Dean Smith

[Wainy316]

3 hours ago, Brentfordnylons said:

We have always suffered from conceding too many goals under DS especially from winning positions but our offensive and general play has always made this issue acceptable for most of our fans who have far less expectations than yours.I always felt JT would be the one to address that possible flaw in Deans defence coaching.We have now changed our defence to playing 3 central defenders in the last 6 games in which we are now unbeaten and conceding a lot fewer goals after a dreadful run that got us 1 win in ten after DS left.I expect this forum would go into meltdown if you had a similar run

Well we're only 2 games off.  1 win in 8!

[LakotaDakota]

3 hours ago, Brentfordnylons said:

We have always suffered from conceding too many goals under DS especially from winning positions but our offensive and general play has always made this issue acceptable for most of our fans who have far less expectations than yours.I always felt JT would be the one to address that possible flaw in Deans defence coaching.We have now changed our defence to playing 3 central defenders in the last 6 games in which we are now unbeaten and conceding a lot fewer goals after a dreadful run that got us 1 win in ten after DS left.I expect this forum would go into meltdown if you had a similar run

we have won 2 of the last 10 games, 1 in the last 8 with Hull to play tomorrow. See you in a week for the meltdown

[The Fun Factory]

I just hope last Saturday as a random poor performance and Smith gets us back on track on Saturday. I really need to see some improvement at the back though to convince me that this season is not yet  write off.

[Don_Simon]

2 hours ago, holteend1982 said:

Some of those results sound better than they were though. Barely beat Birmingham, they should have been 2 up and out of sight, Swansea are not a good side and 5-5 against a side who went down to 10 men is not even remotely anything to brag about. We've had a few good games under him and that's about it, the rest have been dull and flat performances with hardly any of this attacking style system he supposedly brings. 

I really do hope he does well for us, I'd never want one of our managers to fail. Maybe once Grealish returns we will look a completely different side again. Not looking forward to playing hull tomorrow though that's for sure. 

Barely beat Birmingham? Come on now sunshine, they had a strong opening 20 minutes where they scored and hit the post. We absolutely owned the rest. Even their goal was us completely switching off. 

[Stuartc445]

1 hour ago, The Fun Factory said:

I just hope last Saturday as a random poor performance and Smith gets us back on track on Saturday. I really need to see some improvement at the back though to convince me that this season is not yet  write off.

But it wasn't a random poor performance, they have been getting worse and worse with each game recently.  If it was just 1 bad game there wouldn't be a panic like there is now, the reason for the panic is because 1 win in 8 with the performances have been getting worse even the 1 we won it wasn't great.

[sheepyvillian]

4 hours ago, holteend1982 said:

Some of those results sound better than they were though. Barely beat Birmingham, they should have been 2 up and out of sight, Swansea are not a good side and 5-5 against a side who went down to 10 men is not even remotely anything to brag about. We've had a few good games under him and that's about it, the rest have been dull and flat performances with hardly any of this attacking style system he supposedly brings. 

I really do hope he does well for us, I'd never want one of our managers to fail. Maybe once Grealish returns we will look a completely different side again. Not looking forward to playing hull tomorrow though that's for sure. 

Nothing like positivity. 

[jim]

7 hours ago, vreitti said:

We don't really know yet if he can or can't organize a defense. I'll judge him on this when we have actual defenders at the club.

We do to be fair. His Walsall and Brentford teams both leaked far too many goals. 

I am honestly baffled how Smith got this job. He is an average championship manager who’s teams, whilst playing attractive football, leak goals and are far too inconsistent. 

If he was born in Lancashire instead of Great Barr I daresay there wouldn’t have been the clamor for him to be appointed on here.

[QldVilla]

It's just been great to read the opinions of all those coaching experts on the "problems" with Villa, surely you can give up some of your time away from your FIFA coaching badges to assist Dean Smith and his team?

