Dean Smith

[JAMAICAN-VILLAN]

I think he needs better versions of all the players he thought he was getting.

Alot of these are really starting to look like option C's, D's and E's.

Obviously he is being stubborn as he has belief in a system but these can't do it.

Needs tweaking asap.

Owners and board need to find a way to dig deep and help the man since by handing him a new deal they must have faith.

They need to help him, help us, or we are fighting a losing battle which will result in heartbreak all round.

[KenjiOgiwara]

2 minutes ago, VillaFaninLondon said:

If we get relegated it's disastrous, we've spent £150m. 

 

It's very easy to say we don't have PL quality players as a way of defending the manager. But remember he signed those players, he clearly felt they were PL quality, and if they're not that's on him. I kind of agree that it seems the quality was lacking in many signings, but that again comes back to Smith not being a big enough manager to entice better quality players. I also look at many teams in this league who are above us such as Burnley and Sheff Utd and don't think they have an awful lot of true PL quality either. Often it's the system which makes players look bad, and that's the case with us.

 

I completely disagree that a new manager wouldn't get this team playing more as a unit than Smith is doing. The football wouldn't be as attacking but we'd at least keep clean sheets and pick up scrappy wins which is what we need right now.

 

We stick with Smith and nothing will change. We must stay up.

I disagree with you and that's fine, but the bit in bold is absolute bollocks and something you just dragged out of your arse  

[DaveAV1]

If we swapped Dean Smith for Sam Allardyce I’d be in despair. The club have talked about growing an identity throughout all the teams and have been recruiting with that in mind. If we are to throw in the towel at the first sign of trouble then my faith in those that run the club would be extremely shaken. 

I doubt Dean will be sacked at this moment in time but if he is I’d hope it would be for a similarly progressive coach that they have been tracking for sometime. We have a plan, as things stand Dean is spearheading that plan and so he should be given time to continue unless we have a genuinely outstanding coach lined up to replace him who can continue in the same vein but offer an improvement. Knee jerk reactions and panic appointments of the same sad old faces will never get us anywhere in the long term and can’t really be guaranteed to be successful in the short term either. 

Is everything perfect? No of course it isn’t, but after years of weak and pathetic mismanagement we can’t expect everything to be fixed in a few months. Which manager/coach worth his salt would come to a club that would sack the manager after 4 losses on the bounce. I hope our board are stronger than that and aren’t running the club on the same sort of criteria that social media seems to feed on so hungrily. 

[Dave-R]

Our squad isn't good enough as others have pointed out. Although we spent over 100 mill on a new team we did so knowing that survival may not be possible and bought players with both survival and relegation in mind. I think our mistake was exactly that we brought players who had not played in the premier or in English football before it was a mistake. I remember those on this thread before we started buying, saying that we shouldn't of gone abroad for players, they were right too because it's messed us up it as. We needed people who knew this league, who had played in it before or had some knowledge of it, didn't we just buy one (target) who did have knowledge of this league. 

We've not only thrown low experienced footballers together in the top flight, we've also thrown them together without a vast knowledge of how English football world works. Expecting this team to survive was always going to be a tall order, especially when you throw the inexperienced against the experienced.

We expected our thrown together, inexperienced player with lack of knowledge of the way english football works to compete at the highest level, its near impossible to pull that kind of move off. Then we had a Coach who has won us promotion but to the premier is completely new to the place and also inexperienced. Although Smith has achieved the level he's always wanted to be in, Coaching this squad and surviving would be asking a miracle in his first season, I am not sure what people were expecting and maybe second time around he could make it work, now however at the moment I have no hope which is very sad.

Lots to take Into account isn't there and it's no surprise as to why were failing, it was right there before our eyes all along. Yes a miracle is what it will take to keep us up now because our performances are getting worse and they are not getting worse against the top clubs anymore it's happening top, middle and bottom of the board.

It's catastrophic what is happening and yes I'm very worried, worried because it's easy to see there is no end to this in sight if we remain with Smith because we will go down, but there's a good chance he could take us back up. If Smith manages that and takes us back to top flight a second time, I believe we can win championship football and our squad will be more refined and be much better equipped to deal with this league.

Are you prepared for relegation because I see it unfortunately, if your not prepared then a change is needed if staying put is a desperation for all. Even if we xhange Smith, there is no guarentee who we bring in succeeds and we go down anyway,  but is it worth trying because we're so impatient and desperate to stay and survive. So stay with Smith and taste relegation, hope that we bounce back and were better more suited next time, I think that's the picture were painting. If we do rid Smith of his dream job, we do need to go all out for someone massive, sign them for a half season, that's the only way to bring in a big boy manager to sort the mess out, they won't stay if we get relegated.

So much to think of, yet so little time to act.

Do you stay with Smith or do you find someone new, that's the question.

