Dean Smith

[El Zen]

3 hours ago, Talldarkandransome said:

Thanks Deano, you've made me proud to be a villa fan again. Heart, passion and some intelligence instead of hoof it here, hoof it there.

One more performance and we can kick on from there.

This exactly. I’m more emotionally invested in this team than I have been for years. That’s all thanks to Dean Smith. 

[tonyh29]

I think with 13 games to go i said Smith would have to prove in those 13 games he was the man to take us forward 

I guess he’s just about done that

 

let’s hope he can just get us one more win though 

[Tomaszk]

We've just got from slight underdogs to big favourites.

Dean has to keep everyone focussed.

[terrytini]

Villa in the League under Deano

Played 34.....Won 17.....Drawn.........10.........Lost 7.......Scored 62......Conceded 41.........

Over the same period, Derby..

Played 34.....Won 15.....Drawn.........11..........Lost 8.......Scored 54.....Conceded 41.......

Take out the two games between the sides....

Villa 15-10-7.....55/41

Derby 15-11-6..54/41

Couldn't really be more closely matched. As evidenced by the First Half at their place, when they were the better side ( it was the arrival of Bolasie in the Second Half that really swung it).

It will be a more pleasant occasion, and more of a football match, than if it’d been Leeds. But it’s going to be very very close.

My own concern is it’s very very rare to beat the same team 3 times in a season, unless there is a huge gap in quality. To counter that, this isn’t the League anymore it’s a Final.

If you’d told either set of fans last August they’d be 90 minutes away from the Premier League with this as the Fixture they’d have happily taken it. 

What a game.

[terrytini]

5 minutes ago, Tomaszk said:

We've just got from slight underdogs to big favourites.

Dean has to keep everyone focussed.

Big favourites ? In whose eyes ? Not mine !

[Vive_La_Villa]

19 minutes ago, tonyh29 said:

I think with 13 games to go i said Smith would have to prove in those 13 games he was the man to take us forward 

I guess he’s just about done that

 

let’s hope he can just get us one more win though 

I had a bet with a few on here that had wrote off Smith around Feb time:  I bet them villa will be challenging for top 2 and automatic promotion in January next season. 

Im very happy I could lose that bet now.

[Tomaszk]

Just now, terrytini said:

Big favourites ? In whose eyes ? Not mine !

Mine. And all the bookies.

Different pressure now.

Would it be worse to lose to Derby or Leeds? I don't know. Hopefully never have to find out.

[terrytini]

12 minutes ago, Tomaszk said:

Mine. And all the bookies.

Different pressure now.

Would it be worse to lose to Derby or Leeds? I don't know. Hopefully never have to find out.

Is 8/13 Villa 6/5 Derby, for example, BIG favourites ? I suppose it depends how you interpret big.

For the FA Cup City are 1/7 and Watford 4/1.......for me that’s the type of odds that say “ big favourites”.

[romavillan]

7 minutes ago, terrytini said:

Is 8/13 Villa 6/5 Derby, for example, BIG favourites ? I suppose it depends how you interpret big.

For the FA Cup City are 1/7 and Watford 4/1.......for me that’s the type of odds that say “ big favourites”.

being odds on is quite heavy favourites yeah, you can get evens on us and 2s on derby. That's pretty heavily in our favour too. Personally I think it's closer than that.

[NIVillan]

17 hours ago, Dave-R said:

Sorry I don't agree, I don't think we played white at all. We clearly had most possession,  best pass rate and largely dominated the game. However where I do draw the line was our finishing, the goal blunder that nearly cost us and that five away which nearly cost us the semi finals. When you consider the amount of crosses, shots, headers we had to Brom I would agree that our finishing was absoloute terrible.

When Paul Lambert went off and spoke to Pep at Bayern he had us play a passing game that meant we had the majority of possession in most games.  We were still shite and played like shite because we didnt create anything.  He got sacked.  Even Timmy improved on that by getting us to take a chance more (Turnaround against Leicester in Cup ).

We didnt play well at all over the two legs, slipping and sliding around.

 

[Risso]

11 hours ago, terrytini said:

Villa in the League under Deano

Played 34.....Won 17.....Drawn.........10.........Lost 7.......Scored 62......Conceded 41.........

Over the same period, Derby..

Played 34.....Won 15.....Drawn.........11..........Lost 8.......Scored 54.....Conceded 41.......

Take out the two games between the sides....

Villa 15-10-7.....55/41

Derby 15-11-6..54/41

Couldn't really be more closely matched. As evidenced by the First Half at their place, when they were the better side ( it was the arrival of Bolasie in the Second Half that really swung it).

It will be a more pleasant occasion, and more of a football match, than if it’d been Leeds. But it’s going to be very very close.

My own concern is it’s very very rare to beat the same team 3 times in a season, unless there is a huge gap in quality. To counter that, this isn’t the League anymore it’s a Final.

If you’d told either set of fans last August they’d be 90 minutes away from the Premier League with this as the Fixture they’d have happily taken it. 

What a game.

Leeds beat Derby three times.  Now if you'd said four.....

[carewjust4u]

I think this has been one of, if not my favourite seasons ever supporting this team, what a journey it has been. 

I don't know about anyone else but i was at my lowest ever point prior to Bruce being cabbaged, look where we are now.

Come on Dean....deliver us to the promised land after so many years in the wilderness.

Edited May 16, 2019 by carewjust4u

[Rob182]

15 hours ago, terrytini said:

Big favourites ? In whose eyes ? Not mine !

This was how I described it to a mate at work earlier: Against Derby I see us as 60/40 favourites. If we were facing Leeds, I would see it as 60/40 in favour of Leeds.