Smith has had about 16 weeks in the job, the systemic issues with the club and the squad haven't gone away and the team still lacks a heart. Our best player has been out for a month and it is no coincidence that the downturn in performance coincided with his injury. We are threadbare with defenders and our best DM has been on the injury list since the start of the season. DS has been able to paper over most of these issues but he isn't a miracle worker.

Too many supporters are focussed on the outcome, but have no idea of the processes that all need to be working in the right direction to achieve the desired result. Most of these at the club have been broken for years, but the new owners, coaches etc are now rebuilding these but it will take time. We will have some good times and bad, but ultimately the club will return to its glory, but patience is needed.

With a little luck and the right players brought in, I still believe we will finish in the Top 6 and have a run at promotion like last season, but like last season, we still may be found out to be short.

[rodders0223]

3 minutes ago, QldVilla said:

It's just been great to read the opinions of all those coaching experts on the "problems" with Villa, surely you can give up some of your time away from your FIFA coaching badges to assist Dean Smith and his team?

 

I got Salford FC into the CL in 7 seasons mate.

[Dave J]

8 hours ago, vreitti said:

We don't really know yet if he can or can't organize a defense. I'll judge him on this when we have actual defenders at the club.

What concerns me is that we have the best defender of the recent generation on the pay roll - maybe he wasn't DS's choice who knows?

[Guest av1]

9 hours ago, vreitti said:

Downright ridiculous to be questioning DS this soon. 

Spot on. 

[markavfc40]

Disappointed to see O'Hare and Doyle Hayes playing for the under 23's tonight. I'd have been looking to give one of these a start tomorrow rather than see Whelan and Bjarnason who have no future here.

Hopefully we'll see Hause and Green get starts tomorrow. We need to find out if these young lads can step up and they need a run of games. We know what the likes of Taylor, Hutton, Whelan, Bharnason, Adomah, Bolasie can do and none of them will be here next season. I accept some of them have to play but we certainly have 3 or 4 youngsters who could replace some of them.

The way Smith plays you need energy in the team and that needs to come from younger players either already at the club or being brought in.

[AvfcRigo82]

38 minutes ago, QldVilla said:

It's just been great to read the opinions of all those coaching experts on the "problems" with Villa, surely you can give up some of your time away from your FIFA coaching badges to assist Dean Smith and his team?

 

34 minutes ago, rodders0223 said:

I got Salford FC into the CL in 7 seasons mate.

I remember the season I took over at Torquay United (Vanarama League) and offloaded 17 players raising £675k and signed 22 players all on a free.. 

- Promoted that season.

 

Tell Dean to give us a shout when he gets a minute mate. I would love to help out.  

[Dr_Pangloss]

47 minutes ago, QldVilla said:

It's just been great to read the opinions of all those coaching experts on the "problems" with Villa, surely you can give up some of your time away from your FIFA coaching badges to assist Dean Smith and his team?

Smith has had about 16 weeks in the job, the systemic issues with the club and the squad haven't gone away and the team still lacks a heart. Our best player has been out for a month and it is no coincidence that the downturn in performance coincided with his injury. We are threadbare with defenders and our best DM has been on the injury list since the start of the season. DS has been able to paper over most of these issues but he isn't a miracle worker.

Too many supporters are focussed on the outcome, but have no idea of the processes that all need to be working in the right direction to achieve the desired result. Most of these at the club have been broken for years, but the new owners, coaches etc are now rebuilding these but it will take time. We will have some good times and bad, but ultimately the club will return to its glory, but patience is needed.

With a little luck and the right players brought in, I still believe we will finish in the Top 6 and have a run at promotion like last season, but like last season, we still may be found out to be short.

Whilst I agree with virtually all of your post the first sentence seems to endorse a mindless. anti-intellectual outlook. People ought to be able to debate and criticise on a forum without being derided for their lack of 'credentials', it's totally missing the point.

