Dean Smith

[DCJonah]

I think the main similarity with Smith and MON, is that there's a section of the fanbase with unrealistic expectations and the assumption that replacing the manager will make us better. 

[Woody1000]

Just now, DCJonah said:

I think the main similarity with Smith and MON, is that there's a section of the fanbase with unrealistic expectations and the assumption that replacing the manager will make us better. 

I really wasn’t comparing the 2, I was just pointing out the similarities in circumstances.

[CVByrne]

It's early days in the season so far, we've had lots of ups and downs. Wolves capitulation was a freak result and we've lacked consistency with players having to fly to South America, with injuries either keeping players out or robbing them of pre season and time to get going fully. 

We've new coaches too and I can't help but feel losing Terry has impacted us defensively. Our new attack coach will need time to get our attacking game working because right now we're 5th worst in terms of xG and have the 5th most goals conceded. So things need to turn around and we need to get back to the 4 at the back that were so solid last season. 

Smith has always been a decent manager on the evidence to date. He'll certainly get this season to show he's the man for the job and I think he'll get us a top half finish and have the team firing properly in the latter half of the season once the team gels and adapts to the new coaching. 

[DCJonah]

8 minutes ago, Woody1000 said:

I really wasn’t comparing the 2, I was just pointing out the similarities in circumstances.

I know. I just saw his name mentioned a few times and that's the first thing that came to my mind. 

[bobzy]

52 minutes ago, DCJonah said:

I think the main similarity with Smith and MON, is that there's a section of the fanbase with unrealistic expectations and the assumption that replacing the manager will make us better. 

If I'm honest, I don't think many people harbour unrealistic expectations.  They may be higher (let's say, pushing for 6th place) than I, personally, would "expect" but I don't think there are many people (if any) expecting a push for CL places and beyond.

As I've said before, people just cannot deal with defeat/failure.  It's such a major part of football but people can't cope.  It ruins weekends and sees those "expectations" become further away so, naturally, leads to conflict of sorts.

[DCJonah]

25 minutes ago, bobzy said:

If I'm honest, I don't think many people harbour unrealistic expectations.  They may be higher (let's say, pushing for 6th place) than I, personally, would "expect" but I don't think there are many people (if any) expecting a push for CL places and beyond.

As I've said before, people just cannot deal with defeat/failure.  It's such a major part of football but people can't cope.  It ruins weekends and sees those "expectations" become further away so, naturally, leads to conflict of sorts.

That's partly what I mean by unrealistic expectations. The idea that 55 pts isn't good enough because of bad spells. Or that as a midtable team, we shouldn't lose to perceived weaker teams or that we should be consistent week in week out. 

 

[avfc1982am]

1 hour ago, DCJonah said:

I think the main similarity with Smith and MON, is that there's a section of the fanbase with unrealistic expectations and the assumption that replacing the manager will make us better. 

Don't be silly.

MON HAD run his course at least a year before he left. It is not unrealistic in any shape or form to expect other managers to surpass what is current. Unless your winning consistently. 

If we are saying it is unrealistic to expect better then we may as well shut up shop, liquidate the club and turn the ground into an Aldi ffs. 

[TrentVilla]

I mentioned O’Neill as a comparison to the current situation with Smith, it wasn’t an invitation to have the same circular debates about him we had 11 years ago. So on topic please.

[avfc1982am]

1 minute ago, DCJonah said:

And yet still got more points the following season. And as a club, we didn't come close to spending the amount over a period of time, that it took City and Spurs to crack that top 4, yet we had a section of fans who demanded he should have done it in less time with less money. 

There were fans who weren't happy with 17th first season up. Fans who weren't happy with last year because of bad spells and relying on one of the best players in the league. And there's similar this season, ignoring the issues we've dealt with and how early it still is. 

It can get better, and should get better. I think it's unrealistic to expect us to be different to the vast majority of midtable teams in the history of Premier league football. I think it's unrealistic to have expected everything to have clicked at this point in the season. 

Don't try and divert...You were basically saying that it is unrealistic to expect anyone to surpass what Smith is doing. That's what I was responding to. Not the time frames. 

The other point here is MON had a shitload of money, and a shitload of waste. Yes there were improvements but there was also unsustainability with him and many would argue he had stagnated which I also think was the case. He may well of kept improving but he was dragging the club with his ego and wastefulness. I'd have replaced him 12 months before he walked tbh. 

