Dean Smith

[VillanousOne]

43 minutes ago, sheepyvillian said:

Even those of us who back Smith can see the many problems this team has, but we are still only half way through the season and I firmly believe we have more chance of avoiding relegation with Deano than without him. He deserves to be given the chance to turn things around. 

Southampton lost 9 - 0 to Leicester and yet have still managed to regain their confidence and now look like a team very likely to avoid relegation. Who would have thought that a few months back? 

the underserved win against Norwich should have been a turning point and led to renewed confidence and self belief, instead it led to a change in tactics a starting eleven with limited attacking options and a 3:0 loss to 10 men.

[PieFacE]

1 hour ago, villalad21 said:

After all the money we spent we should expect to compete.

Surviving is the bare minimum requirement and i'm sure the owners would say the same.

When you lose comfortably to Watford and Southampton our chances for survival are looking grim.

We're 1 point off 17th place. We've had our first choice centre back pairing out for quite some time who were brilliant at the start of the season, and we now have McGinn injured too who's clearly been playing with an injury in recent months. These factors definitely contribute to our current situation. We've been poor at times this season no doubt, but we're hardly blessed with strength and depth and when you scratch under the surface of our first 11, our squad is Championship standard.

We've signed a lot of players who have potential but that's all they have right now. Wesley, El Ghazi, Trez, Luiz, Nakamba, Konsa, Guilbert can play with confidence at times, but right now they are definitely not. Factor that in with a lot of our other squad players who are Championship standard at best, Hause, Jota, Lansbury then it's no surprise we're struggling. It's on Smith to turn it around and bring confidence back to this squad for sure, but sacking him at the first sign of dipping into the bottom 3 is complete kneejerk nonsense, in my humble opinion.

Our squad is barely good enough for the Premier League, if at all. Unfortunately, we were obviously limited in what we could spend  in the summer and we didn't have a strong spine of players to carry us through from the Championship to the Premier League. 

Our whole transfer policy was a gamble but we didn't really have any other choice. Expecting survival is fine, I'd snap your hand off for 17th right now which would give us an opportunity to improve over the summer again, but to get your knickers in a twist at the first sign of dropping into the bottom 3 when we have such crucial first team players injured at a time when games are coming thick and fast just screams of lack of perspective about our situation.

I can understand the calls for Smith to be sacked to some degree, it seems to be the way of modern football and I do get it. But I hope our owners are a bit more patient and understanding then some of our fanbase as some of the stuff written on here and social media has been pretty embarrassing in all honesty. 

 

Edited December 29, 2019 by PieFacE

[sheepyvillian]

2 minutes ago, mykeyb said:

Well I suspect if he was going he would be gone by now.

If Dean is staying we need two or three top quality additions who will fit into his 4-3-3 formation one of which simply has to be a striker.

I am not sure Dean can do it but he has my full support while he is here

Exactly, and why is that? Because your love for this club is bigger than any misgivings you may have towards any individual. Now is not the time for personal agendas, let's give Deano our full support in what is going to be a mighty task in ensuring our premier league status. 

[stegzy]

Whilst I agree that the team he put out against Watford was poor I think everyone agreed at the start of the season that our most important players were Grealish, Mcginn and Mings. Without 2 of those 3 it was never going to be easy and we lose a hell of a lot of leadership because of it. Targetts Injury as well now could be bad but hopefully we can rectify that with a loan signing in January. 
I think Smith deserves more time now and although it has crossed my mind that he isn’t up for it for the first time now I still believe he deserves another month or so to try and turn things round.
 

[Zatman]

25 minutes ago, KentVillan said:

How do you know @villalad21 isn't Christian Purslow?

If he is then he is doing a shit job of trying to sack him for the last 14 months

[useless]

We might only be one point from safety now but if we carry on the form we've shown over the last ten or so games then we'll be virtually relegated by the end of February, which I think is the point, not how we've done over the season as an whole but whether Smith can stop this run of bad form that we've been on because if not our doing okay for the first ten games will soon count for nothing.

[Fairy In Boots]

1 minute ago, useless said:

We might only be one point from safety now but if we carry on the form we've shown over the last ten or so games then we'll be virtually relegated by the end of February, which I think is the point, not how we've done over the season as an whole but whether Smith can stop this run of bad form that we've been on because if not our doing okay for the first ten games will soon count for nothing.

They will chop after Burnley if we lose, 100% or they may let him have the cup game either way he’s on death row. 

[JAMAICAN-VILLAN]

Anyone else noticed none of the players have posted Anything AT ALL on social media since yesterday?

 

[mykeyb]

4 minutes ago, JAMAICAN-VILLAN said:

Anyone else noticed none of the players have posted Anything AT ALL on social media since yesterday?

 

Do they normally post anything the day after a game?

[JAMAICAN-VILLAN]

18 minutes ago, mykeyb said:

Do they normally post anything the day after a game?

Always.