Edited January 18, 2019 by Dr_Pangloss

[Zatman]

I will happily take a little pain now and built for a sustainable future than hire a quick fix like Big Sam or similar who some people have suggested for short term gain. As we be back to square 1 within 2 seasons but instead of Glenn Whelan and Mile Jedinak we be signing Jake Livermore or James MacArthur on long term deals for huge wages

[weedman]

50 minutes ago, Dr_Pangloss said:

Whilst I agree with virtually all of your post the first sentence is pathetic drivel and seems to endorse a mindless. anti-intellectual outlook. People ought to be able to debate and criticise on a forum without being derided for their lack of 'credentials', it's totally missing the point.

Agreed. An argument based on authority is always a terrible argument. Debate the point that's made, not the credentials of the person making the point.

Otherwise you'd have to say every decision ever made by every manager in our history was correct because they're more qualified than we are. Jonathan Kodjia launching a 35 yard shot out for a throw in instead of passing to a player clean through on goal was correct because he's a professional footballer and we're not. A referee missing a blatant hand ball equaliser was OK because he's a qualified ref and we aren't. The list of mistakes qualified people make is potentially endless and if the argument is noone can say anything about DS unless we have our coaching badges then we may as well shut this thread down. 

With the original point I do agree DS needs time to implement real changes, but the lack of defensive organisation at the moment is really worrying, our full backs are never in line with the center backs and play far too narrow meaning every ball down the line finds a winger with acres of space to play in, whoever plays CDM isn't dropping in to cover the CBs when they split to cover our marauding full backs. This happens whatever players are playing in those positions, it's tactics (or lack of defensive tactics) that's causing it and DS is the head coach, he needs to sort it out, we may not be the best team, but consecutive 3-0 defeats to Swansea and Wigan? We're better than that 

[TRO]

18 hours ago, GENTLEMAN said:

Lets be honest 'horrific' results and performances have only been the last 2 games. Whilst not great, the previous 5 have been far from 'horrific', prior to that I would say performances have been good. Lets have a little balance here. The Wigan game was extremely disappointing but far from the norm so far under Smith. The decision was made to bring him in, barring a catastrophic breakdown (Wigan performance each week), he gets the summer and preseason to assemble a squad before a more rigorous examination of his tenure next season.  

I am all for being positive and i know that you are always so.....but.

In my humble opinion, the signs were there in the games we drew and even won.

I think the swansea and Wigan debacles were an extension of those poor bits in the games prior....in short it was coming like a dark cloud, before the storm.

There were clear tell tale signs for me,against Blues and Forest, Albion was avoidable if we showed the right attitude to go with our guile...and We should have seen off Leeds, but we surrendered the initiative more obviously than Brexit.....QPR was a further example.

There are things in games that need to be eradicated, before we can be serious of our expectations of promotion.....if they are not put right, we are just kidding ourselves.

irrespective of who plays the team culture needs to change....just as one example the workrate, drive and initiative needs to go up a gear.

[The Fun Factory]

4 hours ago, Stuartc445 said:

But it wasn't a random poor performance, they have been getting worse and worse with each game recently.  If it was just 1 bad game there wouldn't be a panic like there is now, the reason for the panic is because 1 win in 8 with the performances have been getting worse even the 1 we won it wasn't great.

That's why I hoped it was. Hope is  what keeps you trudging down to Villa Park in deep mid winter for years on end and no reward for it.

Edited January 18, 2019 by The Fun Factory

[QldVilla]

2 hours ago, Dr_Pangloss said:

Whilst I agree with virtually all of your post the first sentence seems to endorse a mindless. anti-intellectual outlook. People ought to be able to debate and criticise on a forum without being derided for their lack of 'credentials', it's totally missing the point.

I don't believe I was saying you can't debate the issues with the club, but I haven't read anything with a methodology that supports their views. What's the saying, opinions are like @($-?@!$/ everyone has got one....social media just allows everyone to express it. That some are going after a Manager who has been there for 16 weeks is just wrong and have no validity to their argument. Rather than getting up their post numbers, try putting together a logical point of view.

Edited January 19, 2019 by QldVilla

[QldVilla]

3 hours ago, rodders0223 said:

I got Salford FC into the CL in 7 seasons mate.

I'm sure that achievement sits proudly in your CV when you go for job interviews...