Dean Smith

[KentVillan]

On 17/03/2019 at 08:21, Eastie said:

Like any manager smith will be judged on results and I think those expressing doubts had every reason when we had won 2 in 13 at the time - however he has turned things around and rightly deserves praise and plaudits for doing so .

we now need to unite behind the boss and players for the final push - it is all to play for and promotion can very much be achieved - we are hitting form at the right time and with other players on their way back to fitness we will take some stopping .

i always felt Leeds would buckle under the pressure come the final few games and I’d be confident of beating them in any play offs - I would hope sheff Utd get 2nd place as they are the only team in the top 6 I’d prefer to avoid 

 

I love this idea that Dean Smith was terrible, and has suddenly turned things around in the last 4 weeks.

Maybe he was doing a decent job all along and the best player in the league has returned from injury? 2 wins in 13 is so misleading - we also picked up 7 draws, often against decent sides. Lots of us were defending Smith through that patch, because we could see he wasn't getting the rub of the green.

Fed up of all this "football is a results business" pub bore bollocks, and how it's only "fair" to pummel a manager after a few bad results, and then suck him off when he gets 4 wins.

Managers can't affect every single minute of every match. Every season has runs of wins and runs of losses, and it definitely isn't always because of good or bad decisions by the manager.

[LondonVillian]

2 minutes ago, KentVillan said:

I love this idea that Dean Smith was terrible, and has suddenly turned things around in the last 4 weeks.

Maybe he was doing a decent job all along and the best player in the league has returned from injury? 2 wins in 13 is so misleading - we also picked up 7 draws, often against decent sides. Lots of us were defending Smith through that patch, because we could see he wasn't getting the rub of the green.

Fed up of all this "football is a results business" pub bore bollocks, and how it's only "fair" to pummel a manager after a few bad results, and then suck him off when he gets 4 wins.

Managers can't affect every single minute of every match. Every season has runs of wins and runs of losses, and it definitely isn't always because of good or bad decisions by the manager.

At least I have been consistent with my doubts - will suck him off if we make the playoffs though

Edited March 18, 2019 by LondonVillian

[villalad21]

24 minutes ago, KentVillan said:

Maybe he was doing a decent job all along

Losing 3-0 at Wigan, drawing against Reading. 2 wins in 13 games.

Since Jack's return it's been a different story, but before that it was poor, very very poor.

Edited March 18, 2019 by villalad21

[Zatman]

1 minute ago, villalad21 said:

Losing 3-0 at Wigan, drawing against Reading. 2 wins in 13 games.

Since Jack's return it's been a different story, but before that it was poor, very very poor.

but some people said Jack's return would have no impact on the team 

[villabromsgrove]

Smith is the perfect fit for us at the moment.

Sure he's made mistakes, but he's learning more and more about the Villa squad every match.

Read the thoughts of our immediate competitors fans reference the play off places and preferred opposition, and you'll see they're scared of us.

We may not make it this season because play offs are a bit of a lottery, but I'm confident that Dean Smith is taking us in the right direction. 

[villalad21]

35 minutes ago, Zatman said:

but some people said Jack's return would have no impact on the team 

And you don't find being that dependent on one player is concerning?

[villabromsgrove]

1 minute ago, villalad21 said:

And you don't find being that dependent on one player is concerning?

Say something positive and join the rest of us shouting Villa on.

Eight games to go .... We have a chance which no one gave us five games ago.

[Jareth]

25 minutes ago, villalad21 said:

And you don't find being that dependent on one player is concerning?

DS should have signed at least 2 Grealish replacements last summer

[KentVillan]

I don't buy this "Smith is dependent on Grealish" thing either. We're obviously a much better team with Jack playing, but DS was very unlucky with some of the results when Jack was out injured.

We still often dominated both possession and shot count - e.g. in all of these games where we only got 5 points:

• Preston (A) 1-1
• QPR (H) 2-2
• Hull (H) 2-2
• Shef Utd (H) 3-3
• West Brom (H) 0-2
• Stoke (A) 1-1

DS definitely deserved more than 5 points out of that.

