Dean Smith

[Zatman]

Not even sure what Bruce has to do with this thread. Sure he never even managed us in this division

Closest he got was a pathetic performance at Wembley

[romavillan]

When I was looking at his reaction to the second goal yesterday I could see how utterly devastated he was to lose but there was a resolve there too, he sort of looked like he was already ticking over in his mind how to beat them next year. You could tell he was fuming but he didn't look defeated to me. If he can transmit that to the group then we should see a good reaction.

[Guest av1]

9 hours ago, MikeMcKenna said:

Reading some of the comments here is depressing and makes me despair of some Villa fans. IMHO that was the best the Villa performance of the season despite losing..... ....in the last minute. Smith nearly pulled off the result of the season.

 

Agreed. I wonder if some posters actually watched the game and are instead just basing their opinions on stats. 

The fact that the whole Holte end rose to sing 'Villa till I die' the second the winner went in, before giving the lads a standing ovation at the end, reassures me that the vast majority of Villa fans realise what a bloody good performance that was. 

[romavillan]

9 hours ago, TRO said:

The disappointment for me was the move was repeated during most of the game.......crossfield ball to the far post and still we failed to defend it....you would have thought the penny might have dropped.

We are not the best equipped in the air, outside the 2 centre backs......and it shows.

Liverpool is a great team, but not one of their better days today, they looked predictable to me and that is taking nothing away from Villa.

However, we do seem to be vulnerable from aerial assault.

It's what they do though, overload the flanks, Arnold is great at it down the right for them and is massively dangerous. We were trying to stay compact in the middle and not get stretched out wide to leave big gaps in the middle. The more knackered the wide forwards get the less they can help out quickly at the back.

[SuffolkVillan]

12 hours ago, terrytini said:

Having been this afternoon and thought we were very good, I’ve just rewatched the whole game, and all I can say is the critical comments are even more baffling to me now than they were an hour ago.

Deano did a great job today, we were in a real scrap and we kept our defensive shape, our desire, our energy levels, we created chances, especially second half, and we got 100% from every player.

More convinced than ever we will Win more than our fair share of games against sides in the mini League of 12.

Ps - saw virtually no sign of “sitting back” nor of hoofball. Nor of any sub standard “ game management”.

Id take an identical performance every game, and wed end up with a very good season.

 

Have to agree with this and I'm sure Deano will be planning to strengthen either 1st team or bench to provide players who can stiffen up the defensive work later on in games which is where we are currently a bit undercooked. We have been "in" every game so far and work rate, commitment and nouse is improving as we go. I predict a finish around 13th-15th.

[Guest av1]

Just on the subs. 

Guilbert was injured and Wesley was blowing out of his arse. I'm not sure looking at the bench he could have done a fat lot else. 

The difference was not what Smith did, it was the fact that he had Hourihane and Kodjia to turn to, Klopp had Origi (sp?), Ox,  And Keiata (sp?) To turn to. 

[romavillan]

I thought Hourihane looked good when he came on, he was involved in all the best chances late on for 2-0.

[Brumstopdogs]

 

 

[Philosopher]

Hopefully once everyone settles down the team becomes fully integrated we can start retaining some possession against the better teams, as I firmly believe we have the player for that. To me the counter attack should just be a side arm, not our main assault rifle.

[Dr_Pangloss]

49 minutes ago, av1 said:

Just on the subs. 

Guilbert was injured and Wesley was blowing out of his arse. I'm not sure looking at the bench he could have done a fat lot else. 

The difference was not what Smith did, it was the fact that he had Hourihane and Kodjia to turn to, Klopp had Origi (sp?), Ox,  And Keiata (sp?) To turn to. 

Yep a £53m Keita, a £35m Oxlande-Chamberlain and a £10m Origi (and that was £10m 5 years ago).  Put's it into perspective. 

[hippo]

18 minutes ago, Dr_Pangloss said:

Yep a £53m Keita, a £35m Oxlande-Chamberlain and a £10m Origi (and that was £10m 5 years ago).  Put's it into perspective. 

Not bad considering Klopp said he wasn't going to buy trophies..

[villalad21]

3 hours ago, Villarocker said:

With Bruce we would have played totally defensively yesterday

Hate to break it to you but we did play totally defensively yesterday.

[Guest av1]

35 minutes ago, villalad21 said:

Hate to break it to you but we did play totally defensively yesterday.

