Dean Smith

[striker]

In the build up to the game yesterday Sky interviewed Rodgers analysing on the tactical board how he sets up Leicester to play.

Rodger’s specifically concentrated on not leaving too much space between defence, midfield and indeed their attack which meant they were compact and could press as a team leaving Vardy to concentrate mainly on his forward play.

Every time I’ve seen Villa this season the opposition play through far too easily. There is too much space between defence, midfield and attack.

No wonder McGinn in particular looks jaded now. He has to cover far too much space between the Villa defence and midfield and it’s not just McGinn. After seventy minutes of each game I’ve seen Villa play this season most of the players look out on their feet even in the games they’ve won.

Continue playing like this then Villa’s squad are going to be decimated with injury and fatigue while also having one of the poorest goal averages in the Premiership.

Dean Smith and John Terry would do well to have a look at that interview with Rodgers.

 

[TRO]

I ask a genuine open ended question....not loaded, genuine.?

Would Brendan Rodgers get more out of our group of Players than Dean is?

[TRO]

16 minutes ago, striker said:

In the build up to the game yesterday Sky interviewed Rodgers analysing on the tactical board how he sets up Leicester to play.

Rodger’s specifically concentrated on not leaving too much space between defence, midfield and indeed their attack which meant they were compact and could press as a team leaving Vardy to concentrate mainly on his forward play.

Every time I’ve seen Villa this season the opposition play through far too easily. There is too much space between defence, midfield and attack.

No wonder McGinn in particular looks jaded now. He has to cover far too much space between the Villa defence and midfield and it’s not just McGinn. After seventy minutes of each game I’ve seen Villa play this season most of the players look out on their feet even in the games they’ve won.

Continue playing like this then Villa’s squad are going to be decimated with injury and fatigue while also having one of the poorest goal averages in the Premiership.

Dean Smith and John Terry would do well to have a look at that interview with Rodgers.

 

I think you make significant observations.....and ones they would do well to pay heed to.

I have been saying for too long now the gaps we leave are invitations for opposing teams to play in......we need to close these GAPS they are naive and benevolent.....this is basic stuff.

I would add.....to play compact, you have to have good ball control and a precise first touch.....we haven't, with the exception of Jack.

When I saw Brendan doing that presentation....I was expecting Dean to do the same.

I thinking we are gradually drifting in to generalisations in his after match comments and not specifics......We all know Vardy is Vardy and if you give him space, the rest is obvious.....we need to know more than that from him.

[DCJonah]

34 minutes ago, villalad21 said:

I can accept that.

But if we look at our last 2 games we have also been outfought.

Against a team challenging for the title and a team going for top 4. **** me, I wonder why.

 

[sparrow1988]

On 06/12/2019 at 17:47, screwdriver said:

Jesus's head should roll for this, it's the one thing we didn't want to happen.

What's the point? He will just rise again. 

[sne]

23 minutes ago, TRO said:

I ask a genuine open ended question....not loaded, genuine.?

Would Brendan Rodgers get more out of our group of Players than Dean is?

Probably.

I like Dean but this is his first season of top division football. Just as we need to be realistic about or current place in football we also should be realistic about Dean Smith.

There are loads of superior managers to him in the world but for where we are now he's OK.

Doubt Rodgers would be able to get much out of Wesley either thou.

[Adam2003]

26 minutes ago, TRO said:

I ask a genuine open ended question....not loaded, genuine.?

Would Brendan Rodgers get more out of our group of Players than Dean is?

Well yes, almost certainly this season he would have. Rodgers is a fantastic proven PL manager with experience in the division. He’s managed in the Champions League and challenged for titles. But that doesn’t mean Smith won’t do a great job and learn about top-flight management and go on to be a great PL manager.

 

 

[briny_ear]

19 hours ago, lexicon said:

Is anyone really surprised by that, though? 

We're newly promoted, shed loads of new players, lacking attacking options... 

We've got a lot of work to do to get where our fans think we should be. Patience and understanding is required. 

