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Dean Smith


Demitri_C

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Its alright making excuses for why we can't win any games but its madness to just write off games as if they are unwinnable, that kind of attitude is what sends you down.

I'm not particularly against Dean but nobody can deny that there are other managers out there who would have us higher in the table right now, hes not doing enough for me at the moment.

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23 minutes ago, AVFCDAN said:

Its alright making excuses for why we can't win any games but its madness to just write off games as if they are unwinnable, that kind of attitude is what sends you down.

I'm not particularly against Dean but nobody can deny that there are other managers out there who would have us higher in the table right now, hes not doing enough for me at the moment.

The excuse is only valid if we're able to keep beating the bottom half teams.  But that remains to be seen.

I'll give Smith the benefit of the doubt for now. But if we fail to achieve at least 6 points against Southampton, Watford and Norwich people would heavily be questioning Smith, and rightfully so.

Edited by villalad21
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10 minutes ago, villalad21 said:

The excuse is only valid if we're able to keep beating the bottom half teams.  But that remains to be seen.

I'll give Smith the benefit of the doubt for now. But if we fail to achieve at least 6 points against Southampton, Watford and Norwich people would heavily be questioning Smith, and rightfully so.

How can you give benefit of doubt when you have in the last 24 hours preferred Big Sam or JT for the job

Starting to unravel abit now 🤔

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We've only won four games all season so it's a stretch even to say we're beating the bottom half teams, more like teams in the bottom five, and even two of those games that we won we had the benefit of playing against ten men for half of the game in one of them and against a Norwich side that had nine players out injured including their first and second choice goalkeepers. Only way we have any chance of surving based on how the season has gone so far is if Southampton, Norwich and Watford continue to be as bad as they have been, but we can't count on that so have to improve ourselves by winning at least the odd game here and there where we might not be favorites, even just turning defeats into draws would be a big help, we managed it against Man Utd so need to do it more often. This festive period could make or break our season, hopefully it goes well for us, if it does and we make a few decent signings in January it's still plausible that come

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2 minutes ago, useless said:

We've only won four games all season so it's a stretch even to say we're beating the bottom half teams, more like teams in the bottom five, and even two of those games that we won we had the benefit of playing against ten men for half of the game in one of them and against a Norwich side that had nine players out injured including their first and second choice goalkeepers. Only way we have any chance of surving based on how the season has gone so far is if Southampton, Norwich and Watford continue to be as bad as they have been, but we can't count on that so have to improve ourselves by winning at least the odd game here and there where we might not be favorites, even just turning defeats into draws would be a big help, we managed it against Man Utd so need to do it more often. This festive period could make or break our season, hopefully it goes well for us, if it does and we make a few decent signings in January it's still plausible that come

We aren’t losing to current bottom half teams though. We’ve only lost to Bournemouth. We do of course have Southampton and Watford yet to play.

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Well obviously we need to do more than just not losing to the bottom half teams, we need to be winning our fair share of games against not only them but also teams in the top half of the table as well. We aren't just gong to conveniently win every game against teams in and around us in the league, in some of those kind of games we're going to drop points, so at some point we're going to need to get wins against better opposition, it's concerning that we haven't been able to beat anyone half decent this season, we've been lucky that Watford have been so poor, as no one would have seen that coming but all it would take is them to get back to anything like they were last season or for either Southampton or Norwich to pick up form and we'd be in trouble, unless of course we can improve ourselves which is what we need to do, I think anyone who thinks we can survive just carrying on as we have been is kidding themselves.

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8 minutes ago, useless said:

Well obviously we need to do more than just not losing to the bottom half teams, we need to be winning our fair share of games against not only them but also teams in the top half of the table as well.

If Smith can't get a win against a 10 man Arsenal i struggle to see which of the "top" teams we are supposed to beat.

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6 points from the next 3 games is what we need to give us a needed boost, both on the table and in confidence. 9 points would obviously be the dream scenario (and entirely realistic), but 6 would be great for a team down the bottom. Less than 6 will be okayyy providing we get between 4-5. Less than 4 would be atrocious, considering the opponents.

Having said all of that, I'm fully behind Smith. As long as we're in the battle, with a chance of survival in the final weeks of the season, then even if we go down, I'd still want Smith to stay. Long-term should be the aim. So many clubs do quick fixes over and over until they finally settle on a good manager/coach. We have a good coach, so should stick with him.

I'm getting ahead of myself here, but I was thinking this morning that, even if the worst happened and we go down, we'd still keep 2/3 of our squad together, and I think a team similar to the below one would be competitive enough to get us into the play-off/automatic places, should we end up in the Championship again:

- - - - - - - - - - - Heaton - - - - - - - - - - - 

Guilbert - Konsa - Engels - Targett

- - - - - Nakamba - - Hourihane - - - 

El Ghazi - - - - Jota - - - Trezequet

- - - - - - - - - - - Davies - - - - - - - - - - -

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2 hours ago, villalad21 said:

The excuse is only valid if we're able to keep beating the bottom half teams.  But that remains to be seen.

I'll give Smith the benefit of the doubt for now. But if we fail to achieve at least 6 points against Southampton, Watford and Norwich people would heavily be questioning Smith, and rightfully so.

