Dean Smith

[TRO]

10 minutes ago, Vive_La_Villa said:

Either that or It’s just lazy journalism.

Which players are we linked with that Bruce also wanted?

Makoudi, didn't he want the Goalkeeper we have just bought too.

[TRO]

13 hours ago, DaveAV1 said:

George Ramsay 

easy tiger.

[Vive_La_Villa]

7 minutes ago, TRO said:

Makoudi, didn't he want the Goalkeeper we have just bought too.

Not sure. We signed the keeper under Garde but he didn’t get a work permit. 

Didnt realise we were linked to Makoudi again. Doubt he will come to us in Jan having turned us down for footballing reasons in the summer. 

[markavfc40]

19 minutes ago, TRO said:

I first went down during the Joe Mercer tenure, however.

I have seen many managers over the years, I particularly reference the Ron Sunders era for a few reasons.

 

• I think workrate is going to be our best single piece of criteria to get us up....and he epitomised it.

I am not so sure it will. You can work your socks off week in week out but if you come up against teams that work as hard as you but have more quality then you will lose.

The thing with the Saunders 80/81/82 team is that whilst they worked hard for each other there was plenty of quality. The fact that some of them were overlooked for international caps isn't a reflection of that quality it is an indictment on those calling players up.

I think we work hard under Smith now as I think we worked hard under Bruce last season. I rarely left a game under Bruce thinking we hadn't put a shift in. It was negative tactics that meant we under achieved given the quality we had under Bruce.

Under Smith we are now hamstrung by poor defending. Given the amount of goals we score we should be winning more games. Our last 4 games at home we have scored 5,2,3,2 and we haven't won any of them. That is predominately down to the personnel in goal and at the back but also due to those in front of them especially our wide forwards not helping out the full backs and teams are having a field day in wide areas against us.

I think Smith fixes our defensive issues and he is pretty much there. Offensively especially with Grealish in the side we are excellent. Work rate for me under Smith I can't really question. We aren't far away.

[TRO]

1 hour ago, markavfc40 said:

I am not so sure it will. You can work your socks off week in week out but if you come up against teams that work as hard as you but have more quality then you will lose.

The thing with the Saunders 80/81/82 team is that whilst they worked hard for each other there was plenty of quality. The fact that some of them were overlooked for international caps isn't a reflection of that quality it is an indictment on those calling players up.

I think we work hard under Smith now as I think we worked hard under Bruce last season. I rarely left a game under Bruce thinking we hadn't put a shift in. It was negative tactics that meant we under achieved given the quality we had under Bruce.

Under Smith we are now hamstrung by poor defending. Given the amount of goals we score we should be winning more games. Our last 4 games at home we have scored 5,2,3,2 and we haven't won any of them. That is predominately down to the personnel in goal and at the back but also due to those in front of them especially our wide forwards not helping out the full backs and teams are having a field day in wide areas against us.

I think Smith fixes our defensive issues and he is pretty much there. Offensively especially with Grealish in the side we are excellent. Work rate for me under Smith I can't really question. We aren't far away.

sorry Mark, I disagree.

maybe we are talking in different interpretations of work rate.

shadow boxing ( if I may use that term), or standing off is not my idea of work rate....any team can run all day ineffectively and claim work rate....shadowing the opposition and not getting any physical contact on them is not work rate to me...idle running or hiding is not work rate either.

I seen it with Bruce and I still see it.....not blaming either, because I don't know where the problem lies....just know it exists.

I agree with you, about Quality, you must have that too, but it has to be supported by application....during the period you mention 80/81/82 arguably Ipswich had the better individual quality, but we had the 110% workrate Ron professed and was often derided for in the press....You see teams like Blues above us with lesser quality, Cardiff last season had lesser quality, depending on what that means.....They get stuck in to the physical challenge and grind results out.

The City v Liverpool game was a spectacle of the finer arts of the game, but how many seen the sheer intensity and durability of the physical battle....Fernandino, may be one of the best defensive Midfield talents in the world, but his commitment is phenomenal and his close physical endeavour is mind blowing.....Those multi- millionare footballer are the ones with an excuse to not get hurt, but crikey, they were all full one, even Neil Warnock and Dave Bassett/Joe Kinnear would have been proud.

Off the ball our commitment is questionable imo.....I believe it will hamper us from achieving what we all want....unless we change it.

I am loving some of the offensive play and its a credit to Tammy that he has 16 goals to date, that is unprecedented in recent times and we also know teams concede, we all know that, my problem right now , we concede so easily by yielding space and standing off the opponents, we concede so readily and it seems the word has got round....no one is afraid of taking us on....Its the manner of how we concede is the main issue.

I understand that we are in a building process, I just hope we recognise the issue and buy The right type of players to address it.....we have changed players for 10 years and not really changed much...sure stats move around a bit, but some of the same issues are still there for me.

I am not having a go at Dean Smith, he has been here much too short a time....his initial 6 or so games were great....the recent ones are iffy, we all know Jack and Axel have been massive misses and the Goal keeper is not of sufficient quality.

If I am being brutally honest with you....I don't see a really top quality ( for this league) team in this division, like Wolves, Newcastle or Brighton.....what I do see in the teams at the top is Hard work and a physicality that says we want to win...a resilience to grind out a result.