Obviously recently it's just been a generic "Not the result we wanted, but we come back stronger"

"Not good enough today, we'll make this right, thanks to the fans etc"

Especially from Jack.

I'm thinking they've been told to stay off it.

[KentVillan]

12 minutes ago, JAMAICAN-VILLAN said:

Anyone else noticed none of the players have posted Anything AT ALL on social media since yesterday?

Normal after this kind of result. Best to keep your head down.

54 minutes ago, useless said:

We might only be one point from safety now but if we carry on the form we've shown over the last ten or so games then we'll be virtually relegated by the end of February, which I think is the point, not how we've done over the season as an whole but whether Smith can stop this run of bad form that we've been on because if not our doing okay for the first ten games will soon count for nothing.

All fair, but the question is will sacking Smith improve our chances of staying up? I'm not sure it will, or at least not significantly enough to justify the upheaval. West Ham have just binned Pellegrini for Moyes, which sums up the "out of the frying pan, into the fire" nature of the relegation battle.

The head coach is a very influential figure, but football is played on the pitch, not in the dugout. It was Ezri Konsa, not Dean Smith, who slipped in Watford for their first goal. The same Konsa who Smith was praised for starting in the previous game (and I rate Konsa btw... but he's very young). Mings returning from injury will have a much bigger impact on our form than any managerial change, I'm sure of that.

Our failings this season have mostly been strategic (i.e. transfer policy) rather than tactical. We should have replaced Whelan with a wise head in midfield - perhaps an old Champions League player on a short-term contract or loan deal. We should have signed another striker.

Smith might be partly to blame for that - maybe he didn't push Suso and Purslow for this kind of investment in our first season back. Maybe he gave his approval to a couple of dodgy signings. We don't know really.

He's obviously learnt his lesson now, and I wouldn't be surprised if the January transfer window resolves 2 or 3 of the big problems that we've all been complaining about. Might as well give him half a season to take advantage of those improvements. We're only just off the pace at the moment, and some of our rivals are struggling, and simply won't have the budget to turn their season around.

[useless]

Not sure if West Ham appointing Moyes is a good example of why we shouldn't sack Smith, Moyes will probably keep them up he's done it before and he has a better squad this time, he's another who it's fashionable to dislike but he's competent at this level and It's probably bad news for us that he's got the job, hopefully he's as bad as he was at the black cats, but I suspect they'll be mid table come the end of the season. We just need to beat Burnley, if we can do that all the talk of Smith leaving will quieten down for a while, for some reason I've got a feeling that we're going to get the three points, but we'll see.

[LakotaDakota]

3 hours ago, foreveryoung said:

Smith also came up much to early. If he does leave us, I doubt he will get another job in the Premier League just yet, he needs to go learn his trade a little more

If/When he goes in the next couple of weeks he will never, ever get another job in the premier league unless he somehow manages to get another team promoted

[briny_ear]

2 hours ago, PieFacE said:

We're 1 point off 17th place. We've had our first choice centre back pairing out for quite some time who were brilliant at the start of the season, and we now have McGinn injured too who's clearly been playing with an injury in recent months. These factors definitely contribute to our current situation. We've been poor at times this season no doubt, but we're hardly blessed with strength and depth and when you scratch under the surface of our first 11, our squad is Championship standard.

We've signed a lot of players who have potential but that's all they have right now. Wesley, El Ghazi, Trez, Luiz, Nakamba, Konsa, Guilbert can play with confidence at times, but right now they are definitely not. Factor that in with a lot of our other squad players who are Championship standard at best, Hause, Jota, Lansbury then it's no surprise we're struggling. It's on Smith to turn it around and bring confidence back to this squad for sure, but sacking him at the first sign of dipping into the bottom 3 is complete kneejerk nonsense, in my humble opinion.

Our squad is barely good enough for the Premier League, if at all. Unfortunately, we were obviously limited in what we could spend  in the summer and we didn't have a strong spine of players to carry us through from the Championship to the Premier League. 

Our whole transfer policy was a gamble but we didn't really have any other choice. Expecting survival is fine, I'd snap your hand off for 17th right now which would give us an opportunity to improve over the summer again, but to get your knickers in a twist at the first sign of dropping into the bottom 3 when we have such crucial first team players injured at a time when games are coming thick and fast just screams of lack of perspective about our situation.

I can understand the calls for Smith to be sacked to some degree, it seems to be the way of modern football and I do get it. But I hope our owners are a bit more patient and understanding then some of our fanbase as some of the stuff written on here and social media has been pretty embarrassing in all honesty. 

 

There is a lot of truth here and I don’t think many would disagree with the assessments. However, what it overlooks is the alarming deterioration in form over the last few matches and the apparent inability of Smith to change tactics/formations to meet the needs of individual games. 
 

These issues raise questions about his own competence regardless of any external factors and no amount of understanding, patience, etc., is going to put these things right.

