Eastie Posted January 13, 2020 Share Posted January 13, 2020 15 minutes ago, TRO said: My question is......will the board/owners allow him to take us down?....if thats the way we are heading? Yes I think if they were going to act it would have been after the watford game - now I think he’s here for the duration and it could prove a huge mistake Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Laughable Chimp Posted January 13, 2020 Share Posted January 13, 2020 20 minutes ago, GingerCollins29 said: Is it just me or is there a simple solution? 1) When we are getting pinned back in our own half, tell defenders to boot it away, not pass it around playing tiki taka. 2) buy a striker who can hold up the ball and bring others into play. Someone strong, good positional sense, who wins headers. Doesnt matter if they score loads or not - weve already proved we can score from other areas. 3) dont play taylor or elmo. Ever. 4) trez and el ghazi should not take on three or four players, take one player on and pass it. 5) stop conceding after half time. Be hard to beat rather than trying to emulate how liverpool and city play. We are not there yet. We can only dream of getting there by staying in this league and rebuilding. 1) Doesn't work. It just comes straight back to us and we concede from the pressure eventually. 2)Agreed. We arguably have someone who does this in Davis already. Its his goalscoring which is suspect but the hold up play is decent enough imo. Although, we could always go for a Benteke if you really don't care about goal scoring and are just looking for a striker who wins headers, brings others into play and holds up the ball. 3)A bit extreme, I think Elmo gets spacegoated a lot. I think both players are good enough as backups, but should never start over Guilbert and Targett if the option is available. 4)Easier said than done. Its more on whether the opposition team allows us to do this. 5)Again, easier said than done. Yes, be harder to beat but how do you be harder to beat with this team? Or rather, does Smith even know how to make this team harder to beat? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post romavillan Posted January 13, 2020 VT Supporter Popular Post Share Posted January 13, 2020 Sacking him for going down when 17th would be an achievement would be a bit short sighted. There seems to ba a lot of people willing to just abandon ship on the project that had the club completely buzzing and transformed. We knew we were going to be losing a hell of a lot of games this season, it's still early days for the project Smith got us up probably a year before the club was expecting. He's now trying to keep us in the top flight after the most mental turnover of players possibly ever in the division. 10 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Laughable Chimp Posted January 13, 2020 Share Posted January 13, 2020 (edited) Gonna be real, people are only saying 17th is an achivement because of how poorly we've started. The optimism back during the Summer was much higher than for a team that finishing 17th would be an achievement. Edited January 13, 2020 by Laughable Chimp 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HAL Posted January 13, 2020 Share Posted January 13, 2020 Goal this season was to stay up and kick on next season. Anyone expecting more than a relegation scrap this season after the amount of new players brought in was deluding themselfs 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
romavillan Posted January 13, 2020 VT Supporter Share Posted January 13, 2020 4 minutes ago, Laughable Chimp said: Gonna be real, people are only saying 17th is an achivement because of how poorly we've started. The optimism back during the Summer was much higher than for a team that finishing 17th would be an achievement. I wonder if the people expecting "much higher" are the same getting upset about how it's going and wanting Smith out? 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MarkLillis Posted January 13, 2020 Share Posted January 13, 2020 6 minutes ago, Laughable Chimp said: Gonna be real, people are only saying 17th is an achivement because of how poorly we've started. The optimism back during the Summer was much higher than for a team that finishing 17th would be an achievement. People are only saying 17th is an achievement after a poor run of results in December.Followed up by injury’s to key players and compounded by a heavy home defeat. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
romavillan Posted January 13, 2020 VT Supporter Share Posted January 13, 2020 2 minutes ago, MarkLillis said: People are only saying 17th is an achievement after a poor run of results in December.Followed up by injury’s to key players and compounded by a heavy home defeat. Staying up was always the aim right from the start, loads of us were talking about how to get to 40 points as the target, I remember saying win half the home games and a couple on the road and throw some draws in and we'd get over the line. I don't remember many saying we'd piss 40 points easy? 