You aren't wrong in that there are mitigating circumstances currently....however, don't let that blind you into thinking improvement can't be achieved with anyone other than Smith. He's made some silly errors this season imo and rightly should be questioned on that basis. 

[Peter Griffin]

11 hours ago, DCJonah said:

It's not unique that a manager sticks with his favourite, trusted players. 

 

No, it is certainly not unique. Many managers have this weakness where they don't have the balls to drop a favourite player when they are not playing well. And just for clarity, that it what is being discussed, Dean's refusal to drop players that are his favourites regardless of how they are performing on the pitch

[AvfcRigo82]

2 hours ago, DCJonah said:

I think the main similarity is that there's a section of the fanbase with unrealistic expectations and the assumption that replacing the manager will make us better. 

Depends what you class as unrealistic expectations.

I think a realistic expectation this season would be to see us improve on last year's league position and try and overtake some established teams and aim for 7th-8th, or a good cup run?

We will find out if Dean Smith is able to achieve close to that, if he doesn't then I am sure the club will act accordingly to maybe get someone who can take the team further with the same war chest at their disposal.

[Peter Griffin]

11 hours ago, VillanousOne said:

I like Dean and want him to succeed and think now he has the players fit, he should get the chance to show us the plan A he has in mind that features the new signings.

 

That is a potentially interesting debate. You mentioned before the quote above that you don't feel that Dean has a Plan B and doesn't react to the opposing team. You say the Plan A can be good and I agree with this, we have had some brilliant wins during Dean's tenure. But now we should give him time with a fully fit squad to show us his Plan A. Being devil's advocate, would this not just paper over the cracks of having now plan B. We could go on a really good run for a few months and then we have a few injuries and things don't go so well and we are back to needing a Plan B and not having one?

[Peter Griffin]

8 hours ago, TomC said:

I'd be happy if we can get into the top 6 in the next 2-3 years and the CL places in 5.

You are not the only one that would be happy with that. I would be very very happy with that

[Peter Griffin]

49 minutes ago, DCJonah said:

The idea that 55 pts isn't good enough because of bad spells

Nobody is was a bad points toll, and as it was me that made the comment can I ask you to please refrain from continuing to make things up that I said. I said getting 55 points with 1 excellent half to the season and one terrible half of the season is not as good than getting the points over the course of the season and particularly so when it looks like we were dependent on one player and that player is not longer at the club. 

We can have different views and opinions but please try and be honest with what you post

[lexicon]

I think it's also prudent to mention that the signings are not solely down to Smith - he has input on them, sure and gives the final OK - but there's a sporting director and recruitment team involved too and the responsibility and either positive or negative feedback is disseminated across all of them. Things are a lot different from 10/15 years back. 

RE: what @avfc1982am has been saying, I don't think it's reasonable to expect a seamless transition given how much change we've gone through this summer. There will always be bumps in the road and Smith has dealt with them very well in the past - there's no reason why he can't deal with this one now. 

[lexicon]

Just now, Peter Griffin said:

Nobody is was a bad points toll, and as it was me that made the comment can I ask you to please refrain from continuing to make things up that I said. I said getting 55 points with 1 excellent half to the season and one terrible half of the season is not as good than getting the points over the course of the season and particularly so when it looks like we were dependent on one player and that player is not longer at the club. 

We can have different views and opinions but please try and be honest with what you post

That's just a silly position, though, I'm sorry. You're not happy because the way the points came didn't correspond to a theoretical pattern you had that would have ended with the same total? 

You want to blame Smith for getting the best out of a 100m player? 

I just don't see the logic in any of that. Any good manager would have done exactly the same thing.

[avfc1982am]

5 minutes ago, lexicon said:

RE: what @avfc1982am has been saying, I don't think it's reasonable to expect a seamless transition given how much change we've gone through this summer.

Erm....Where did I say it was reasonable to expect a seamless transition???

I think you misinterpreting  my posts. 

[blandy]

12 hours ago, TrentVilla said:

I find myself really in a odd predicament with Smith and our current position, it isn't something I'm used to as I'm normally very finite in my thinking. I'm not calling for him to go but I no longer have confidence in his ability to continue taking us forward,  yes I know that makes me sound like Gary Neville but bare with me and I'll explain.