All of this is obviously true but at the moment I am struggling a bit to see how that work is going to be carried out, and what the plan is.

[villalad21]

39 minutes ago, TRO said:

I ask a genuine open ended question....not loaded, genuine.?

Would Brendan Rodgers get more out of our group of Players than Dean is?

100 % he would.

The most important thing he would do is to sort out the big gap between our midfield and defense.

[briny_ear]

7 minutes ago, sne said:

Probably.

I like Dean but this is his first season of top division football. Just as we need to be realistic about or current place in football we also should be realistic about Dean Smith.

There are loads of superior managers to him in the world but for where we are now he's OK.

Doubt Rodgers would be able to get much out of Wesley either thou.

Trouble is, where we are now isn’t OK. We want to be better than 17th, avoiding the relegation places by goal difference. 
 

Question is whether Smith can lift us significantly above this survival mode. We have him for 4 more years so we have to hope in that time he can establish us as a competent mid-table side at least.

I wouldn’t want to see 4 seasons of fighting off relegation - that would just be returning to the unsatisfactory position last time we were in the premier league.

It’s too early to be making these judgements in a way. The position will be a little clearer after the Christmas holiday games once we have had the run of games against the supposed “weaker” teams. If we are still teetering on the brink as we start 2020 I will start to be seriously worried as I don’t see this as a squad that is improving and growing in competence and confidence.

[KentVillan]

1 hour ago, TRO said:

The players are clearly not good enough to play 4-3-3 against the better sides....He has to compensate but altering the overload, which means changing the system to maybe 3-5-2.

Our midfielders do not have the ball control to dominate in a 3 so they need help.

Maybe in a few seasons and some good trading in the windows, we can go back to 4-3-3......right now its naive.

You can make 4-3-3 deeper or narrower or whatever you want, you can put more defensively minded players in the midfield, you can tell the full backs to stay home, you can play centre backs at full back. Jose Mourinho used to park the bus with 4-3-3. In reality, 4-3-3, 4-1-4-1, 4-2-3-1, 4-5-1 are all variants of the same thing, and Smith uses all of them.

We could try a back 3 (and that's easy to say in hindsight when you've seen Vardy and Iheanacho exploit the lack of a spare man at the back) but I can't think of loads of clubs who have turned around a season by switching to a back 3 (Conte's Chelsea is the obvious one, but that was a system he knew inside out, not a roll of the dice).

I really think the Leicester game was a classic case of superior player quality making their manager look like a tactical genius. Yes, Rodgers came up with a clever system that exploited Smith's attacking overlaps - Ndidi/Praet/Riccardo suffocated Grealish & Targett and then released their strikers down the exposed flank, but the success of the tactic was down to Riccardo and Ndidi being class in their individual battles all afternoon. Try the same tactic with inferior players, and Grealish dances through you, leaving you with an overload elsewhere on the pitch.

Let's see what happens over the next few games, and during the January transfer window. If we pick up points and add an attacking option in January, then this loss to Leicester will be forgotten, and we should easily be able to kick on over the second half of the season.

[KentVillan]

1 hour ago, striker said:

In the build up to the game yesterday Sky interviewed Rodgers analysing on the tactical board how he sets up Leicester to play.

Rodger’s specifically concentrated on not leaving too much space between defence, midfield and indeed their attack which meant they were compact and could press as a team leaving Vardy to concentrate mainly on his forward play.

Every time I’ve seen Villa this season the opposition play through far too easily. There is too much space between defence, midfield and attack.

No wonder McGinn in particular looks jaded now. He has to cover far too much space between the Villa defence and midfield and it’s not just McGinn. After seventy minutes of each game I’ve seen Villa play this season most of the players look out on their feet even in the games they’ve won.

Continue playing like this then Villa’s squad are going to be decimated with injury and fatigue while also having one of the poorest goal averages in the Premiership.

Dean Smith and John Terry would do well to have a look at that interview with Rodgers.