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LakotaDakota Posted January 13, 2020 Share Posted January 13, 2020 1 hour ago, TRO said: My question is......will the board/owners allow him to take us down?....if thats the way we are heading? If they don't get rid of him by the end of the month that is exactly what they are doing Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Graham t Posted January 13, 2020 Share Posted January 13, 2020 I am not necessarily saying 'Smith out' but I could understand our poor play and relegation position if we hadn't spent a small fortune in the summer presumably to ensure that we didn't struggle as we are now. Nearly all of those transfers now seem poor business decisions . Have we really strengthened the team? If we have why does Smith keep changing the team every game? Some of the changes have been forced through injury but most just seem to be decided on 'the toss of a coin'. I think everyone agrees that Smith is 'a good bloke' who seems able to see what has gone wrong in games in his after match 'disaster review'. The problem for me is that he does not seem able to resolve our poor play. We all want him to succeed but I , like many on this forum, are beginning to wond if the job is simply too much for him... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MarkLillis Posted January 13, 2020 Share Posted January 13, 2020 6 minutes ago, romavillan said: Staying up was always the aim right from the start, loads of us were talking about how to get to 40 points as the target, I remember saying win half the home games and a couple on the road and throw some draws in and we'd get over the line. I don't remember many saying we'd piss 40 points easy? My point is that we haven’t been this bad all season. Only after December have I started to worry about survival. The Leicester, Southampton,Norwich and Man City performances have really knocked supporter confidence hence the dramatic increase in doubt. This can be turned around 2015/16 was and unstoppable juggernaut This isn’t. But I get your point you always knew we would be lucky to stay up! 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KentVillan Posted January 13, 2020 Share Posted January 13, 2020 32 minutes ago, Laughable Chimp said: Gonna be real, people are only saying 17th is an achivement because of how poorly we've started. The optimism back during the Summer was much higher than for a team that finishing 17th would be an achievement. Not true. I think a few people (me included) underestimated how hard it would be to get an all-new squad firing on all cylinders, but I remember plenty of people warning that this would be a very tough season because of all the new signings, and our reliance on a handful of key players. Virtually everyone said that our success would depend on Grealish, Mings and McGinn staying fit. We’ve just had a terrible run of performances coinciding with an injury to Mings. We now serious injuries to Heaton, McGinn and Wesley, so you’d have to be mad to think anything above 17th was a par performance. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KentVillan Posted January 13, 2020 Share Posted January 13, 2020 (edited) 30 minutes ago, Graham t said: I am not necessarily saying 'Smith out' but I could understand our poor play and relegation position if we hadn't spent a small fortune in the summer presumably to ensure that we didn't struggle as we are now. Nearly all of those transfers now seem poor business decisions . Have we really strengthened the team? If we have why does Smith keep changing the team every game? Some of the changes have been forced through injury but most just seem to be decided on 'the toss of a coin'. I think everyone agrees that Smith is 'a good bloke' who seems able to see what has gone wrong in games in his after match 'disaster review'. The problem for me is that he does not seem able to resolve our poor play. We all want him to succeed but I , like many on this forum, are beginning to wond if the job is simply too much for him... I think our summer spend is massively overstated by pundits. That money was spread pretty thinly on a lot of young players who haven’t reached their peak yet, most of whom have no prior Premier League experience, and some of whom don’t even speak much English. To then blame Smith for not immediately getting a tune out of those players seems very harsh. Some of the best managers in the world don’t get good performances out of a new signing until well into that player’s second season at the club (look at how long it’s taken some of Liverpool’s overseas signings to hit their stride). I could easily see Nakamba turning out to be one of those “hidden gems” that everyone raves about, even though his first season reviews will all be that he stank the place out. Same for Trez. That’s just the nature of football. Players have good seasons and bad seasons, it isn’t always predictable. But what is predictable is that settled squads play better than random selections of players who barely know each other. No amount of spending can beat that basic law of team ethos and mutual understanding. I think Smith actually tried his best to keep as many players as possible from last season, but most of them just aren’t good enough for this level. We do see a good understanding between Conor and Jack, for example, but it only works in the easier fixtures where Conor’s defensive frailties aren’t ruthlessly exposed. Similar story all over the pitch. Taylor and Mings have a good understanding, but do we want Taylor starting PL matches for this club? Probably not. Smith is caught between a rock and a hard place. Edited January 13, 2020 by KentVillan 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Elton Posted January 13, 2020 Share Posted January 13, 2020 Purslow did half an hour in the Sky Sports News studio prior to the start of the season. He stated our aims were consolidating our Premier League status and maybe qualify for Europe as a outside ambition this season. He certainly publicity wasn’t entertaining a relegation battle and not should he, even if that was the reality. He also said he expected a Dean Smith coached team to be stronger in the 2nd half of the season as coaching takes effect and new signings gel. I still think Smith’s job is safe and I hope Purslow is right. We’ll see soon enough what this window brings and a couple of good signings could see us climb a few places still. We can finish anywhere in the bottom half of the table. There won’t be panic in the boardroom yet. If Purslow has overestimated Smith’s coaching ability at PL level then maybe a rethink is required in the summer but I can’t see it now. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mikeyp102 Posted January 13, 2020 Share Posted January 13, 2020 1 hour ago, TRO said: My question is......will the board/owners allow him to take us down?....if thats the way we are heading? I think so yes. There’s a reason they gave him a 4 yr contract despite us being close to the relegation zone. They want him to build a structure here, the youth teams are looking to play similar to how Smith did at Brentford and obviously that is wanted at the top as well. I’ve said it before, but if anything we are suffering from Smith being too successful last season. Purslow and Smith both have said we came up a year ahead of plan. I think if we hadn’t come up, we’d be playing some good football in the championship and would be more settled coming up, ala Sheffield Utd this season. As it is, we’ve come up into the pressure cooker, where it is harder to implement his style of play straight away. And for what it’s worth, I was one of those that questioned his appointment as I wasn’t sure he’d be able to cope with the size of the club. However, now I’d stick with him as I think that run last season was great, and this season he’s had to completely rebuild a squad yet we have seen occasional glimpses of what this team can do. I would say though, that I wish his substitutions were more proactive and done earlier. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KentVillan Posted January 13, 2020 Share Posted January 13, 2020 The injuries and the emergency signings this has forced on us will hinder Smith’s ability to get this team to gel. I think getting in a couple of experienced pros was the right approach, but they need to perform. Fingers crossed. I am very concerned but still back Smith to get us over the line. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LakotaDakota Posted January 13, 2020 Share Posted January 13, 2020 50 minutes ago, MarkLillis said: 2015/16 was and unstoppable juggernaut Scary thing about that season is that we only averaged 2 goals per game conceded over the course of the season. We are currently 1 goal away from conceding 2 per game this season and it's getting worse rather than better. In the 9 league games since the start of December we have conceded 23 goals. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Adam2003 Posted January 13, 2020 Share Posted January 13, 2020 1 hour ago, Graham t said: I am not necessarily saying 'Smith out' but I could understand our poor play and relegation position if we hadn't spent a small fortune in the summer presumably to ensure that we didn't struggle as we are now. Nearly all of those transfers now seem poor business decisions . Have we really strengthened the team? If we have why does Smith keep changing the team every game? Some of the changes have been forced through injury but most just seem to be decided on 'the toss of a coin'. I think we spend a small fortune to be able to put out a competitive team. Which we have, we are three points off 14th, so clearly are in the mix. So to "have we really strengthened the team" - last time we were in this division we crashed out and were pretty much relegated at this point, and our team last season finished 5th in the Championship with bunch of guys on loan - so yes, obviously we have. That doesn't mean our business was perfect and maybe there are other players we should have signed, but I still don't think it was a bad summer's business for the most part. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LakotaDakota Posted January 13, 2020 Share Posted January 13, 2020 Keep seeing this came up a year too early stuff, What on earth makes anyone think things would have been better in the championship this season. The loan players would still all have left, We would have still lost another half a dozen due to contracts ending so we would have needed the same rebuild if not even more as FFP would have prevented us from spending more than the loose change down the back of a sofa. We wouldn't have been buying Heaton, Mings, & El Ghazi for sure and would be scratting around league 1 and shit euro 2nd divisions looking for bargains. Given how smiths teams defend i think we would have been down there for a long time 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Eastie Posted January 13, 2020 Share Posted January 13, 2020 52 minutes ago, KentVillan said: Not true. I think a few people (me included) underestimated how hard it would be to get an all-new squad firing on all cylinders, but I remember plenty of people warning that this would be a very tough season because of all the new signings, and our reliance on a handful of key players. Virtually everyone said that our success would depend on Grealish, Mings and McGinn staying fit. We’ve just had a terrible run of performances coinciding with an injury to Mings. We now serious injuries to Heaton, McGinn and Wesley, so you’d have to be mad to think anything above 17th was a par performance. I thought it would take maybe 10 games to gel and then we’d improve as a team - as it is we’ve got worse rather than better. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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