With Bruce I was vociferous and pretty unrelenting in my opposition and condemnation of his managerial approach, even when the results were relatively position. I knew where I stood on Bruce, that he wasn't a good manager and that he ultimately wasn't good for the club even when we were winning games. I knew it would end badly and he was damaging rather than building the club. I've been similarly steadfast on all our other managers post O'Neill, none of whom I've rated or wanted in the job including Houllier because they've all been bad appointments, Smith is the first good one since O'Neill which is a shocking indictment of those who have run our club.

Thinking about this and O'Neill made me start to draw comparison's between their spells in charge at B6, between what they inherited, their strengths and ultimately their shortcomings and the topic of glass ceilings imagined or otherwise.

Smith and O'Neill aren't similar, in fact they are polar opposites in almost every way. One had a stellar playing career, the other didn't. One was brash, abrasive, combative and argumentative the other is polite, considered, congenial and frankly quite clearly a lovely guy when the other frankly just clearly isn't. Both men, with the benefit of significant financial backing that surpassed those who had gone before them transformed the club, dragging it out of its slumber and significantly improving our performance and standing. 

With O'Neill, for me doubts about him during his 3rd season, I felt he couldn't take us further. It was an hugely unpopular opinion and one I wasn't very forthcoming with but I wasn't alone, that summer he was given a lot of money to try and take us to the next level. We again finished 6th and the following summer it all fell apart, the impact of which none of us could have imagined and which took us 10 years to recover from. I often wonder how different things could have been had Lerner had a more aware man at the helm than Faulkner, how different things could have been if they had replaced O'Neill after his 3rd season and we not pissed a fortune up a wall the summer before his final season. It is the story of Villa, we are the what might have been club.

Some 10 years or so years later I find myself wondering are we in a similar position with Smith? We all know what he has achieved, none of us need to recap that but neither should that be dismissed or downplayed in any way.

The question is can he continue the progress or has he, as I'd argue O'Neill had done 12 months before his departure hit the proverbial glass ceiling?

Many of those dismayed with criticism of Smith in recent days, on here and elsewhere, have reacted as if the criticism is the result of the last 2 or 3 games or the 9 games of this season. I can't speak for others but for me, the seeds of doubt go back much further.

An element of doubt has always been there such as been the dependence upon Grealish throughout his tenure, the disparity in results and performances with and without our former talisman have always made assessing Smith difficult. That isn't to detract from his tangible impact on the club but it does make it hard, for me at least, to know how much is due to who.

We started last season on fire then post Christmas and in the absence of Jack it went very wrong. That was when doubts grew for me, our inability to find a way to play in his prolonged absence was hugely alarming and I wondered then if as a club we may need to face difficult decisions in order to progress futher. While last season was an improvement on the one that went before, given our start I think we under achieved. 

This summer came and went, as did Grealish and so did £95m to try and replace him and the undoubted void he left behind. Now I'm not going to dwell on our summer recruitment, it doesn't need a recap and I've expressed my views on it several times already and I'm sure nobody needs hear them again so excuse me skipping to the here and now.

I know people will point at injuries, at summer disruptions and they are valid points. However we've seemingly gone from being almost entirely dependant upon Grealish to being almost entirely dependant upon Bailey coming in and making everything make sense. That to me is hugely alarming and I'm afraid leaves me questioning Smith.

The departure of Grealish was always going to be damaging to us but we had the later half of last season to try and find a way to play without him, we had the summer and we've had a quarter of a season and we still seem no closure to finding a solution.

Sure some are being reactionary to the Wolves and Arsenal games, no doubt, there are though very legitimate concerns that underpin others comments and they are predicated on far more than 2/3 or 9 games. 

I'm not personally calling for Smith to go, I want stability at the club, I want longevity of managers, ultimately I want more than anything Smith to work out. For this to be a blimp and for one of our own to continue to lead the club forward.

Chopping and changing managers is no guarantee of anything unless you are Chelsea and I think we can all agree there aren't exactly an array of options out there that are attractive. With Bruce for me there was no gamble, he had to go and should have gone sooner, we are not in that position with Smith. I am though left with a nagging doubt, a feeling I had with O'Neill in that 3rd season and it just won't go away.

We could win the next 2 or 3 games and it would still be there I think, it didn't come over night and neither will it go over night although if we beat West Ham I'm sure many will proclaim those who raised doubts were wrong.

