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Dean Smith


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6 minutes ago, PussEKatt said:

Yes I do.But that does not explain why he starts every game.I have never ever ever ever heard of a striker starting so many games for so little result and continuing to be the first choice.FFS, peolle are not fussed on Kodija but the way WEsley playes we would probably be better off with a striker that was in a wheele chair.When Wesley plays we are effectivly playing with 10 men.

Not really rocket science. For a long time now the only straight up alternative has been Kodjia. Deano probably don't rate him. And I agree.

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39 minutes ago, danceoftheshamen said:

Against Norwich i thought we were better than against Southampton but were yet again let down by poor wide play & the lack of firepower up front.

I also though it was startling how often Matt Targett failed to prevent the cross coming in from his side.

Wesley had one of his better games but he needs a second striker (or wingers who actually contribute and pose some kind of threat) around him to make him work. If the wingers were better they could work as a front three instead of being the three separate individuals that they are currently. This would be much tougher for the opposition to defend. It's as though they are all working on different wavelengths.

So yes in my view Elghazi & Trez were very poor. They seldom pose a threat and on the odd occasion they do they fluff their lines by either giving the ball away, not being in the right place or missing a sitter. They constantly get caught out of position and give the ball away needlessly. As for defensive duties they leave our fullbacks completely exposed. We need replacements for both in my view if this Dean Smith system is going to work. I'd love the guy from Hull City and maybe Benrahma to come in and & I do actually feel Wesley would benefit massively if this happened.

Targett is also no more than a back up standard player at the moment. No surprise Southampton ditched him. Hopefully he will improve over time but meanwhile we need to replace Taylor to give him more competition.

We do of course need another striker to compete with Big Wes and take some pressure of him.

Finally i have to say i am disappointed in Marvelous Nakamba. He constantly gives the ball away needlessly, it happens every game and is the reason DS brought him off on Sat. He is also very slow in releasing the ball making us easy & predictable to play against.

Other than that i think we are decent and possibly mid table standard. It's those four who are not stepping up currently and the additional striker we clearly need.

I am happy with Hause, Guilbert (Aside from the shocker against saints), Konsa, & Mings. Engels is usually quite solid too (Again not sure what happened against Saints). Heaton is adequate as are the midfield other than Nakamba. Luiz i feel will get better & better.

So new LB, DM, Wingers x 2 & Striker to provide competition with Wes.

 

I feel much the same fwiw

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31 minutes ago, villalad21 said:

Sad you view my posts like this.

I criticize when i see a disappointing performance because i want us to improve.

That's fair enough. But just as a friendly tip, if you support someone struggling whoever it is, it's counter productive to be negative when they do something right.  Calling a spade a spade is okey, but sometimes it's smart to just support any step in the right direction. Sure any teacher you had gave you this treatment more times than you can imagine.  

And 3 points yesterday is definitely a move in the right direction. 

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As I see it after the last 3 games where we got well and truly spanked confidence was low and the players were very nervy.  The performances have been poor. The pressing, the defensive organisation, the passing it's all been abject since the Man  u game.

They have shown way more than this so far this season, so the doom mongers saying this group of players will see us relegated are jumping the gun. 

We desperately needed a win yesterday and we got it. Hopefully that settles the lads down and we can get a good result at Watford.

There were some good signs yesterday despite the average performance. Hause and Konsa did very well. Luiz for me had his best game in a Villa shirt, Jack is putting in captian performances, and Mings should be back soon. We also created a few good chances.

Our fullbacks are still an issue. Targett is getting found out, Guilbert has been sloppy, Elmo is average at best. Nakamba's passing is predictable and ends up being intercepted half the time. El-Ghazi could have had 5 goals from his last two matches instead he has none. The team in general have been too wasteful in front of goal. Wesley is not getting into goalscoring  positions. 

My main worries are the flanks. Our wingers aren't performing, our fullbacks aren't either.

Our spine has some good players with some depth (barring upfront) I would spend big on a winger this Jan and a pacy option upfront.

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2 minutes ago, Philosopher said:

My main worries are the flanks. Our wingers aren't performing, our fullbacks aren't either.

For me our wingers not performing is leaving our fullbacks exposed. Against Southampton Fred was against Bertrand and Redmond and Elgahzi more or less left him to it. In this formation our wingers need to cover the full backs but their not.

Even when they lose the ball themselves they don't show the discipline to try and track back. I watched Elgahzi just shruck his shoulders while Bertrand and Redmond charged down the wing towards Fred, Elgahzi had lost possession.

Its not good enough and it destroys the team spirit. If he starts the next game then I will be shocked. 

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3 hours ago, TRO said:

so, by deduction.....He should address this in January?

so what do we do with 18 mill worth of wingers who can't beat their man or cross the ball?....just do an oliver twist and ask for more?

Well no, I said if we surive so this will be in the summer. January, for various reasons, will be difficult to solve issues. Although I do suspect we will sign at least one attacking player to help us. .

It's not about asking for more, its about building a team and progressing. 

We are a newly promoted team who finished 5th in the championship. If you thought that one transfer window was going to see us become an attacking giant in the prem then you were sadly mistaken. 

We've signed players to try and keep us up. Its been hit and miss, like at most clubs, and if we achieve our target we will be in a much better position to try and continue to upgrade for next year. 

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3 hours ago, villalad21 said:

Sad you view my posts like this.

I criticize when i see a disappointing performance because i want us to improve.

If we play like that throughout the season we'll get relegated. Worse side in the league cut us open like a hot knife through butter and it needs to be addressed. The worry is i don't think Smith can do it. His defensive record at Walsall and Brentford were poor. 