That's rubbish. 

Plop had more possession because they have better players, Smith didn't set up to defend. 

[TRO]

12 hours ago, Tomaszk said:

Love Smith, love the intent. He's an ambitious so and so, and I'm not convinced we have the quality to play how he wants, especially in the PL. We have too many players who are just not good enough.

I understanding him persisting, why would you not try and play the way you want? I pray it doesn't cost us though. I think some good teams will go down this year who feel like they've had an OK season. Could be us, Watford, Burnley, Brighton, West Ham anyone outside the top 7 basically.

We're too narrow in midfield a lot of the time.

When full backs come forward, for anyone, they have so much space and our midfield gets spread too thinly. Today we played the best pair of full backs in the world (I think Trent AA is actually the best in the whole world at the moment, ffs what a player) and being honest, with some decent shooting, Liverpool could have had 4 or 5. Their finishing was abysmal.

Wolves and Sheffield Utd for example, if they play 352 against us, I'm very very concerned they'll open us up for fun. Newcastle as well are playing a 541 with full backs pushing forward.

In many ways we're playing with house money here. Forget a year ago...in February we were absolutely out of it, no chance of promotion.

Almost got a win v European champs! Not overly disappointed though because I don't think we deserved anything, got thumped for much of the match. Only frustration is the Hourihane pass to Trez could have been better, or he could have shot. And the other was I thought for some real fun McGinn could have shot from about 45 yards instead of play El Ghazi (?) in, Allison was charging out. Both tricky chances, well defended though.

Some really positive points to identify our shortfalls.....i think you make significant references.

I too have reservations that our team is good enough individually to set up 4-3-3 only the very best teams do that.....We are too open for periods in a game.

3-5-2 would be an interesting option.

[sne]

We barely have 1 attacker who is good enough, playing 2 up front seem detrimental to the cause.

Having Kodjia or Davis on the field instead of a midfielder (where we IMO are pretty strong) would weaken us.

[MaVilla]

15 minutes ago, TRO said:

Some really positive points to identify our shortfalls.....i think you make significant references.

I too have reservations that our team is good enough individually to set up 4-3-3 only the very best teams do that.....We are too open for periods in a game.

3-5-2 would be an interesting option.

I reckon 4231 is prob our best formation considering where we are.

Nakamba and Luiz as sitter/BBM, then Grealish, Mcginn, trez/Ghazi, Wesley.

[Vive_La_Villa]

1 hour ago, villalad21 said:

Hate to break it to you but we did play totally defensively yesterday.

It didn’t seem like we were defensive. We pressed for 70 minutes. Players had nothing left after that. 
 

surprised by the possession stats. 

[Tomaszk]

17 minutes ago, sne said:

We barely have 1 attacker who is good enough, playing 2 up front seem detrimental to the cause.

Having Kodjia or Davis on the field instead of a midfielder (where we IMO are pretty strong) would weaken us.

Absolutely agree, we don't have the players for two up front.

With this squad, I think we'll lose points we could win by insisting on this narrow 433 midfield in the tough games. 4231 is a worth looking at at least.

[JAMAICAN-VILLAN]

2 hours ago, villalad21 said:

Hate to break it to you but we did play totally defensively yesterday.

Must have been like one of those old school video games where you kick through one side of the screen and it comes out the other side.

Because based on your assessment, that's the only way we should have scored, or had chances to make it 2 or 3-0 before half time.

[TRO]

27 minutes ago, Vive_La_Villa said:

It didn’t seem like we were defensive. We pressed for 70 minutes. Players had nothing left after that. 
 

surprised by the possession stats. 

We wasn't defensive in the true sense of the word, but Nakamba for me was very impressive with his ability to get his foot in.

I am not a great student of stats....but those figures do reflect how i saw the game.We do have a tendency to be easily closed down in midfield, sometimes fouled, but sometimes being slow to move or move the ball.

where they excelled was their ability to close us down and deny us space to play.....they snapped in the tackle and turned the ball over very well, Henderson used his physicality very well.....they are a good team after all.

our possession stat of 24% or there abouts reflected that....in contrast we yielded possession to them much more readily in general, not sure if that was by design or just inability to relieve them of the ball in the middle of the park, particularly.....we reserved our efforts to the danger area's in their final third, i guess to conserve energy.