[VillanousOne]

We haven't even gotten out of second gear in the last two games, which either means we are tired and the players have hit a wall, or players like Grealish, McGinn, Tammy and El Ghazi can step up for the big occasion.

but we need a big team performance with much more off the ball movement and urgency, also not sure Green or Adomah are up to the job and for some reason Hause and Mings looks the better combo.

[terrytini]

36 minutes ago, VillanousOne said:

We haven't even gotten out of second gear in the last two games, which either means we are tired and the players have hit a wall, or players like Grealish, McGinn, Tammy and El Ghazi can step up for the big occasion.

but we need a big team performance with much more off the ball movement and urgency, also not sure Green or Adomah are up to the job and for some reason Hause and Mings looks the better combo.

My view is that it was pressure. We didn’t look physically tired - if anything I thought our energy levels were outstanding.....but mentally we looked very jaded.

Ive always thought the stuff about the “energy sapping Wembley pitch” was missing the mark. It’s not bigger than many other pitches. To me, the energy used to drain from teams because of the occasion. I’ll never forget those two poor Finals we played against Everton in 1977....we were a pale imitation of the team we had been. Then, in the 3rd game, we exploded into life.

I think the mental effort of that Winning run that propelled us to where, really, we had no right to even think of being, took it’s toll.

Inevitably we hit a height and have come down. That come down then coincided with the huge pressure ( the amount riding on those Semi Finals !!!) and facing a game against a team who had NOT had to put together a run like ours. That’s quite a concoction.

To see misplaced passes from Jack, to see McGinn only doing the work of one man, Mings making error after error on the ball, Tammy not winning his battles......that’s our 4 key players below par. For me that’s not ability, tiredness, the opposition, it’s just mental tiredness.

Will it have gone for the Final ? Who knows, but I think it will. First there is a decent break. “ the run” is now in the past, it’s fully consigned to history. In a funny way, much of the pressure has gone, it’s now just on the day. What I mean by that is that even as fans, the real intense moments were Sheffield and Rotherham Away, Bristol At Home, and that game at the Hawthorns. They really did feel like “ must Win”.

I know the Final is a must win, of course, but I just feel the players head# will be back to normal.

If they are, we can play really well. If we do, we should, given that bit of luck, Win.

[Kingman]

The gaffer is live on WM at 6.15 answering questions

[hippo]

2 hours ago, terrytini said:

My view is that it was pressure. We didn’t look physically tired - if anything I thought our energy levels were outstanding.....but mentally we looked very jaded.

Ive always thought the stuff about the “energy sapping Wembley pitch” was missing the mark. It’s not bigger than many other pitches. To me, the energy used to drain from teams because of the occasion. I’ll never forget those two poor Finals we played against Everton in 1977....we were a pale imitation of the team we had been. Then, in the 3rd game, we exploded into life.

I think the mental effort of that Winning run that propelled us to where, really, we had no right to even think of being, took it’s toll.

Inevitably we hit a height and have come down. That come down then coincided with the huge pressure ( the amount riding on those Semi Finals !!!) and facing a game against a team who had NOT had to put together a run like ours. That’s quite a concoction.

To see misplaced passes from Jack, to see McGinn only doing the work of one man, Mings making error after error on the ball, Tammy not winning his battles......that’s our 4 key players below par. For me that’s not ability, tiredness, the opposition, it’s just mental tiredness.

Will it have gone for the Final ? Who knows, but I think it will. First there is a decent break. “ the run” is now in the past, it’s fully consigned to history. In a funny way, much of the pressure has gone, it’s now just on the day. What I mean by that is that even as fans, the real intense moments were Sheffield and Rotherham Away, Bristol At Home, and that game at the Hawthorns. They really did feel like “ must Win”.

I know the Final is a must win, of course, but I just feel the players head# will be back to normal.

If they are, we can play really well. If we do, we should, given that bit of luck, Win.

Wasnt the big wembley pitch rumbled as a myth ? VP and wembley are in fact similar size pitches..

[KentVillan]

I think one of the things DS has instilled in us is good discipline. You watch that Leeds v Derby game, and you see two teams, gloves off, just having the footballing equivalent of a 12 round brawl, with all tactics out the window.

West Brom tried very hard to throw us off our stroke, and ended up picking up two red cards in the process, without particularly riling any of our players. I could easily see something similar happening to Derby.

I just don't see us letting Derby turn it into an end-to-end free-for-all in the same way Leeds did. The Berardi red card was so stupid. The only player on our side I could see doing something as stupid as that is Hourihane, and DS seems to be getting a better tune out of him recently.

Our good discipline, and the options coming off the bench, mean we should win it. But obviously Derby have some dangerous players and a bit of momentum... not writing them off. It's going to be a nervous bank holiday weekend 

Edited May 16, 2019 by KentVillan

[Xela]

19 hours ago, Tomaszk said:

Mine. And all the bookies.

Different pressure now.

Would it be worse to lose to Derby or Leeds? I don't know. Hopefully never have to find out.

If we had to lose to anyone then it would be Derby 100%. 

Baggies and Leeds are loathsome. 

 

[Xela]

4 hours ago, carewjust4u said:

I think this has been one of, if not my favourite seasons ever supporting this team, what a journey it has been. 

I don't know about anyone else but i was at my lowest ever point prior to Bruce being cabbaged, look where we are now.

Come on Dean....deliver us to the promised land after so many years in the wilderness.

Last 15 games or so, I agree 

Lets not forget there has been a lot of poor stuff this year under Bruce and that spell under Smith

Delighted with the turnaround though! 

Edited May 16, 2019 by Xela