Smith needs results and fast but more than that he needs to show he is capable of leading a winning team in the absence of you know who, over to you Dean. Personally I have quite significant doubts.

Well written.

I think (at least for me) it's important to look at the state of the club generally in assessing Deano, or previous managers for that matter. For example, you mentioned Steve Bruce and I recall that when he signed for us you said he's exactly what we need. And while I didn't agree with his appointment, you were right in that particular analysis in terms of the state of the club overall - he did stop the rot and that was necessary, that change of manager was necessary to stop a downwards plummet. What followed the initial impact he had, though was another story.

Anyway, back to the current situation. The club is not in any kind of trouble. It's got good ownership, a talented mid-table squad with the right age profile, a good youth and academy system, excellent facilities - There is no need for a "rescue" managerial change to halt some kind of plummeting situation. I think we need to have that context when judging Dean Smith.

So what's he faced with? Well, the obvious is that there has been significant upheaval in terms of coaching staff and players. Some of that he is at least involved with and some completely outside of his control/responsibility. The recruitment sure. Jack leaving, JT choosing to leave (as far as we know) for example were basically out of his hands entirely. He and the club have to deal with the consequences of the changes that have occurred. Mostly they've done OK. The recruitment he was part of has been largely successful - swiftly getting people in. There have been visible improvements in some areas (attacking set pieces and so on). There have also been turns for the worse - the defending has been less well organised than last season. He's used a system of play for recent games that the players don't seem comfortable with (and nor, frankly do the vast majority of fans). But to be fair, for various reasons the players brought in to replace Jack have been unavailable to select for most of the games we've played so far. Who knows if that will change - if it doesn't then we'll bumble around in the lower half of the table for the rest of the season.

But if we have a mostly available squad, then there's likely to be an upturn in overall performances because the quality of the best first team will be better. With a run of games the flair players should be able to settle in to their roles.

So there's not actually that much wrong, with our situation overall. But there are things to have some concerns over in terms of the first team results and recent performances in games. Dean has to work out how to both tighten us up in midfield and at the back and also make us more of an attacking threat. Which is extremely challenging. I'd settle for just one of those two things, get us scoring more goals.

@TrentVilla has doubts which are fair and well expressed. I am a bit more optimistic, based around the type of coach Dean is. I think he's very different to the old style of a Bruce or O"Neill - he's not set in his ways, wedded to a particular style/system of playing and more about "just go out there and give it 100%" - he's adaptable, he's open to new people bringing different assets and views and ideas. There's no guarantee of course, but in a way we had to change and adapt. Playing the Jack way was fairly one dimensional - great when Jack was at it, but weak when he wasn't, or if he wasn't available. So the next step is to leave that behind. To have a first team which incorporates (gradually) the mix of the recruited players and the youngsters coming through to be a more rounded attacking force. To be more consistent. To be able to play badly and still win. At the moment if we play badly, even for part of a game, we lose. That has to be stopped. which means players cutting out unforced errors and covering more for each other. That's the immediate task, the longer term one is integrate the new players into a coherent attacking force. I see no reason why that can't be done by Deano. He certainly deserves plenty of time to try and do that, and while having doubts on this or that is completely fair, I share the feeling that calls for him to be sacked are ridiculously premature (accepting that only a small percentage of people have done so, and there's always people who either never rate a particular manager or are quite knee jerk to a bad run of form and think changing the manager is always the solution. That's life).

 

[lexicon]

1 minute ago, avfc1982am said:

Erm....Where did I say it was reasonable to expect a seamless transition???

I think you misinterpreting  my posts. 

OK, can you explain exactly what you mean by surpassing what has been achieved so far this season then, please?

By how much, in what way etc.

[Peter Griffin]

10 minutes ago, lexicon said:

That's just a silly position, though, I'm sorry. You're not happy because the way the points came didn't correspond to a theoretical pattern you had that would have ended with the same total? 

You want to blame Smith for getting the best out of a 100m player? 

I just don't see the logic in any of that. Any good manager would have done exactly the same thing.

It is not that I am looking for a theoretical pattern, I am looking for consistency from the team and the ability to compete without a single player. I have no problem our performances dipping when we lose our best player but they went off the cliff. Smith wasn't able to get results without Jack in the team. I see that as a concern. Consistency and predictability in performances is far better than being like Jekyll and Hyde