 

Being compact off the ball is the Tactics 101 basics of football. I'd respectfully suggest that Smith and Terry already know this. The issue is more likely to be in the execution.

[screwdriver]

match of the day 2 made us look like a right bunch of mugs last night.

Not only laughing about the mings debacle, the two on two situations with Vardy and inoacho. Smith got schooled by the old dog rogers!

To add insult to defeat I'm sure Dublin got some facts about Saunders wrong.

 

[The_Rev]

1 hour ago, TRO said:

I ask a genuine open ended question....not loaded, genuine.?

Would Brendan Rodgers get more out of our group of Players than Dean is?

I'm not sure. Tangential, but before the game yesterday I looked at their starting XI and ours and I wondered how many players from our team would get into the Leicester XI.  We might argue Heaton and Grealish would, but I'm not sure Leicester fans would take them over Schmeichel and Maddison.  We've got a limited squad who are in their first year together.  It's always been about staying up and I'm still confident we can.  We've just had the roughest run of fixtures and we are still only a few points from mid table despite what our position in the table looks like.  We definitely need to be picking up three or four wins from the fixtures in the next month or so, but I've seen nothing to suggest that we can't do that in games where we aren't just utterly outclassed by quality of individual in the squad. 

[Tom13]

I for one am happy with Smith. We're gonna be second best in a lot of games this season, we have to accept that. But we're still exciting to watch. Remember under Lambert? Getting battered for 90 mins and hoping and praying for a successful counter.

[Lord Willard]

Still think we play the best football for years. I'd rather watch us play football than defend for 90mins and hope for a goal. I still think we'll finish 17th or higher. 

[villalad21]

16 minutes ago, Lord Willard said:

I'd rather watch us play football than defend for 90mins and hope for a goal.

I'd rather have a middle ground.

 

[hippo]

2 hours ago, TRO said:

I ask a genuine open ended question....not loaded, genuine.?

Would Brendan Rodgers get more out of our group of Players than Dean is?

Not sure - But I think the issue is DS doesn't have the players at his disposal - Wesley, Nkamba, Luiz , Trez , Jota  have only sparked infrequently, Guilbert and Targett  may scrape into the adequate  category - I think the recruitment is very suspect to be honest 

[Pimlico_Villa]

2 hours ago, striker said:

In the build up to the game yesterday Sky interviewed Rodgers analysing on the tactical board how he sets up Leicester to play.

Rodger’s specifically concentrated on not leaving too much space between defence, midfield and indeed their attack which meant they were compact and could press as a team leaving Vardy to concentrate mainly on his forward play.

Every time I’ve seen Villa this season the opposition play through far too easily. There is too much space between defence, midfield and attack.

No wonder McGinn in particular looks jaded now. He has to cover far too much space between the Villa defence and midfield and it’s not just McGinn. After seventy minutes of each game I’ve seen Villa play this season most of the players look out on their feet even in the games they’ve won.

Continue playing like this then Villa’s squad are going to be decimated with injury and fatigue while also having one of the poorest goal averages in the Premiership.

Dean Smith and John Terry would do well to have a look at that interview with Rodgers.

 

That's interesting. I think the Brighton game epitomises this: time and time again they just played straight through us.

I don;t understand what creates the gaps, though, as we typically set up 4-1-3-1, with a player between our MF and Defence and also 3 players ahead of him. On paper, there shouldn't be any gaps. Perhaps it is that front 3 getting caught too far forward? 

[Laughable Chimp]

3 minutes ago, Pimlico_Villa said:

That's interesting. I think the Brighton game epitomises this: time and time again they just played straight through us.

I don;t understand what creates the gaps, though, as we typically set up 4-1-3-1, with a player between our MF and Defence and also 3 players ahead of him. On paper, there shouldn't be any gaps. Perhaps it is that front 3 getting caught too far forward? 

Yeah, that's whats perplexing me too. On paper, I don't think we should have as many gaps as we do, but on the pitch it happens again and again. Whatever the problem is, I believe it has to do with the tactical instructions and off the ball organization given to the players, not the formation.