(Cue "bla bla it's a results business", "there's only one stat that matters", etc.)

[Keener window-cleaner]

On 17/02/2019 at 18:09, Keener window-cleaner said:

Agree it doesn't look likely, quite unlikely rather. But if we get Grealish back, plus some other midfielders to rotate and get back to the form we showed in November then it's possible imo.

Psychic I am.

[Keener window-cleaner]

.

Edited March 18, 2019 by Keener window-cleaner
double post

[KMitch]

3 hours ago, villalad21 said:

And you don't find being that dependent on one player is concerning?

Not at all...  The man had more glaring issues to address in January than a Jack backup, namely the garbage defense we had and injuries to key players.  Smith has done brilliantly to acquire Mings/Hause/Kalinic and recall Steer/Elphick/Green to address the more glaring holes in our team.  The jury is still out on Carroll, but like Mings/Hause, he hasn't played much this season and will need a bit of time to get up to fitness.  January is for minor surgery, but we've managed to overhaul our entire defense, which is a large part in why we've won 4 on the trot.  Yes, Jack's return to the team played a huge part in out turn around, but Jack isn't the reason we've only conceded 1 goal in 4 games.  We finally have a back four which look comfortable enough to handle anything thrown at us, while simultaneously springboarding our possession into a dangerous attack.  Smith has shown enough at this point to prove that if he gets the players he wants to play in his system, we'll make a mockery of this league. 

[tomav84]

11 hours ago, KentVillan said:

I don't buy this "Smith is dependent on Grealish" thing either. We're obviously a much better team with Jack playing, but DS was very unlucky with some of the results when Jack was out injured.

We still often dominated both possession and shot count - e.g. in all of these games where we only got 5 points:

• Preston (A) 1-1
• QPR (H) 2-2
• Hull (H) 2-2
• Shef Utd (H) 3-3
• West Brom (H) 0-2
• Stoke (A) 1-1

DS definitely deserved more than 5 points out of that.

(Cue "bla bla it's a results business", "there's only one stat that matters", etc.)

being dependent on one player could apply to even the top clubs and it really is true in our case. might have had more possession and shots but i dont think we deserved any more than those 5 points we got based on overall play.

• Preston (A) 1-1 - played poorly but probably deserved a point
• QPR (H) 2-2 - played crap and deserved no more than a point
• Hull (H) 2-2 - see above to be honest
• Shef Utd (H) 3-3 - salvaged a draw from their errors, we deserved to lose
• West Brom (H) 0-2 - got exactly what we deserved
• Stoke (A) 1-1 - lots of possession but created too few chances to deserve a win

jack returning has given everyone a lift. it might be pure coincidence that things are clicking into place or it could coincide with the injury to hutton for all i know. i just hope he stays fit for the season and we build a team that can win without him in the summer whether we go up or not. premiership teams will have the ability to contain him, so we'll need a plan B

[Sam3773]

Are we dependant on the player or the position? 

It's a key question, because we tried playing Hourihane/McGinn who are both unsuited to the more attacking position Grealish plays. They weren't as effective, perhaps because it's not their natural position. The only player who has attributes in that area, Lansbury, was also injured. 

Don't get me wrong, I'm not dismissing Grealish's talents by any stretch of the imagination. We are a different team without him, but if we had a natural backup for Grealish, a Sawyers perhaps, I'm confident we would have had a better run of results during Grealish's absence. 

Ergo, Smith isn't reliant one player, he's reliant on players playing in natural positions. 

[Mark Albrighton]

Happy Birthday Dean.

 

[Zatman]

48 minutes ago, Shropshire Lad said:

Happy Birthday Dean.

 

From the angle it looks like he is shoving the badge in the face of Gardner

[screwdriver]

Smiths great idea to cope with the loss of grealish was to change the whole style of play...which caused mutterings of discontent from the playing staff resulting in the twitter rumour mill going into overdrive.