PS not going today, not in the right frame of mind....still ****ing fuming over Freeman and Eze's goals.

Edited January 5, 2019 by TRO

[Pimlico_Villa]

34 minutes ago, TRO said:

sorry Mark, I disagree.

maybe we are talking in different interpretations of work rate.

shadow boxing ( if I may use that term), or standing off is not my idea of work rate....any team can run all day ineffectively and claim work rate....shadowing the opposition and not getting any physical contact on them is not work rate to me...idle running or hiding is not work rate either.

I seen it with Bruce and I still see it.....not blaming either, because I don't know where the problem lies....just know it exists.

I agree with you, about Quality, you must have that too, but it has to be supported by application....during the period you mention 80/81/82 arguably Ipswich had the better individual quality, but we had the 110% workrate Ron professed and was often derided for in the press....You see teams like Blues above us with lesser quality, Cardiff last season had lesser quality, depending on what that means.....They get stuck in to the physical challenge and grind results out.

The City v Liverpool game was a spectacle of the finer arts of the game, but how many seen the sheer intensity and durability of the physical battle....Fernandino, may be one of the best defensive Midfield talents in the world, but his commitment is phenomenal and his close physical endeavour is mind blowing.....Those multi- millionare footballer are the ones with an excuse to not get hurt, but crikey, they were all full one, even Neil Warnock and Dave Bassett/Joe Kinnear would have been proud.

Off the ball our commitment is questionable imo.....I believe it will hamper us from achieving what we all want....unless we change it.

I am loving some of the offensive play and its a credit to Tammy that he has 16 goals to date, that is unprecedented in recent times and we also know teams concede, we all know that, my problem right now , we concede so easily by yielding space and standing off the opponents, we concede so readily and it seems the word has got round....no one is afraid of taking us on....Its the manner of how we concede is the main issue.

I understand that we are in a building process, I just hope we recognise the issue and buy The right type of players to address it.....we have changed players for 10 years and not really changed much...sure stats move around a bit, but some of the same issues are still there for me.

I am not having a go at Dean Smith, he has been here much too short a time....his initial 6 or so games were great....the recent ones are iffy, we all know Jack and Axel have been massive misses and the Goal keeper is not of sufficient quality.

If I am being brutally honest with you....I don't see a really top quality ( for this league) team in this division, like Wolves, Newcastle or Brighton.....what I do see in the teams at the top is Hard work and a physicality that says we want to win...a resilience to grind out a result.

PS not going today, not in the right frame of mind....still ****ing fuming over Freeman and Eze's goals.

Not to labour the point about style, but when we do play so expansively all it takes is one player in the midfield not too work hard and it costs us. We saw it in our last game, Hourihane ambling around with no intention whatsoever to get a tackle in, or even get close to, their midfield. Before their goals, Hourihane had several let offs with Eze as well. 

Play that expansively, and we need grit, tenacity and desire elsewhere on the pitch. This is why we could do with some nasty thugs in the middle. We’re too nice at times. 

[Vive_La_Villa]

Smiths gonna get a lot of stick after this one....better win the next 3.

[momo]

Honey moon over...hahaha... Nothing special here.

[villalad21]

This is embarassing DS.

 

[Vive_La_Villa]

2 minutes ago, momo said:

Honey moon over...hahaha... Nothing special here.

You seem very happy..

[DCJonah]

We can't afford for him to do a bruce and sign a load of shit. Recruitment is vital now, we must build to a plan and not random buys. 

[Jareth]

Who's at the back today? Taylor from injury, Hutton at CB, Elphick, Bree? Is this DS's fault? Absolutely the same points made against as previously - in all which time we have not yet signed any new defenders. 

[momo]

Just now, Vive_La_Villa said:

You seem very happy..

NO!

[VillaJ100]

The most cursed job in footy strikes again! 

[Stevo985]

Weakened team and the cup so I'm happy to give him the benefit of the doubt.

But it doesn't go very far in answering the questions that have started to arise recently.

Things need to improve quickly.

[Mark Albrighton]

Will be criticised today and rightly so. Nowhere near good enough, Dean.

Just on our shit defence, it really has been a problem all season, not just since he’s come in.

Pre Smith - 20 goals in 12 league games. 1 clean sheet.

Smith era - 20 goals in 14 league games. 5 clean sheets.

You can argue the manner of the goals conceded I’d suppose. No one is saying that the defence is great under Smith. It needs a ****ing lot of work. A bit like the rest of the team.

Get on with it.

[holteend1982]

Dreadful again. A cup game with a weakened side so I won't be to upset about it but still doesn't look good. Problem is now abraham is joining wolves so weve lost our goals but still conceding at least 2 most games, something needs to be sorted and soon. 

[Pimlico_Villa]

I didn’t go today, so wouldn’t know, but how heated was the argument between Terry and Smith? Hearing various reports. 

[lexicon]

Work to do, Dean, work to do. 

[Mantis]

Hard to tell how much of the recent crap is down to Smith. Today was totally unacceptable and Smith must bear a lot of the brunt for that but there's no escaping the fact that Bruce wasted so much money on crap during his time here.