Dean Smith

[Brentfordnylons]

Was at the game as a guest in the corporate level (very bland and not for me) thought you were going to win this and think if there wasn’t the sending off you would have.Superb Villa support although the gooners did wake up in the second half.McGinn is proving to be every bit a PL player bit disappointed with Grealish apart from his great run and cross for the goal.Where is Konsa these days wasn’t even on the bench and must be better than Engels.Amazed that some fans are calling for Dean to go already but then some of ours are doing the same Regarding Thomas Frank Hope most of your fans give Dean time like they did last season when things weren’t going well. 

[sne]

I just don't think we currently have what it takes to stay up.

It is an unforgiving league and we are very much learning the ropes, Smith included.

I don't think the players or Smith are doing worse than expected, missing opportunities like yesterday thou is just bad and if continued will put us down.

Big opportunity missed.

What is worrying thou is that we seem to have messed up in recruitment, especially the LB situation where Taylor is still playing and in the wide positions where we seem light and where Elmo is preferred before Jota in a situation like yesterday.

The very late subs or even lack of subs some games points to Smith not trusting the squad players (or multiple fitness issues) and that is also very worrying.

we just have to scrape enough points to stay in touch ti'll January and the hope we can find another LB and another winger (and possibly striker)

[Pimlico_Villa]

1 hour ago, holteend1982 said:

He took us from the championship to the Premier league, how are you not seeing progress? 

It's always going to be tough this season, there's a lot of good teams in this league. We now have 3 very winnable league games coming up so let's see where we are after those before you get your bedsheets out just yet. 

This season, I'm talking about. No point in comparing this with last season as it is a different game. Even in that 6 game period, he has made repeat mistakes and has not been able to game manage. 

I don't buy into this "we look good in patches" claim as that is completely pointless and not the right way to look at it. All that matters is playing for the duration of the game and being consistent. 

[Pimlico_Villa]

I know he would consider us a step down in calibre of club, but with the quality of our owners and the backing they can provide I think we could convince Mourinho. He has already won everything in European Club football and might be up for the challenge. 

[sne]

We ain't sacking Smith ffs!

 

[Wainy316]

10 minutes ago, Brentfordnylons said:

Was at the game as a guest in the corporate level (very bland and not for me) thought you were going to win this and think if there wasn’t the sending off you would have.Superb Villa support although the gooners did wake up in the second half.McGinn is proving to be every bit a PL player bit disappointed with Grealish apart from his great run and cross for the goal.Where is Konsa these days wasn’t even on the bench and must be better than Engels.Amazed that some fans are calling for Dean to go already but then some of ours are doing the same Regarding Thomas Frank Hope most of your fans give Dean time like they did last season when things weren’t going well. 

Konsa was on the bench but Engels has been a revelation for us (barring the stupid pen he gave away yesterday).  Smith rightly deserves some criticism for yesterday but anyone calling for his head is a moron.

[zab6359]

5 minutes ago, Pimlico_Villa said:

I know he would consider us a step down in calibre of club, but with the quality of our owners and the backing they can provide I think we could convince Mourinho. He has already won everything in European Club football and might be up for the challenge. 

You are ****ing with us aren't you?

[Jay.P.A]

In Smith we trust. 

We're not getting rid of him. His team will get it right. We're not far off. 

[Herman22]

I think we all need to take a few deep breaths and think before going nuclear. 

Dean has taken us from lower mid-table in the Championship to the Permier league and he's not been here a year yet. If we were getting tonked every game there may be some cause to get rid. But as it stands we are on the verge of getting things right. 

But for poor refereeing decisions we would have picked up draws at both Palace and Arsenal. We should have done more at home to West Ham when they were down to 10 but everyone in this group is still learning including the manager. 

I never expected us to get promoted last season so for me DS is ahead of the plan. No matter what happens this season DS should not be fired. Even if we do go down (I personally don'e see it happening) I'd have 100% faith DS would bring us straight back up. 

[Pimlico_Villa]

2 minutes ago, sne said:

We ain't sacking Smith ffs!

 

Owners want to see development and all they are seeing is horrific incompetence. These aren't the sort of guys to dwell in the past - this is their personal capital at play and they won't be sympathetic. 

