Dean Smith

[hippo]

1 hour ago, JAMAICAN-VILLAN said:

Jokes aside.

What if subconsciously, he felt like he was fighting a losing battle?

Everything from Jack leaving, to pre season turmoil, to surprise coach departures and additions etc 

What if he never actually cosgined alot of these things, and it didn't sit right with him?

Obviously he will know better than us, but he migjt have seen the signs that they were planning to replace him anyway.

Will be interesting to see if the likes of ROK join up with him at Norwich, that might tell us something.

Interesting point.

It might explain why he has jumped straight back into football management so quickly. 

 

[Jas10]

1 hour ago, JAMAICAN-VILLAN said:

Jokes aside.

What if subconsciously, he felt like he was fighting a losing battle?

Everything from Jack leaving, to pre season turmoil, to surprise coach departures and additions etc 

What if he never actually cosgined alot of these things, and it didn't sit right with him?

Obviously he will know better than us, but he migjt have seen the signs that they were planning to replace him anyway.

Will be interesting to see if the likes of ROK join up with him at Norwich, that might tell us something.

That aligns with a lot of what I have been thinking but we’ll never know… unless Dean has some revelations to share now that he’s departed… I assume he has far too much decency and integrity for that but it would still be interesting to know. I doubt Danks and McPhee (gtfo) will be  joining him at Norwich…

The thing is, he wanted to continue and believed things would improve… regardless of his personal feelings on everything else that was going on. Will we ever have another manager so personally invested in the club?…

I hope Gerrard becomes completely attached and won over by the club and our fans… it makes a difference.

[WHY]

1 hour ago, Peter Griffin said:

There are lots of references to our pre season and how it is a significant contributing factor to Dean's results. What was so wrong with our preseason. We had our game against Forest cancelled and then the game against Sevilla was cancelled but we rescheduled and played Salernitana the following day. So is it the fact that we had a friendly game against Championship side Forest cancelled on July 28th the cause of our slump? 

We had players out and never really played many of the starting 11 due to Euros, Olympics, Copa America etc. Compared to the season before it was a bit of a shambles. When they did come back they did that stupid open training session down London. It didn’t look like they did much in those sessions. We started last season well on the back of a good preseason, we played teams early on who had more disruption in theirs. Gave us something to build and the players gained confidence. This season is the polar opposite! 

Edited November 14, 2021 by WHY

[TheStagMan]

10 hours ago, Villa_Vids said:

I feel like Dean has let us down this season, we should have kicked on and improved. Five losses on the spin is terrible and the regression in our football was appalling.  Expected a lot better.

Well, that is just bonkers. Utterly bonkers.

 

 

4 hours ago, Cliffy Biro said:

On the subject of Smith though, dont really know what to expect from him at Norwich, he had a lot of money and did a good job overall here but theres definite question marks over some big chunks of his time here. Really hope Gerrard isnt a disaster and we dont swap places with Norwich leaving Smith looking smug  

I doubt he would be smug about it. I do think that Villa being relegated would hurt him as much as it hurts us - but he is a professional and will do whatever he needs to do for Norwich - and if that meant us getting relegated, he would do it even though he would prefer not to. 

 

I am happy for him and hope he goes on to have a great career in football management.

Edited November 14, 2021 by TheStagMan

[Rightdm00]

1 hour ago, Peter Griffin said:

There are lots of references to our pre season and how it is a significant contributing factor to Dean's results. What was so wrong with our preseason. We had our game against Forest cancelled and then the game against Sevilla was cancelled but we rescheduled and played Salernitana the following day. So is it the fact that we had a friendly game against Championship side Forest cancelled on July 28th the cause of our slump? 

Their week long training camp in London turned into one huge circus over Grealish will he or wont he stay. They literally had Twitter ITKs tweeting the clubs every movement from the bushes of the hotel. Those getaways are supposed to be where you get away from distraction and focus on team building activities. Can't do that when your star player is the center of a huge transfer saga. 

[est1874]

33 minutes ago, Rightdm00 said:

Their week long training camp in London turned into one huge circus over Grealish will he or wont he stay. They literally had Twitter ITKs tweeting the clubs every movement from the bushes of the hotel. Those getaways are supposed to be where you get away from distraction and focus on team building activities. Can't do that when your star player is the center of a huge transfer saga. 

This. Whole thing was bizarre, unseemly, and detrimental to our prep for the season.

[Peter Griffin]

1 hour ago, Condimentalist said:

Hmm, I don't know, how about:

Two cancelled fixtures and none against good opposition due to Covid

Multiple key players unable to participate due to injury and international duty

The best player being sold a week before the season

Key signings being made late, being unfit and having zero time to play together 

Two key members of the coaching staff leaving during the pre season.

It was a mess. I said before the season started that we might be in the bottom half for a while and not to shit ourselves if we are. Sadly Purslow was in the supermarket aisles raiding the bogroll. 

Gerrard has my full support as our new manager, but Dean was hard done by and deserved more time given the extenuating circumstances.

