goals btw. There's a long way to go.

Whatever happens Saturday happens but we need to deafen the opposition, we need to get right behind our lads relentlessly while they are on that pitch.

[Sulberto21]

I can confirm I've heard from some sauces (yes) that Dean Smith was indeed called into Christian Purslow's office -

Apparently Doris the tea lady is leaving and she is going to be replaced by Mavis (who was West Bromwich Albion's tea lady) and Doris makes the meanest scones going with clotted cream and jam, so Mavis (whose interview also took place) had a scone off to see whose scones were best.

All the coaches were in. No one is confirming whose scones were best but apparently they had French Fancies , cream tea, crepes , those Eccles cakes too. Deano after the first bite said "yeah, No".....

Sounds things got wild when Mavis tried to sway the coaches with a bit of ankle.

Trust me @Phil Silvers would have after seeing those ankles.

[villa4europe]

@Sulberto21 just outed himself as football insiders man on the top floor of villa park

[DCJonah]

38 minutes ago, villa4europe said:

that's the way i see it too

but its important to highlight the ideas of next summer, the future and at some point - i completely agree, we will get there - but that's not necessarily right now which is what i think too many of our fans are starting to demand, comments like "we have to get europe this season" and then we lose the first game and comments like "thats top 6 gone" it has to be tempered and more realistic

this is a long long game, that 6 other clubs are trying to do exactly the same thing too

I've said it multiple times, but what on Earth has happened over the last decade that has created the entitlement some have?

Firstly, we've done something that the vast majority of promoted teams fail to do. We've stayed up and then progressed. And yes, you can mention money, but that didn't help Fulham, or Sheff U when they started to invest more. Even a team like Wolves haven't been able to maintain their excellent form shown previously. So let's not pretend what Dean has achieved so far is progressing "in theory."

The only thing I can conclude is the entitlement is there because it justifies the moaning and complaining and the dislike of the manager since day 1. Same as these hypothetical doomsday scenarios. 

Because if you're a fairly sensible fan with realistic expectations, then you'd look insane if you lost your shit after every game. Or if you were constantly wrong but kept saying that things were going to end badly. 

However, if you demand that European football this season is the only way to save the club, and life isn't worth living if it doesn't happen, then you can justify why after 1 game you're ranting and raving. It seems acceptable to then hit the panic button every single time things don't go to plan. 

I believe it has to be that, because for the life of me, I can't comprehend it otherwise. 

I wonder if other midtable fan bases have this same attitude amongst their fans. 

Edited August 17, 2021 by DCJonah

[villabromsgrove]

I had an interesting discussion this morning with a couple of other Villa fans (away from VT) about our performance against Watford. The consensus was similar to the view on VT, that the players we have should have been better than that performance.

Of course the players must take responsibility for their own failings on Saturday, but what about the coach/manager?

An hypothetical question was asked which was "If Antonio Conte became Villa manager would he get better performances out of the players we currently have?" An obvious but resounding yes was the answer. Dean is a very decent hard working and committed man, but he may be a distance away from being the most talented or best qualified manager/coach to take us forward.

I know that a "Conte" appointment isn't going to happen but it made me think about the fact that in order for AVFC to make the intended step up to European qualification, our management and coaching team have to be ahead of or better than the playing team in terms of getting the best out of new expensive signings.

Is that currently the case at Aston Villa? I'm not suggesting that Smith should or will be sacked in the immediate future, but I am interested in exactly what sort of quality coaching people think we need (or could attract) at this moment in time? At what point do our owners make a "formula one" decision where they match the best available driver with an expensively set up car, in order to get on to the podium?