Dean Smith

[a m ole]

If the squad is mid table and Dean Smith gets them to stay and finish mid table, then is he not doing the absolute best possible with the squad?

What people want and expect from football is really strange

Edited October 16, 2021 by a m ole

[Xela]

Just now, Pissflaps said:

There is a real possibility these sorts of results cost him his job.

I have a feeling he won't see out the season personally. The club just seems to be drifting in no man's land.

I'm not sure how you have come to that conclusion? 9 times out of 10 we see that game out and win 2-0. We are then 7th.

"Drifting into no-mans land" seems a massive over-reaction. 

[VillaChris]

1 minute ago, a m ole said:

If the squad is mid table and Dean Smith gets them to stay and finish mid table, then is he not doing the absolute best possible with the squad?

Want people want and expect from football is really strange

Depends what mid table is. 12th-14th classed as mid table if you're about 15 points clear of 18th but would be worse than last season and below squad's level imo.

Wolves lost their first 3 games this season. However 94th minute goal has now put them above us so that's the danger really. I can't see us finishing top half this season if we're not above likes of Wolves in the table and generally there's little difference between the two squads bar perhaps them generally having a bit more top level experience.

[Zhan_Zhuang]

We were ten minutes away from finishing seventh place by the end of today's games and Five points off the top.

Yet we lost so lose six places, it's tough.

The players have to be mentally stronger and I thought they were which is why I'm really surprised they seemed to 'bottle it' last ten minutes?

I don't know who is to blame, surely the management must work on the theory, mentality, psychology of the players.

Ultimately the Manager will take it on his shoulders and if these results continue he will probably be gone sooner rather than later. It as be unfortunate but I don't think the owners will mess about.

If we are lucky and Bailey, Traore, Sanson can get fit for most of the season it will make a huge difference as we have had rotten luck with injuries.

[hippo]

7 minutes ago, VillaChris said:

Mid table teams can still challenge for 7th-8th. 8th place would be a pretty good finish for us this season even if it means no europe. Think back to Arsenal last season, bottom half for most of last season and were about 3 minutes off finishing 7th in the end.

If we're finishing 12th-13th and a good 10 + points off 8th then I really don't see an argument for DS continuing tbh. That would be classic case of manager doing an overall good job but taking side as far as he can.

If you wanted above 12th we needed to spend more in the summer and spend it more wisely.

This is a bottom half squad - that wouldn't change whoever the coach was.

At least we're not relying one player though.

 

[Talldarkandransome]

1 minute ago, a m ole said:

If the squad is mid table and Dean Smith gets them to stay and finish mid table, then is he not doing the absolute best possible with the squad?

What people want and expect from football is really strange

I personally think our best starting 11 is better than mid table but overall the squad is prob mid table. We are in the middle of restarting the club from nothingness to stability to greatness. We are somewhere in the stability zone right now but we are not totally free of nothingness just yet. Sacking Smith would be backwards thinking, I think Purslow and the owners would be thinking the same

[foreveryoung]

1 minute ago, JAMAICAN-VILLAN said:

This was way too reminiscent of some of our capitulations over past seasons.

To be fairz I'm not even sur eif I blame Deano.

Harsh reality is, we might have to start looking at some of our favourite defenders.

The fine margins, are even finer now, we can't afford some of the schoolboy errors we make individually now 

Have people noticed that almost ALL of the goals we concede, are from unforced individual errors?

This has always the case under Smith. How I see it is 95% of the games we lose, we either make silly mistakes or not play to the best of our ability, we rarely get out played. Smith has not routed this out of our game. If we are on it, we beat anyone, even Man U.

[Peter Griffin]

3 minutes ago, foreveryoung said:

This has always the case under Smith. How I see it is 95% of the games we lose, we either make silly mistakes or not play to the best of our ability, we rarely get out played. Smith has not routed this out of our game. If we are on it, we beat anyone, even Man U.

Nail on head

[foreveryoung]

1 minute ago, Sulberto21 said:

Because we're a mid table club in only our 3rd season back after the best part of nearly 10 seasons of mismanagement financially and with no clear structure and plan in place to move forward.

We have a young team prone to making mistakes. It happens weirdly enough. Dean Smith is also learning on the job. 

He made a huge mistake today in taking Buendia off (90% pass accuracy). Up until then we were cruising thanks to Dean's tactics and team selection. 

Don't agree. At this stage of the game it ain't good enough.

[VillaChris]

7 minutes ago, DCJonah said:

Well if its not good enough then the owners will sack him. So what's the panic?

Only issue then is we'll have 200 pages of people moaning Dean is only manager for us and we don't want mercenary managers coming in.