It would have been much easier to put in grealish clone O'Hare for a few games (blooding a youngster born in birmingham will always get you credit in the bank from the fans), try gazi in there for a few games and/or bring in a specialist play maker in the window. I suggested Ravel Morrision however anyone would have done.

However Smith sat on his hands and his team talks went "get it wide get it into the mixer" and "if in doubt launch it"

doing nothing is not managing the situation

[AvfcRigo82]

18 hours ago, LondonVillian said:

At least I have been consistent with my doubts - will suck him off if we make the playoffs though

If we make the playoffs and win them, il shag him! 

[Pelle]

It's been an interesting read catching up in this thread. I've been backing DS all the way, but not been convinced. We've had more than a few really bad games. I think the game against wigan is one of the worst performances I've seen, and that's including 0-6 to liverpool. I can understand the doubters. It's a kind of weakness to rely that much on one player as it seems we've been on Jack, if you look at it in only that way. Our run of good form started with him coming back. But is that the only reason we've got this run of four consecutive wins? Maybe we started our turn a bit before that. 1-1 away to stoke ain't that bad, especially with the results we had behind us. And we played better than we had for a while. I'd even say that the last 15 minutes against sheff utd might've had some impact.

We've also had a couple of new defenders coming in to steer up the defence that was leaking. And a gk. Some seem to think that it's just to buy a couple of players and then it'll be fine. It's not. If you get a whole bunch of new players in the dynamics will change. What roles in the squad will they have? And with that I don't mean if they will be playing as defenders or midfielders etc. And there may be some worries like who'll play, who'll be put on the bench. Some players gets instantly better from competition, some won't. But it'll take some time for everyone to settle. And then there was this new guy stamping an opponent in the face. What was that about? Did he mean it? Was it an accident? What kind of a person is he? Totally mental, just unlucky? He's done it before, you know. Anyway, all this will affect the squad, especially a squad that had started to drop in form since the star got injured. Now they all seem to have settled and we start to play well again. Really well.

But still, I can understand those who were a bit worried, had their doubts, etc. What I really can't understand is that there have been those who's really been calling for DS' head. Sack him? After 4-5 months? That's madness, it really is. Haven't we learned anything from the last 9 years? We've changed managers 8 times since MON, and that's without counting the interim managers. In 9 years. Have anything got better? We had a decent last season with the playoffs and all that, but as soon as we had an unsettled Bruce things started to look bad again and nothing had changed in the end. So to be calling for a managers head after such a short time is nothing but stupid. We've seen it happening so many times before without any real results and yet some think it's for the good THIS time. It's not. Ssmith should at least get to the end of next season, unless we're appaling and heading for L1. Somehow I doubt we will.

Sorry for the wall of text.

[striker]

34 minutes ago, screwdriver said:

Smiths great idea to cope with the loss of grealish was to change the whole style of play...which caused mutterings of discontent from the playing staff resulting in the twitter rumour mill going into overdrive.

It would have been much easier to put in grealish clone O'Hare for a few games (blooding a youngster born in birmingham will always get you credit in the bank from the fans), try gazi in there for a few games and/or bring in a specialist play maker in the window. I suggested Ravel Morrision however anyone would have done.

However Smith sat on his hands and his team talks went "get it wide get it into the mixer" and "if in doubt launch it"

doing nothing is not managing the situation

Much of what you say in this post (bolded) I agree with even though I’ve been one of the few to support Smith during the previous poor points return over 13 games. For me it was a very strange decision to send O’Hare out on loan when he was the obvious replacement for Grealish to allow Villa to play the same system and style of play while also giving a very promising young player the chance to shine.

Certainly it would have been hard to see Villa earning even less points over the same period with O’Hare in the team but I guess the manager doesn’t have the benefit of hindsight as we do.

Personally with Villa flying before the Grealish injury I feel it was a major mistake by Smith to change the system to accommodate the loss of Grealish which has the team playing, yet again, catch up to gain promotion but I hope he has learned from it?