[sne]

9 minutes ago, Pimlico_Villa said:

Owners want to see development and all they are seeing is horrific incompetence. These aren't the sort of guys to dwell in the past - this is their personal capital at play and they won't be sympathetic. 

What the owners want or doesn't want is not too hard to guess, but how they will act very much is.

I don't see them going down the PL manager carousel with the usual suspects. And we are not in a position yet to be interesting to any of the actual big name managers out there who are unemployed.

Allegri, Mourinho, Blanc, Spalletti wont come here.

Wenger, Pekerman, Lucescu, Ranieri are all ancient and won't be options.

I pray to McGrath that the likes of Allardyce, Moyes or whatever will never be.

Owners won't remove Smith, and rightly so.

Edited September 23, 2019 by sne

[KenjiOgiwara]

We must stick with him. We are trying to develop a system and a culture now. It will take time. Looking at our player purchases, even if the worst possible outcome happens, we are likely to keep most of them and bounce straight back. 

But it's just weird going mental at this stage. We are 3 points off where we want to be atm. and we've played both arsenal and spurs away, and had some very decent performances, albeit some poor ones as well. 

For what it's worth I think most of the fan base agrees on this so not too worried. We all know where we were 18 months ago. 

[Davkaus]

37 minutes ago, sne said:

We ain't sacking Smith ffs!

 

Can't believe people are even contemplating it, especially after 6 games.

From some of my posts, I think people can tell I was pretty pissed off with the last couple of games, but it's ridiculously premature to be discussing changing the manager. 

[TRO]

17 hours ago, KentVillan said:

A more optimistic analysis:

We went to a top 6 side, went 1-0 up with a good goal, and put them under sufficient pressure that they were picking up yellow cards unnecessarily which led to the sending off (was a nice move to send El Ghazi through for Maitland-Niles's first yellow).

First half we put in a very creditable away performance:

• A lot of our passing out from Engels and Mings was superb, and created some great counter attacks.
• Trezeguet looked very good on the ball and defensively, but just needs to work on his end product.
• El Ghazi's ball for McGinn goal superb.
• Jack got Xhaka booked early which caused him problems later in the game.
• John McGinn made a great run for his goal, and later had 2 or 3 genuine chances which he created for himself.
• Nakamba looked excellent.

Second half we did dip, and were exposed by Arsenal's superior pace and ability, but we still did some damage:

• Jack set up a goal by beating three players, and won a couple of dangerous free kicks.
• Wesley scored with a very neat finish, giving him a 1 in 3 goal scoring ratio this season = 13 goals if continued over the season. A healthy return for one of our worst ever signings.
• Heaton made a superb save from Guendouzi, looked solid throughout, and was probably blameless for all of the goals.
• We had a blatant penalty turned down by referee and VAR.

Ultimately all Arsenal's goals came from individual errors:

1. Penalty comes from two uncharacteristic mistakes by Engels - first a bad pass out, and then the foul.
2. Uncharacteristic mistake from Mings for Chambers goal under minimal pressure
3. Nakamba (who was otherwise very good) makes a mistake for the free kick

You can talk about bad decisions from Smith but the two substitutions we were crying out for (quick striker / winger to hit them on the counter, and ballwinning machine in central midfield) aren't in our current squad.

Yes it raises questions about our recruitment over the summer, and how well conditioned our players are, but we'll stay up by taking points against worse teams than Arsenal.

Overall the main thing today says to me is that we are capable of picking up points in games like this, if we hold our nerve better. The performance today suggests that Dean Smith and the boys are more than capable of getting 3 points against Burnley. UTV

Good rendition.

2 goals away at Arsenal is as good as it gets, to expect 3 or 4 is fanciful.....after scoring the second, we should have gone in to contain mode, but i think thats where our problems lie.....you need Nakamba AND Luiz in that centre....or buy a player who can put his foot on the ball and dictate play.

When Jack and John are launching their sorties, it leaves us vulnerable in the middle of the park....there is a job in the middle that needs jacking up for this league, more of a containing role.