Edited December 21, 2019 by Dave-R

[MaVilla]

9 minutes ago, VillaFaninLondon said:

If we get relegated it's disastrous, we've spent £150m. 

 

It's very easy to say we don't have PL quality players as a way of defending the manager. But remember he signed those players, he clearly felt they were PL quality, and if they're not that's on him. I kind of agree that it seems the quality was lacking in many signings, but that again comes back to Smith not being a big enough manager to entice better quality players. I also look at many teams in this league who are above us such as Burnley and Sheff Utd and don't think they have an awful lot of true PL quality either. Often it's the system which makes players look bad, and that's the case with us.

 

I completely disagree that a new manager wouldn't get this team playing more as a unit than Smith is doing. The football wouldn't be as attacking but we'd at least keep clean sheets and pick up scrappy wins which is what we need right now.

 

We stick with Smith and nothing will change. We must stay up.

tbh, £135m sounds a lot (wasnt 150m was 135m afaik), and i would agree that it was money badly spent if we spent it all on 2-3 players to improve an already stable squad.

However, we needed a total rebuild, and we spent 135m on 12 players, on a good day for any club, some of those 12 would be duds, but unfortunately we had no depth, so if any of those 12 didnt cut it, we were short in that area.

so yeah, we spent a lot, but we spent 135m on an entire team rebuild, not 135m on 2-4 players, like a lot in this league spend money on.

Also, yes many good players can be found cheaply, but we didnt have numerous seasons to bring these players in, we put it all on one hand, and the risk some wouldnt work out is increased.

We will just have to hope its enough by the end of the season, including what we buy in Jan, but eh, i think attracting the type of players we really need would have been easier in Jan if we were 12-15th at the end of Dec, unfortunately i tend to feel like we will likely be in the relegation zone by trhe end of Dec, so its gonna be doubly tough to improve our squad with the quality we need.......

 

IF we can survive this season, we should be ok, as we can then spend another 100-150m in the close season to actually improve the squad to an acceptable level, but....hmm....after the Southampton defeat, for the first time i am actually very concerned if we will be able to stay up.

Edited December 21, 2019 by MaVilla

[MaVilla]

even if we do go down, i think our squad would be in a much better position than last time we did. (assuming we were promoted first year, and could survive from the parachute payments & reinvesting some of the money from sold players)

Assuming players like Heaton, Mings, Grealish, Luiz (maybe), McGinn would leave (100m-150m+?)

we could still have a squad like:

Steer, Targett, Konsa, Engels, Hause, Elmo, Guilbert, Nakamba, Hourihane, O'Hare, Lansbury, El Ghazi, Jota, Wesley, trez, Davis etc (which wouldnt be too bad with some additions after making prob 100-150m+ in sales from the above)

Edited December 21, 2019 by MaVilla

[mikeyjavfc]

Reminder for those calling for Smith to go; he signed a new 4-year contract 22 days ago. He’s going nowhere for now. It would be a shocking loss of face for Purslow to sack his manager less than a month after offering a new long term contract.

I agree with those saying our squad overhaul was probably too much too quick. I don’t think any of the signings are bad per se, but it was always a big ask to integrate so many new faces into the squad and into the premier league in one swoop. Now injuries and lack of confidence are hitting us and it’s compounding the problems.

I still trust Dean to pull off the great escape. It looks bleak now but it looked bleak last year before a 10 game unbeaten run and playoff glory. For that alone he should get plenty more time to sort it out.

[PaulC]

What’s the point of all that excitement of the playoff win if we are just going to get relegated again. We get 40k plus every week we should not be a yo-yo  team 

[Condimentalist]

Guess what - this season was always going to be tough. We're in a new league having to integrate almost a whole new first XI. We've made one major error which was Wesley. The other signings have been fine - and the team has been playing OK for the majority of the season. If we sign a decent striker in Jan we'll be OK. Calling for Dean's head is so incredibly shortsighted. 

[KentVillan]

If we bring in Fat Sam then what is the point in living anymore.

           

[Zatman]

11 minutes ago, PaulC said:

What’s the point of all that excitement of the playoff win if we are just going to get relegated again. We get 40k plus every week we should not be a yo-yo  team 

why should attendance mean anything. Sunderland get high attendances and they are rightfully in League 1 the same way we are rightfully 18th in the league

[KentVillan]

11 minutes ago, mikeyjavfc said:

I agree with those saying our squad overhaul was probably too much too quick. I don’t think any of the signings are bad per se, but it was always a big ask to integrate so many new faces into the squad and into the premier league in one swoop. Now injuries and lack of confidence are hitting us and it’s compounding the problems.

It was, but we had no other option.

In an ideal world we would have signed Tammy, and the whole backbone of this team would have had a familiar look to it. As it was, we kept virtually every player who was worth keeping, and had no option but to sign a whole new squad.