 

 

 

 

One of the games cancelled was rescheduled against another team for the following day., Are u suggesting that impacted Dean a lot?

Players leaving and coming in is normal for every transfer window. 

[Peter Griffin]

1 hour ago, Zatman said:

Yes as we played a lot less games than other Premier League teams. Watford had 9 pre season friendlies and we played 5 with one arranged very last minute.  We also had a number of injuries and players away on international duty so started later than some other teams

We only intended to have 6. If we needed 9 that is a different issue. And you think changing a game from Saturday to Sunday was an issue and a problem for us this season?

[Peter Griffin]

1 hour ago, WHY said:

We had players out and never really played many of the starting 11 due to Euros, Olympics, Copa America etc. Compared to the season before it was a bit of a shambles. When they did come back they did that stupid open training session down London. It didn’t look like they did much in those sessions. We started last season well on the back of a good preseason, we played teams early on who had more disruption in theirs. Gave us something to build and the players gained confidence. This season is the polar opposite! 

Other teams had players in Euros, Olympics and Copa too. What do u suggest we change? The club was very aware in advance of our pre season that there would be an impact from the international tournaments, which many other clubs had too. We started this season reasonable well too. We were on 10 points and top half after 6 games. 

[Peter Griffin]

1 hour ago, Rightdm00 said:

Their week long training camp in London turned into one huge circus over Grealish will he or wont he stay. They literally had Twitter ITKs tweeting the clubs every movement from the bushes of the hotel. Those getaways are supposed to be where you get away from distraction and focus on team building activities. Can't do that when your star player is the center of a huge transfer saga. 

And you are attributing that to our poor performances? These are professional players being paid millions a year FFS.  

[Peter Griffin]

33 minutes ago, est1874 said:

This. Whole thing was bizarre, unseemly, and detrimental to our prep for the season.

Bizarre when a very rich football club and PL Champions was preparing a British record 100m purchase of one of our players. . 

Jack was a Villa player, they made a bid which met the release clause. Believe it or not these things take time, it is not a console game. Did you expect Villa to cancel their prearranged training in London?

Edited November 15, 2021 by Peter Griffin

[Rightdm00]

46 minutes ago, Peter Griffin said:

And you are attributing that to our poor performances? These are professional players being paid millions a year FFS.  

You asked if our pre-season was actually poor or just a false narrative. You get numerous replies pointing out the many ways our pre-season was less than ideal. 

Now your pivot is that professional players don't need a pre-season. Which is an even crazier statement.  You seem out of your depth on this one maybe just sit this topic out. 

[LondonLax]

5 hours ago, Peter Griffin said:

We only intended to have 6. If we needed 9 that is a different issue. And you think changing a game from Saturday to Sunday was an issue and a problem for us this season?

You thought our preseason was ok?

There was plenty of commentary on here at the time about what a disaster of a preseason it was and a lot of dread at what that might mean for our season. 

[MWARLEY2]

5 hours ago, Peter Griffin said:

And you are attributing that to our poor performances? These are professional players being paid millions a year FFS.  

How much they are paid is totally irrelevant.  They are professional athletes that are trained by the club. The athlete is responsible for their general fitness but match fitness ? No,  Totally different and they rely on the club to arrange the right games at the right times.

[TheStagMan]

@Peter Griffin Those posts of yours are starting to look a little obsessed. Are you trying to say that our pre-season was absolutely fine, and not disrupted at all? Because that is how it reads. If so, that is an utterly ridiculous thing to say. 

 

Shitting on Smith at every opportunity and praising Gerrard even though a ball has not been kicked and he has LESS experience than Smith, but somehow is a nailed on thing?? Wow, just Wow. 

[tomav84]

8 hours ago, Rightdm00 said:

Their week long training camp in London turned into one huge circus over Grealish will he or wont he stay. They literally had Twitter ITKs tweeting the clubs every movement from the bushes of the hotel. Those getaways are supposed to be where you get away from distraction and focus on team building activities. Can't do that when your star player is the center of a huge transfer saga. 

it really was odd. training camps are normally closed shops, but everyone was commenting at the time how surprising it was that they were able to get such easy access to the team. it was like those open training sessions they sometimes host at VP by the sounds of it and not a grueling pre season like it should've been.

whose fault the whole thing was? we'll never know. wonder if it was to help jack stay...certainly a valid theory. "look jack, look at all these fans who love you. you can't leave this surely?" but by the sounds of it the deal was basically already done when they started this camp.

[rodders0223]

Not a great move I'll say

[Mantis]

I think what was concerning was that yes we had a terrible pre-season and started indifferently but things continued to get worse, even as key players came back.

[LondonVillian]

On 14/11/2021 at 00:11, Tayls said:

Guess Moyes and that Ancelotti bloke aren’t doing too badly… 

Benitez done alright too

[mikeyp102]

Wonder if by joining Norwich so soon, the amount of compensation we pay out is reduced? 
Good on him for taking the role, he’s not a huge profile so the longer he went without a job, the less his name would be linked. 
Wish him well (unless playing us)