We are currently falling in to the category of "easy touch".......its not a direct defensive problem, we conceded 6 in 5 before the Arsenal game, but the same traits existed in the Spurs game.

in some aspects we are playing well.....in other ways, we are naive.

Its very easy to get back in a game against us, so the goalscorers will get very frustrated as John McGinn proved in his after match interview.

The end of games we look very short on energy and wide open.....we have to shore up central midfield, else we will come under huge pressure, in every aspect of the club.

we have played some decent sides most occupying 5-8, so all is not lost....but the problems are pretty obvious in my view.

individual errors are our main issue right now, but pressure is the main cause, we have to eliminate the pressure on the back 4.

Why are we so poor when the oppostion are reduced to 10 men?

The main reason is the opposition up their work rate and intensity and we are usually knackered by that time.....last 20 odd against West Ham and last 30 odd against Arsenal.... both in the second half, when our energy is exhausted.

We must play smarter.

 

 

 

Edited September 23, 2019 by TRO

[useless]

If we carry on like we are he'll lose his job whether people like it or not. Our owners won't be thinking that he'll be the perfect manager to bring us back up, they'll want someone to salvage this season, they brought us with the Premier league in mind and beyond.

[bannedfromHandV]

We look scarily unfit.

 

[sne]

1 minute ago, useless said:

If we carry on like we are he'll lose his job whether people like it or not. Our owners won't be thinking that he'll be the perfect manager to bring us back up, they'll want someone to salvage this season, they brought us with the Premier league in mind and beyond.

But that is at least 10 games away, or more.

And they won't (hopefully) sack him just because. If they have a long term play as you think they will also have a plan with whoever is brought in to replace him.

Currently we are doing as expected, anyone who thought it would be easier was very naive.

If it comes to that then I also expect Suso and whoever is behind recruiting will also be sacked because this is where the big issue lies.

LB, wide positions and possibly striker is holding us back big time.

[TRO]

To lose away at Spurs and Arsenal is no disgrace in our first season, its expected to be fair.

The problem is we were in front in both games and led for long periods....so the opportunity to secure points was very much alive.

our problem in general is we as a team struggle to contain teams....even Forest with the 5-5 was an example....its been with us for some time.

Most of the teams that have gone up i.e Brighton, Burnley, Bournemouth, have an ability to contain and grind out results.

We can score goals, perhaps we would like more naturally, but I don't think you can come in to this league and expect to out score teams....I think we might be barking up the wrong tree at the moment......Wesley's goal was equally as good as Woods goal for Burnley and John McGinns was on par with a Man City or Liverpool type goal...The difference is they can produce the pitch craft to contain after they have scored or go out and keep repeating the scoring.

We can't.....we can't repeat our scoring to their level and we can't contain sufficiently to secure points.

I think its easier to fix the later as the former is very expensive.

 

Edited September 23, 2019 by TRO

[LondonLax]

49 minutes ago, Pimlico_Villa said:

Owners want to see development and all they are seeing is horrific incompetence. These aren't the sort of guys to dwell in the past - this is their personal capital at play and they won't be sympathetic. 

Good lord, it’s Fulham all over again...

[useless]

I'd say anyone who thinks we're doing as expected has very low expectations, going into each of our six games this season it's not unreasonable to say that we could have realistically hoped to get three points from four of them, and with the way the Arsenal game went we should have taken three points from that one as well, of course I'm not saying that we should be on twelve or fifteen points, but we definitely should have taken more points from the fixtures we've had. Whether Smith gets another 10 games or so will depend on the way things go in the meantime, our next three fixtures are Burnley, Norwich and Brighton, do poorly in those and I think that the pressure will really begin to mount, especially with games against Liverpool and Man City to follow. A lot will also depend on how teams around us are doing, if other teams near the bottom are struggling and we're still in with a chance of catching them, then I think they'll be less of a mind to make a change, just need to stay within touching distance of survival for as long as possible.

I actually do think Smith will turn things around, but we need results it's no good just keep dismissing games and saying things like 'we haven't played anyone who will be in a relegation battle', everyone outside the top six will potentially be in a relegation battle, and if we only take points from teams who finish in the five or so, then that won't be enough.