Where we could have been a bit smarter is in bringing in a couple of experienced pros in outfield - like Leicester did with Cambiasso a while back, and Wolves did with Moutinho. Those kinds of signings bring a lot of stability to a young squad, and we just don't have anyone like that.

[mikeyjavfc]

Would 100% rather get relegated with Smith than scrape 17th with fat Sam.

[KentVillan]

4 hours ago, CoNnErS said:

Remember  how everyone on here was saying what a brilliant transfer window it was, what great players we’d signed, how excited everyone was for the new season, how we’d signed Benrahma from Brentford, and we was in “advanced talks” with Belloti from Torino! . Aahh, happy days indeed.

Bit puzzled how you remember all this stuff, but you only joined VT a couple of days ago? And you seem to be spending most of your time on here trying to get a rise out of people.

All seems a bit 

[Villarocker]

3 hours ago, SuffolkVillan said:

I agree the defence is and has been, since the season started, very poor but the midfield also have to shoulder responsibility as teams easily pass through us. Another worry for me is how often in one on one battles the opposition come away with the ball. Is JT a defending legend who cannot coach?

You're right about the midfield not offering much protection. You could also be right about JT. 

I guess you could also argue that defence starts from the front and let's face it, the ball does seem to be coming back far too quickly and easily. 

[VillanousOne]

I have seen enough from the players we have bought to think their is enough quality there to mount a decent attempt at staying up.

The main issue is Dean doesn't know who his best eleven are and he's had half a season to work this out, he has also continued to persist with one striker and a 433 when it can be argued this has never really paid off.

At the moment I look at the players and there is no confidence, no self belief, they are going through the motions.

I don't know what is causing that, but it was happening even before Ming's was injured. McGinn has been pants for months now so i doubt it is even down to his poor form or injury today.

Even Mings was not playing that well before he was injured.

We lack leadership all over the pitch, I love Jack but I am not sure he can lift these players when things go badly wrong.

Persisting with Wesley could be having a detrimental effect on the rest of the team, as no matter how hard the rest play they know their main talisman is unlikely to score. Trez isn't adding the goals and El Ghazi seems to have gone off the boil completely. We can't rely on Grealish all the time and McGinn has vanished.

The fact no one on the team seems to be showing any kind of consistency, hard work or form points to something wrong in the dressing room or management. How is JT letting this group of players put in such gutless performances?

Ultimately whilst I support Dean, it is down to him to sort this out and I don't think he has very long to do it in.

[SuffolkVillan]

2 hours ago, TRO said:

you can play any system you want......but if you can't win enough individual battles and keep the ball.....the system is toast.

we played 4-3-3 in our finest hours.

• The 2 centre backs Evans and McNaught could head the ball and dominate.
• Des Bremner could win the ball and run marathons, always being the oasis for a ball from a player in a tight spot.
• Sid cowans could Distribute and win it and scheme and put it on a sixpence for set pieces.
• Dennis M could run with the ball distribute, when he wasn't marshalling on retreat
• Peter withe could head the ball, hold the ball and score
• Gary Shaw was the guile, he kept the ball and played players in rarely losing it.
• The full backs could raid and defend.

and they were all drilled to 110% work rate as the Mantra.

but you have to have the players to play 4-3-3......we haven't

nailed it

[jim]

13 minutes ago, KentVillan said:

Bit puzzled how you remember all this stuff, but you only joined VT a couple of days ago? And you seem to be spending most of your time on here trying to get a rise out of people.

All seems a bit 

Regardless, he’s right.

There we’re some right cocky so and so’s on here mocking the likes of Shef Utd for not spending any money. How naive they are, laughing at how shite Newcastle were and talking up mid table finishes for us. This wasn’t just a couple of people either.

Fast forward 18 games and the same people are saying it’s the players not good enough blah, blah, blah . 

[holteend1982]

14 minutes ago, mikeyjavfc said:

Would 100% rather get relegated with Smith than scrape 17th with fat Sam.

Why though? It's not as though we are playing good football now and just being unlucky. We've been awful to watch recently at least with fat Sam in charge we'd be awful to watch but not concede of every set play. 

I hope Smith can turn it round, I'd love for him to be the man that takes us forward over the next few years but its clear he's struggling with this division already. Norwich is a must win for Smith imo. 

[VillaChris]

2 hours ago, useless said:

If Smith was to go I wouldn't be surprised to see us try and get Roberto Martínez, we seem to like those with a connection to Belgium football.

Benitez wouldn't walk out of his China project but Martinez would quit Belgium four months from possibly leading them to glory at Euro 2020 and going down in football history?

I can't see it. We couldn't tempt him when he was at Wigan although different times.

My gut feeling is we'd go for a Suso pick (can't even remember which of them wanted Henry) so it would be a contential Marcelinho type. I wouldn't actually be against someone like Javi Gracia. Watford had disappointing start to the season but overall he did a good job there and he's also done well in his spells in Spain.