I'd pay Conte 200m a year if he was just here for 12 months and won us the FA cup and got us 4th.

[hippo]

1 minute ago, Sulberto21 said:

Because we're a mid table club in only our 3rd season back after the best part of nearly 10 seasons of mismanagement financially and with no clear structure and plan in place to move forward.

We have a young team prone to making mistakes. It happens weirdly enough. Dean Smith is also learning on the job. 

He made a huge mistake today in taking Buendia off (90% pass accuracy). Up until then we were cruising thanks to Dean's tactics and team selection. 

Dunno - 3 CBS at home v a weak wolves teams always seemed a bit odd to me.

[Peter Griffin]

3 minutes ago, Xela said:

Progress isn't always a straight line. 

No, but it is always and upward line

[hippo]

2 minutes ago, villalad21 said:

Or better coaches who can get more out of them.

Maybe.

Although Europe is stated aim I would wager it would be very much viewed as a bonus.

No disrespect to either player - but Nkamba and Ramsay wouldn't be any near the first team in a top 6 club.

 

[villa4europe]

2 minutes ago, VillaChris said:

Only issue then is we'll have 200 pages of people moaning Dean is only manager for us and we don't want mercenary managers coming in.

I'd pay Conte 200m a year if he was just here for 12 months and won us the FA cup and got us 4th.

And what if he didn't? 

There's a massive problem with the belief that there's a miracle manager fix all out there

There's a very real chance that we could sack Smith appoint Conte and still do absolutely **** all 

[MaVilla]

16 minutes ago, Zhan_Zhuang said:

We were ten minutes away from finishing seventh place by the end of today's games and Five points off the top.

Yet we lost so lose six places, it's tough.

The players have to be mentally stronger and I thought they were which is why I'm really surprised they seemed to 'bottle it' last ten minutes?

I don't know who is to blame, surely the management must work on the theory, mentality, psychology of the players.

Ultimately the Manager will take it on his shoulders and if these results continue he will probably be gone sooner rather than later. It as be unfortunate but I don't think the owners will mess about.

If we are lucky and Bailey, Traore, Sanson can get fit for most of the season it will make a huge difference as we have had rotten luck with injuries.

i dunno.

I like Deano so its really hard, but these types of situations just dont help at all, they say the teams mirror the manager, and i hope what we saw today wasnt a true reflection of that, but on the flip side of this, we cant detract on where he has taken the club since he took over.

Im torn, because i do think Dean is a critical part of developing the club ethos, the culture and helping to develop and bring our youth through, almost an overseer of the clubs youth and general cultural development.

However, on the flip side i still dont yet look at us and see a defined or exciting style of play after three years, in the Grealish times it was "lump it to Grealish", and currently we seem to be very keen on just lumping it down the wings and hoping something comes off, its just not good enough, the result we had today was a microcosm of how poor we can be, and when we are poor we are really really poor.

I think i can cut him a little slack as Bailey, Sanson, Buendia, Traore etc havent really had the chance to shine due to injuries/fitness etc, but again....on the flip side i think Deano persists with some players when they are clearly out of form etc, so in a sense he can be his own worst enemy!

for me, right now i feel quite polarized towards Deano, you cant deny a fairly large list of very positive aspects to his time managing Villa, but on the flip side of that, you would be blind or in denial, to not also see a list of some serious negatives.

Would a different manager get more out of the team?, quite possibly yeah, but will that manager be a fully integrated part of the cultural and youth development we are overseeing at the club currently?, unsure, and that side of the club is currently critically important and cant be lost under any circumstances.

Just my opinion.

Edited October 16, 2021 by MaVilla

[mykeyb]

It would be disappointing if Brentford finished above us at the end of the season because that would be down to coaching and transfer kitty.

Surely not going to happen

[VillaChris]

9 minutes ago, villalad21 said:

Also our best players like Martinez will start to leave if we're just "Okay"

Guy just won the Copa America. Do people really think he'll stick around while we sit 12th?

The aim is Europe. The owners want progression every season.

Think you can add Luiz aswell to that. He'll just have one year left in the summer and given his general reputation in game and way he's started the season they'll certainly be at least europea league standard clubs from europe seriously looking at him e.g. Roma who were linked in the summer.

[HeyAnty]

Needs the chop.  Isn’t a top 6 manager

[villalad21]

Just now, hippo said:

Maybe.

Although Europe is stated aim I would wager it would be very much viewed as a bonus.

No disrespect to either player - but Nkamba and Ramsay wouldn't be any near the first team in a top 6 club.

 

Should have prioritized another midfielder rather than Ings then.

[DCJonah]

4 minutes ago, Peter Griffin said:

No, but it is always and upward line

No it isn't.