Oh right

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2 hours ago, DCJonah said:

Well no, I said if we surive so this will be in the summer. January, for various reasons, will be difficult to solve issues. Although I do suspect we will sign at least one attacking player to help us. .

It's not about asking for more, its about building a team and progressing. 

We are a newly promoted team who finished 5th in the championship. If you thought that one transfer window was going to see us become an attacking giant in the prem then you were sadly mistaken. 

We've signed players to try and keep us up. Its been hit and miss, like at most clubs, and if we achieve our target we will be in a much better position to try and continue to upgrade for next year. 

The drama is the players we have signed are simply not good enough. 1 player in January will not solve our issues. It was always going to be a difficult season this year galvanising a  new squad to compete . The coach and staff need to step up we cant persist with being overrun and leaving our defence wide open. at the moment this is not being addressed .  My point is the style and shape of game we set up for doesn't' suit the squad of players we have . The Jack Grealish show will not get us over the line every week..  

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Bit concerned to see Smith not addressing the blatant problem we had on our left side with El Ghazi not tracking. He took an age to fix it and even then it was with Lansbury which  wasn’t really the answer. Every Norwich attack was coming down that side and we just weren't addressing it. 

Edited by Vive_La_Villa
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3 hours ago, tinker said:

For me our wingers not performing is leaving our fullbacks exposed. Against Southampton Fred was against Bertrand and Redmond and Elgahzi more or less left him to it. In this formation our wingers need to cover the full backs but their not.

Even when they lose the ball themselves they don't show the discipline to try and track back. I watched Elgahzi just shruck his shoulders while Bertrand and Redmond charged down the wing towards Fred, Elgahzi had lost possession.

Its not good enough and it destroys the team spirit. If he starts the next game then I will be shocked. 

I somewhat agree. But on the left where Jack was playing Targett was getting good support generally, but Targett hasn't been convincing.

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I not too excited with Smith when he says he and the team thrive on pressure. If this is them thriving then we are in for a really struggle.

Our center midfielders were weak against Norwich, Marvelous wasn't so, and Luiz either hung onto the ball too long or gave the ball away. The only real contribution was Luiz's goal line clearance, which was massive in the context of the game. They aren't players an attacking mid is going to thrive with, we have seen how McGinn has struggled and his form dropped and even Grealish struggled to do anything with them yesterday. We saw the difference when Hourihane came one and was able to be the link between the Grealish and Luiz. We were able to play further up the field, which allowed our wide players to try and get in behind their defense. This accumulated with the only goal of the game.

So much of the game, Luiz and Marvelous sat and held, weren't able to link with Jack in a creative way, and so our winders feel deeper to try and retrieve the ball, so that had a greater distance to travel to get the ball into areas that we could hurt them. I believe Luiz can play better than he did yesterday, so my three would be Grealish, McGinn, and Luiz when they all are fit. Hourihane will need to fill the void until McGinn gets back, if he could work on his defending I would have him in over Luiz, because his set-pieces will be vital to our survival this season.

I would look to use El Ghazi on left and Jota on right, and look to see if we could bring in a Pedro type player to help us see the season out. We need to push the front three further forward, and we can't do that until we sort out the middle three.

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5 hours ago, TheStagMan said:

We weren't totally dominated. 

 

I have faith in Smith that we will stay up. It wont be a great season, but we are not going down.

Well Norwich had nearly 60% of the ball, had 50% more shots, more shots on target, more corners  & made 140 more passes than us. We scored, they didn't. Other than that they probably should have won by 2 or 3. This is us playing at home against bottom of the league and somehow getting a smash & grab win thanks to our keeper, a goalline clearance & the crossbar. Looks pretty dominant to me...

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4 hours ago, PussEKatt said:

Yes I do.But that does not explain why he starts every game.I have never ever ever ever heard of a striker starting so many games for so little result and continuing to be the first choice.FFS, peolle are not fussed on Kodija but the way WEsley playes we would probably be better off with a striker that was in a wheele chair.When Wesley plays we are effectivly playing with 10 men.

Even so you must admit Dean hasn't had a whole load of other options with Davis being injured and Kodjia not always being fit or questions as to whether he works hard enough for the team.  For what it's worth I'd have started Kodjia against Southampton at least but Wes did put in a good shift yesterday imo.  The problem was not signing another striker which I don't really put the blame at Dean's door.

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2 hours ago, LakotaDakota said:

Well Norwich had nearly 60% of the ball, had 50% more shots, more shots on target, more corners  & made 140 more passes than us. We scored, they didn't. Other than that they probably should have won by 2 or 3. This is us playing at home against bottom of the league and somehow getting a smash & grab win thanks to our keeper, a goalline clearance & the crossbar. Looks pretty dominant to me...

I believe I addressed all of those points in an earlier post.

 

We weren't "dominated"

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I really really hope he knows how to play more than one formation.

That Norwich performance is the first 90 mins we've ever played under him not 433.

A pure "head coach" with the support of a director of football buying all the players has to have more than one way to play.

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3 hours ago, Vive_La_Villa said:

Bit concerned to see Smith not addressing the blatant problem we had on our left side with El Ghazi not tracking. He took an age to fix it and even then it was with Lansbury which  wasn’t really the answer. Every Norwich attack was coming down that side and we just weren't addressing it. 

Wasn’t AEG on the right? 

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1 minute ago, Vive_La_Villa said:

Not second half. He switched with Trez. 

Oh fair enough. I know they were switching back and forth but somehow didn’t realise it had been a permanent thing. Although of course that makes sense given his role in the goal and given where Lansbury played for a couple of mins when he came on! 

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