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Dean Smith


Demitri_C

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I think those moaning about game management were more worried than smith was and probably needed to be, we were still creating a lot of chances on the counter and defending relatively well, it’s not like we didn’t have momentum or were being swamped, we were still the better team

i think maybe take Wes off (for kodjia to play his own game and probably be disruptive) maybe take mcginn off but both of them need a goal even if it’s a fluke and tonight was probably the best chance, if McGinn scored at the end and gets his mojo back for the next month would you be moaning about game management?

i think it’s just part of being villa fans, we didn’t go to shit at any point during the game, we were always comfortable 

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Have to agree with the lack of subs. Although it's great that we were cruising and in control, I was hoping Dean would've made some subs earlier. I was hoping for another goal and would have liked to have seen Trezeguet come on to freshen up the team. 

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I was a bit surprised at the decision to drop Nakamba and Trezeguet but it worked a treat. For me Luiz is much better in the deeper role and he had a good game. El Ghazi as well getting another goal and worked hard so great decisions from Smith. 

Fully in control pretty much all game and 3 points certainly needed. No complaints from me and very pleased so well done Smith. 

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4 minutes ago, Enda said:

Making my point here is going to take a bit of explaining. But when there's 100 things going on in a match (starting eleven, formation, subs, if the ref suddenly gives the opposition a harsh penalty, etc etc) you just can't use the result to get the whole picture. You can win the game even if you make bad subs. You can lose the game because of a bad VAR decision. So you need to keep them all in perspective.

I don't agree we were cruising around 70 mins. When Gayle came on, and Andy Carroll had that chance, McGinn was bit off the pace, and Hourihane was becoming quieter. At that time the game was in the balance then. Obviously it ended up not mattering (thankfully) but we could all have seen that match going another way. A bit like taking off Wesley and bringing a centre-half with 5 mins to go against Liverpool could have won us 3 points. It might not have worked but it sort of makes sense when you're playing the percentages. Not freshening up that midfield in the second-half wasn't playing the percentages today. We were lucky Newcastle were so crap that it didn't matter in the end.

Fair enough but I think apart from 10 minutes  in the second half we were in complete control and had more than enough chances to kill the game. I understand freshening things up but I’ve seen smith make changes in the middle many times this season and we’ve still ended up losing the game. Players have come on and not got in to the game and it’s cost us.   He could have maybe bought Nakamba on to sure things up but I have a feeling he is not 100% or he would have started.  If we had another half decent striker I reckon he would have replaced Wesley. 

I haven’t got a problem with his substitutions today. 

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19 minutes ago, lexicon said:

And we won 2-0 and didn't look like letting that slip at any time.... I know you've quoted a bunch of seasoned professional football coaches/managers there but I think you need a bit of perspective. 

Perspective! Half an hour ago ya told me to take a "long hard look" because I wasn't heaping enough praise on Jack (after I said he'd been magnificent!).

But sure, continue lecturing me on perspective 😂😂

No need for you to insult/sneer at the opinions of other members, though.

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5 minutes ago, foreveryoung said:

Good game team turned up today, although still showed Smith has no plan B second half played exactly the same even though Newcastle turned the screw a little, they could have had a few if it wasnt for Heaton. Management still questionable for me.

Why did we need a Plan B for tonight?  Newcastle played right into our hands in the 2nd half.  The game was wide open.  Grealish, Wesley and Konsa missed clear chances in the 2nd half.  Bury any one of those and the game is done. 

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Starting line up surprised me with Luiz in instead of Nakamba and El Ghazi ahead of Trez. But he got it absolutely bang on. Tactically outthought Newcastle. 

Only criticism is lack of subs. Is this something Villa managers pick up here? Jack has been out injured, McGinn been away international. Both could’ve done with coming off after 75 (maybe only one to not disrupt team too much).  Bruce was the same, as was Lambert and especially MON

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I think the biggest strength our manager possesses is he never looks flustered. 