Edited December 30, 2019 by briny_ear

[KentVillan]

48 minutes ago, briny_ear said:

There is a lot of truth here and I don’t think many would disagree with the assessments. However, what it overlooks is the alarming deterioration in form over the last few matches and the apparent inability of Smith to change tactics/formations to meet the needs of individual games. 
 

These issues raise questions about his own competence regardless of any external factors and no amount of understanding, patience, etc., is going to put these things right.

To what extent do you think the "alarming deterioration in form" can be separated from the Mings injury?

We had a bad run of results while Mings was fit, but they were mostly against top quality opposition. It seems to me that the really bad performances (i.e. Southampton and Watford) have coincided with the Mings injury.

At the start of the season, my opinion (and I'm sure it was widely shared) was that we had to keep Grealish, Mings and McGinn fit in order to survive.

I don't know how injuries to those players reflect on Smith's competence, unless they were a result of fatigue or overtraining. It sounds like they probably weren't.

[sheepyvillian]

1 hour ago, useless said:

Not sure if West Ham appointing Moyes is a good example of why we shouldn't sack Smith, Moyes will probably keep them up he's done it before and he has a better squad this time, he's another who it's fashionable to dislike but he's competent at this level and It's probably bad news for us that he's got the job, hopefully he's as bad as he was at the black cats, but I suspect they'll be mid table come the end of the season. We just need to beat Burnley, if we can do that all the talk of Smith leaving will quieten down for a while, for some reason I've got a feeling that we're going to get the three points, but we'll see.

That's the spirit we need, the belief that the next game will be the tuning point. Why wallow in the mire? 

[TRO]

8 hours ago, DCJonah said:

Hahaha what a joke. 

How many times did you defend bruce when people constantly pointed out things that were worrying  

Bruce failed and you defended him blindly. Smith is 1 pt off his target and you're on him. Good consistency 

what on Earth are you jibbering on about?

Firstly, I defended Bruce in aspects, I thought he deserved to be defended, like stopping the rot from RDM and putting some respectability back in to results.....If you gleaned my posts like the hawk you allude to, you will know I criticised Bruce too for his cautious and boring offerings and in the end I think it consumed him.

Like the curates egg many things are good in parts....rarely is something all poo......I just chose to put some balance back as I saw it.

I thought and still do, what he had to put up with under Xia and Whyness during his last summer, was commendable and then carrying on working with his mom and Dad passing and no leadership at the club, deserved respect....I thought the cabbage was chavvie and still do and I hope Dean does not have to endure such an incident, I thought it was a sleight on the club too......but when he went, I thought it was the right time....I did not defend him blindly, that is your opinion, because you didn't want me to defend him in anything he did, even the 24 wins in a season......I hope I have cleared that up for you.

For where he is sitting now, it could be argued, I didn't defend him enough.....seperate debate.

Now Dean.....If you have bothered to read my posts properly, I have stated that I don't want him gone....having said that I don't want us to go down either, if Dean can resurrect us, fine, But I have my doubts ,that's my Opinion.....are you with me so far.

I watched us all last season and this and as general rule and not picking specific games.....I think we have a "softness" about us, lose a bit of form or key players that drifts in to "easy to beat"......we had a great run last season 10 wins on the bounce....but when the tough games come Leeds and Albion, we made hard work of it.

Where we are in the league is tough, but with the right approach still time to get out of it.....Dean has to find the right approach.....I am not " on him" as you put it. I have been merely explaining my position on where we are and what we are doing.

I have no idea what Dean is responsible for behind the scenes, so Blame is not on my agenda........I can only look at the play during games and declare what I see, other folk may not see what I see and vice versa.

I equally have no idea of what you mean Smith is 1 pt off his target.....I don't give a flying wotsit what targets folk have.....I know we are in the quicksand and I want to get out.

PS I actually, have really enjoyed some of Deans football, some great moments, I am just unsure in its format, whether its sustainable in this league.

PPS hope that's clearer of my true position on Villa currently.

 

 

Edited December 30, 2019 by TRO

[Eastie]

I didn’t like the somewhat glib reply of smith on Saturday when he quipped ‘ my jobs not under threat ‘ after the game - as a manager with 4 points from the last 30 his job bloody well should be under threat .

utter madness giving a 4 year contract at the time we did - should have kept us up before getting such a reward 

[Fairy In Boots]

6 hours ago, JAMAICAN-VILLAN said:

Always.

Obviously recently it's just been a generic "Not the result we wanted, but we come back stronger"

"Not good enough today, we'll make this right, thanks to the fans etc"

Especially from Jack.

I'm thinking they've been told to stay off it.

It’s the abuse they get no doubt, there’s been incidents when you get knob heads give them abuse out and about when we’re doing poorly. This is the same for all clubs though

[Rob182]

17 minutes ago, TRO said:

For where he is sitting now, it could be argued, I didn't defend him enough.....seperate debate.

You couldn’t have defended him more without literally looking either insane or like Bruce Jnr.

Also, let’s see where Newcastle and Bruce are after he has a few transfer windows. Right now he’s using Rafa’s team.