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Dean Smith


Demitri_C

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1 hour ago, Kiwivillan said:

I referenced his tackling. This is ridiculous nitpicking

Have you never noticed that on this site Kiwi, sarcasm is on the rise, alot have to 1up the rest for some reason. Last season it wasn't as bad, this season it's like it's back with a vengeance.

Back to Smith though, Smith didn't look pleased after the last defeat that I am surprised that he's allowed anyone on holiday. Smith needs to lay the law into these players as they are living the lifestyle yet not paying it back. The players are more than capable of winning these matches and they were very close many a time early in the season, yet it was clear we need reinforcements and better quality.  What's shocking is that better quality hasn't arrived this window, so really we have not learned anything this window and we could of possibly made mistakes by not bringing in the necessary signings we needed to go that extra further mile than other clubs.

While I like Nakamba i certainly don't agree he doesn't try to tackle and his appetite to tackle isn't there because it is, yet it's Nakambas tackle success rate that doesn't seem to be paying off for him it seems. I have not seen his stats but if his duels won is low then we seriously have the wrong CDM. Nakamba should be cleaning up after messes on the pitch, he's fast enough to get around so he should not have a problem always being near the ball especially in our defensive third. 

That being said our keeper is having an awful lot being fired at him that it's completely over the top crazy. We all know how horrible that becomes for a keeper yet that fault doesnt just lie with Nakamba for not mopping up, it lies with the defence as well. Our Defence seems to either be scared to confront opposition or scare to step towards opposition in case they get out turned that it's giving opposition space enough to get into shot range which then implies it's a set of balls players are missing, along with courage where that play isnt shut down fast enough. The midfield has to also take blame, one for letting the ball go in the first place (no you can't always keep the ball) and we are losing the ball at times at alarming rates. So our midfield invites pressure and we are not applying the right type of pressure fast enough as some midfielders stop chasing or don't even begin to chase which in turn allows opposition to gsin advantage in territory and position.

At the time the Defence is backing off, Nakamba isn't sweeping up the mess, the keeper is having crazy shots fired at him, what is the midfield actually doing??? The midfield all its doing is adding to the number in the defensive third making the field more congested which is ok, but they are not really going towards the opposition applying pressure and trying to retrieve the ball and help Nakamba out, they just sit with our defence and were then going from side to side defending shots and blocking them. At most our midfielders and defenders are booting it back up field and possession is back in the feet of the opposition which is unacceptable. That's the problem we have is once we've cleared the ball there is no one holding onto that ball so we can begin passing it outwards, we are blindly giving that ball away to opposition, yet we are sposed to be a possession based team and it's not working out where we have possession most through a game.

I watched against Bournmouth that once We had got the ball on the wing That we nearly always had the player isolated with no where to go with the ball, even the pundits mentioned this. We so need to drop this Winger tactic, it is not helping or aiding us and im not enjoying seeing us make crosses that dont go anywhere that we do not benifit from. In fact I would say that we are missing men in the center that it's causing us so many problems that we can not function properly as a team to begin with. Our midfield is ineffective because we havnt the numbers in the center. We may find ourselves on the front foot more if we had two more body's in the centre going out wide, instead of being out wide to begin with.

I feel like our main problems start with the Wingers, if those two players are brought back into the center, then a good portion of the balls going through center may be halted long before our defence or CDM ever start having so many problems or our keeper starts being bombarded with artillery. I just feel our midfield will function way better if we had full service and maximum effect in the middle of the park by having more players playing there, we are severly light in midfield.

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5 minutes ago, Dave-R said:

What's shocking is that better quality hasn't arrived this window, so really we have not learned anything this window and we could of possibly made mistakes by not bringing in the necessary signings we needed to go that extra further mile than other clubs

January is a horrible window. Look at all the other club's signings. I think we were financially restrained and 4 parties have to agree for a player to come. 

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The defensive shape of the back five (and prior to that the back four) and holding midfielders has been pretty bad all season. Teams have been playing through the lines with us all season. 
 

The use of three CBS has allowed Ty to effectively play a free role: sometimes sweeping, sometimes helping the DMs. I love him but he sometimes lacks the discipline to decide on the best course of action.

 

To me it’s this communication between the defensive and the DMs that has been our problem: you make stupid mistakes if you don’t know/trust that your teammate has got your back. Add into the mix a few f*ck ups early on (Dougie versus Bournemouth comes to mind) and players will think twice. 
 

Where does Smith come in? First, I’d like to see how comms between the CBS and the DMs improves. Maybe that was what Drinkwater was for, despite his lack of fitness. He seems like a talker. Second, I wonder if the ‘I’ll let the players argue over it’ approach is the best one? The players that will get lampooned are the ones with the weakest communication skills, while the players who are most eloquent or influential off the pitch (Ty, Jack, etc) will be able to divest themselves of blame.

Edited by KevinRichardsonsMoustache
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I personally think it’s a quality and inexperience issue.  

With quality and experienced players you get more consistency. 

There isn’t much between the bottom half of the table. We’ll get the odd win but majority of games we will lose. Hopefully we can win enough to stay up. Luck will probably play a big part in this. As will our home games. 

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59 minutes ago, Vive_La_Villa said:

 Luck will probably play a big part in this. As will our home games. 

If lucks playing a big part we are severly screwed already lol. Bad refs, Bad Var, Bad shots, Bad playing (At times) and Bad decision making. I mean it says it all when Nakamba runs up and American football kicks one out of the stadium pretty much. 😉 

We should have the fans throw horse shoes at opposition players, adopt a four leaf clover on our shirts, keep a little leprechaun in a cage and have a care bear constantly shooting rainbows over VillaPark., We may just then have a chance then.

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12 hours ago, The Hawk said:

Not sure if you’re trolling as always but perspective and attitude are different things. You can have a positive attitude and still be realistic. 

This acceptance for mediocrity is what creates a losing culture.

I really can't address this enough.

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9 hours ago, Kiwivillan said:

I referenced his tackling. This is ridiculous nitpicking

It’s not “ridiculous nitpicking” at all. You quoted a statistic that didn’t fullly address the points being made in the post you commented on.

There are quite a few instances on the site at the moment of people cherry picking statistics to try to show that things aren’t really as bad as our real world experience is telling us.

This seems to be an example.

 

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Watched the Bounremouth match again today, and I'm baffled how we gave away that first half. Second to every single loose ball, and the collective pressure on the ball carrier were non-existant. 

Low point of the season for me methinks. 

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On 04/02/2020 at 12:10, Adam2003 said:

Don’t agree with this at all - the game at VP we had two horrific errors to gift them goals and otherwise we played ok. The return match we were frankly poor in my opinion.

Yeah I don't think it was anything like the game at VP. This one was worse to be quite honest.

The game at VP we were by far the better team, we just gifted them two stupid goals.

This time we were just shit.

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