He remains positive and that must be a great help to the players when they start to feel the pressure that comes with playing in this league. You can feel the togetherness of this team, and the back room staff must take some credit for that. 

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27 minutes ago, mikeyp102 said:

Starting line up surprised me with Luiz in instead of Nakamba and El Ghazi ahead of Trez. But he got it absolutely bang on. Tactically outthought Newcastle. 

Only criticism is lack of subs. Is this something Villa managers pick up here? Jack has been out injured, McGinn been away international. Both could’ve done with coming off after 75 (maybe only one to not disrupt team too much).  Bruce was the same, as was Lambert and especially MON

MON loved a good sub of taking off his left back, moving Luke Young to left and ReoCoker or Cullar to right back. Outside the box thinking each gamd

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1 minute ago, Zatman said:

MON loved a good sub of taking off his left back, moving Luke Young to left and ReoCoker or Cullar to right back. Outside the box thinking each gamd

Yeah! And MON even evolved to simply never naming a right-back in the starting eleven. Tactical brilliance.

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1 minute ago, Enda said:

Yeah! And MON even evolved to simply never naming a right-back in the starting eleven. Tactical brilliance.

Luckily he evolved with Ireland into starting right backs as centre midfielders 

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2 hours ago, lexicon said:

And we won 2-0 and didn't look like letting that slip at any time.... I know you've quoted a bunch of seasoned professional football coaches/managers there but I think you need a bit of perspective. 

Why thankyou for the vote of confidence I'll now go ahead and put in my offer to Coach Newcastle for free, because it's not going to be long now till Bruce is looking for a new club.

At some point he's going to be a blacklisted Manager, he can't go anywhere without Cabbage being mentioned lol.

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Purely from the perspective of the result today, only making one sub late on was probably the right shout.

But we do have 3 games in 8 days coming up, against three quality teams who play quite high tempo football. Grealish was getting kicked all over the place tonight, and I would have maybe brought him off for Nakamba or Trezeguet when we were 2-0 up. I also think we are really running the risk of burning out McGinn - I hope we have a decent team of sports scientists monitoring player fatigue and managing workload properly, and if we do, I hope DS listens to them.

Generally though, Dean Smith is passing the all-important six-pointer tests. He's been a bit more disappointing in some of the games we've gone into as underdogs, but what really counts this season is that we win those relegation six-pointers.

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2 hours ago, lexicon said:

And we won 2-0 and didn't look like letting that slip at any time.... I know you've quoted a bunch of seasoned professional football coaches/managers there but I think you need a bit of perspective. 

If there's one thing I've learnt from VillaTalk, it's never bring a fact to an opinion fight.

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3 hours ago, lexicon said:

Let's look at the last 5 league games shall we:

Wolves - Injuries to Heaton and Targett limited his ability to make changes, subbed Nakamba at 69 minutes

Liverpool - 2 subs around that time, one at 69 and one at 73

Man City - 1 sub around that time at 71 

Brighton - 1 sub at 63, double sub at 76

Norwich - 1 at 64, 1 at 75 when we were 4-0 up.

You literally don't have a point. 

The point is the game has already slipped through our fingers at 70 minutes. I'd say this season we have lost 5-6 points due to Smith waiting too long to make a change. I was honestly terrified in the playoffs last year that we would lose because Smith waited 5 minutes too long.

Against City they had scored twice before we made a change at minimum we should have made a sub straight away after they scored I was saying for a sub 5 minutes earlier.

You can easily tell when we need to make a sub. Is mcginn sprinting but looking like he is moving through treacle take him off. It is as simple as that. Dean needs to sub mcginn off he is the player who gets the most tried as he runs himself into the ground. Also when we start to lose control of the game against arsenal we needed to make a sub after pepe scored and whilst we scored a minute later it was clear for all that arsenal were going to keep the pressure on us and we would collapse we needed to bring on Luiz and probably Davis so we had a proper target man. 

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