We need at least 9 points from those three games.The reason is that after those three teams every single team we play will be above us

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1 hour ago, lapal_fan said:

.. Maybe our reputation as a "big club" raises their game?  Maybe they see us as an easy scalp? 

Yes we are a easy scalp.

You look at Villa and you see a nice team. straight out of the  tony mowbary text book "How to make friends in football (shower them with gifts)" and his best seller "going down in the right way, (playing pretty football)"

knock it around and be good sportsmanship and be talked about by pundits as "a great club" slow tempo shake all the oponents hands before the game do nothing to upset anyone.

we are too nice. not physical enough. no spoiling tactics. rugby tackles to break up play, no time wasting, not compliant in the dark arts of football,  look back at the goals we conceeded this season many could of been prevented with a well executed tactical foul. Wolves away when luiz got brushed aside is one instance.

It's time we took collymores words on board. "be c*nts or go down"

 

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3 hours ago, AVFCDAN said:

Its alright making excuses for why we can't win any games but its madness to just write off games as if they are unwinnable, that kind of attitude is what sends you down.

I'm not particularly against Dean but nobody can deny that there are other managers out there who would have us higher in the table right now, hes not doing enough for me at the moment.

That’s what our fans don’t seem to realise. If we’re not favourites for a game it’s almost as if it’s ok to lose. It’s not. If Sheff U had that mentality they’d already be down.

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10 minutes ago, VillaFaninLondon said:

That’s what our fans don’t seem to realise. If we’re not favourites for a game it’s almost as if it’s ok to lose. It’s not. If Sheff U had that mentality they’d already be down.

I didn't realise the fan's willingness to look at results in a balanced manner had any on the player's performance on matchday.

This all reminds me of when Steve Bruce referenced the "Mass Hysteria", at the time i thought he was a complete moron..but perhaps some truth in it?

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7 minutes ago, carewjust4u said:

I didn't realise the fan's willingness to look at results in a balanced manner had any on the player's performance on matchday.

This all reminds me of when Steve Bruce referenced the "Mass Hysteria", at the time i thought he was a complete moron..but perhaps some truth in it?

I don't think slagging off the team and manager helps, equally I think blindly accepting negative results because we 'were expected to lose' or 'weren't expected to win' is also not right. Smith isn't infallible and I've seen him make the same mistakes on several occasions which makes hard to not offer criticism. 

 

Teams that are worse than others on paper don't automatically lose the game; they find solutions to frustrate the opponent then unpick them at the right moments. We seem to go into games when we are playing better teams like Leicester or more organised teams like Sheffield and think we can play free flowing, attacking football and win the game and not worry about their threats. There needs to be much more diligence done on the opposition before games, and if there is already then it is either ineffective or the players aren't following instructions well enough. 

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2 hours ago, useless said:

Well obviously we need to do more than just not losing to the bottom half teams, we need to be winning our fair share of games against not only them but also teams in the top half of the table as well. We aren't just gong to conveniently win every game against teams in and around us in the league, in some of those kind of games we're going to drop points, so at some point we're going to need to get wins against better opposition, it's concerning that we haven't been able to beat anyone half decent this season, we've been lucky that Watford have been so poor, as no one would have seen that coming but all it would take is them to get back to anything like they were last season or for either Southampton or Norwich to pick up form and we'd be in trouble, unless of course we can improve ourselves which is what we need to do, I think anyone who thinks we can survive just carrying on as we have been is kidding themselves.

Well if we win our next 3. Which I know is a big IF, we’d be on track for 45 points at the end of season which is survival. 

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The thing for me is this...

It is quite possible if you did a poll amongst Villa fans that NO Sheff Utd player would get in to our team, how many "free Transfers" have got them where they are?.....some indictment that....such is the value of each individual player.It was similar a tale with our 1980/81 title winning team how our players struggled to get in the England team....why, because the emphasis of our success was placed on the team as opposed to individuals.

both teams have/had a similar trait, WORKRATE.....both teams never stopped hunting down and looking for opportunities to deny the opposition anything.....Chris Wilder has that same Ron Saunders approach, its clear.

This is a team that 2 years ago was in Div 2 and a number of their present players was in the game Saturday, now sitting in 5th place in the Premier League....for sure, time in the saddle helps and they all know each others game, but more importantly they know what Chris Wilder demands and they deliver it.

You only have to watch Sheff Utd carefully, to now what our problems are....we are miles away from them, in the basics of the game.They have more players with old fashioned values, we would do well to look at some of these types to strengthen us....we are obsessed with Flair at any cost and keep signing players who don't  look up for it.

It was no wonder Dean and his staff praised the Sheff Utd team in the tunnel and waxed lyrical over their application...... We have looked uncomfortable playing them since they came up from Div 2.

Individually, this UTD team is not as technically gifted as ours, but they more than trump us, in the way they approach their work....that is subsequently reflective in their League Position.

If I was Dean Smith....this is the team I would benchmark and try and emulate, to get the kind of survival package back on track.

Edited by TRO
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3 hours ago, villalad21 said:

If Smith can't get a win against a 10 man Arsenal i struggle to see which of the "top" teams we are supposed to beat.

But we drew with Man U and we're beating Liverpool before we threw it away. Football isn't that black and white.

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