Douglas Luiz

[foreveryoung]

Gagging for decent manager/coach this guy. I think dare I say it, if he moved to a club like Wolves he would become a top player. Being wasted here.

[sir_gary_cahill]

6 minutes ago, foreveryoung said:

Gagging for decent manager/coach this guy. I think dare I say it, if he moved to a club like Wolves he would become a top player. Being wasted here.

Isn’t Smith a decent coach?

[foreveryoung]

2 minutes ago, sir_gary_cahill said:

Isn’t Smith a decent coach?

One player he improved since he was here? 

[sir_gary_cahill]

5 minutes ago, foreveryoung said:

One player he improved since he was here? 

Grealish?

[foreveryoung]

13 minutes ago, sir_gary_cahill said:

Grealish?

He was quality before he came. 

[sir_gary_cahill]

Just now, foreveryoung said:

He was quality before he came. 

I agree with you but I think Smith has improved him, I know the game isn’t played on paper but certainly this season in terms of goals and assists. I think Smith is finding a way to get the best out of Grealish

[useless]

When Smith arrived we'd twice failed to get promoted and had just won only one of the last ten games, he turned it around so we were the form team in the division aside from Norwich and reached and won the play-offs winning promotion, so I'd say there's a pretty good argument for saying that he improved the whole side. As for Luiz he probably would do better at Wolves but I don't think that that's a reflection on Smith necessarily it's more that Wolves have more settled team so it's easier to integrate players into their team, Nakamba would also probably look a lot better in their teams as well.

[Zatman]

30 minutes ago, foreveryoung said:

One player he improved since he was here? 

Mings, Whelan, Grealish, McGinn, Tammy, Elmo, Tuanzebe, Jed Steer, Nyland

[VillaChris]

I think he'll come good next year or in the near future. He is very raw but with time I think he'll be a very good midfield player in this league. Seen it with the excellent cameos he had v Brighton and Watford although not shown enough when he's generally started.

Have we actually had a midfield trio of Nakamba, Luiz and McGinn yet? In early season Grealish was in the middle trio with McGinn also an automatic starter so Luiz was only getting in as the deepest lying midfielder where's as effective as Hourihane in that role e.g. not very.

Think that would be interesting combination and then you have Hourihane as a sub who can come on if we need a goal and are getting free kicks around the box.

[VillaChris]

1 hour ago, foreveryoung said:

One player he improved since he was here? 

El Ghazi looked pretty lost in the early games under Bruce and wasn't even starting when he was sacked. He came on at the end of last season so think that's someone DS put his arm around and told him to be more direct at the full back.

Been hugely inconsistant this season but then who hasn't apart from Grealish.

[OxfordVillan]

8 hours ago, Zatman said:

Mings, Whelan, Grealish, McGinn, Tammy, Elmo, Tuanzebe, Jed Steer, Nyland

Some ppl are so quick to forget, aren’t they?! When Dean Smith took over Jed Steer had once again been bombed out on loan, Tuanzebe was being deployed at RB, Mings wasn’t  even being thought about by anyone (and signing questioned by many when he arrived), Whelan was being widely derided. Hutton is now a club legend! Villa were mid table and had won 1 in 10 from what, on paper, was a comfortable opening that many of us had expected would result in us being sat in the front runners at the top of the league. Fast forward 7mths or so and Mings is a “must sign” player and club hero, Grealish is Captain fantastic, Tuanzebe is a club hero at CB with his own chant, Jed Steer is our No.1 GK and semifinal hero, Whelan rolled back the years and became an important cog. Grealish was nearly gone before last season started, for what would have been around £25m. Today Grealish has a figure of around £80m placed on him, with many arguing it should be more. Jed Steer would have ended up leaving on a free, today he’d surely be worth something in the region of £5m or so? Maybe more, and has been seen to be a very decent GK. 
Dean Smith turned us around last season, not with simply a “new manager bounce”. He changed the personnel and the style of play and achieved what managers in the previous seasons couldn’t do and won us promotion. The club went on a record equalling win streak. We’ve been to a league cup final. We COULD yet finish this season in what would look a relatively comfortable position. And this will be after losing 3 integral 1st teamers for half a season from what was already a fairly thin Premier League squad. A squad that had to be filled out with around 13 summer signings due to lack of numbers. We’d lost what was our top scorer because he was a loan player, ditto the other half of our CB pairing. We lost our Midfield anchor and 1st choice FB due to age and being out of contract, we had to move on. 
Dean Smith deserves everyone’s backing. That’s not to say mistakes haven’t been made, but we’re all on a learning curve. And Dean Smith has earned the time to become the manager we all should want him to be. 
 

[Dave-R]

10 hours ago, VillaChris said:

El Ghazi looked pretty lost in the early games under Bruce and wasn't even starting when he was sacked. He came on at the end of last season so think that's someone DS put his arm around and told him to be more direct at the full back.

Been hugely inconsistant this season but then who hasn't apart from Grealish.

Well said.

I think its abit much to say Smith doesnt improve our players. I think it's all boiling down to our expectations and how fast we expect Smith to improve our players. Were so desperate for survival that we want results now, our players are being inconsistent that is fact. Question is when does that inconsistency stop, it will somewhere but will it be at the cost of our survival, if it is then I'm ok with that.

Theres no glass ball or mystic meg involved with things like this unfortunately. 

Edited May 26, 2020 by Dave-R

[villalad21]

12 hours ago, foreveryoung said:

Gagging for decent manager/coach this guy. I think dare I say it, if he moved to a club like Wolves he would become a top player. Being wasted here.

Ditto.

This guy will go the same route as Gana. He'll be class with some proper coaching

[Dave-R]

It must be more difficult to train players in certain ways the more difficult a team plays on the pitch. Take Luiz for instance, many of us think he has what it takes to make it big, however identifying and bringing that talent out when your fighting a relegation scrap will be much tougher. When you team is sailing at the top and stress is less and a squad is moving in the right direction, surely and no doubt about it that it will be easier to concentrate on individuals and training them in there needs. We keep saying we should play to a players strengths, though we can't really do that till we start finding ways to make a team sing together.

I think once we are moving in the right direction, players can be isolated and directed better on the strength and more so strengthen even weaknesses.

Right now were training for survival, it has to take something out of how you can train a player because its time. Once we have a song out of our lads, training time in how to make them play together properly will be reduced. Once time is reduced in that area it should then free time up to start a new phase of training which would be to train players in what they can excel at.

I bet Coaching is tough, I was going to try it as they had some courses going at staff Utd, I may try it after lockdown. Most of us think that we can't train Luiz right and maybe that at the moment is right, but a shift in how we train may happen at some point, if we get our act together on the pitch in sure training will change.

[foreveryoung]

13 hours ago, Zatman said:

Mings, Whelan, Grealish, McGinn, Tammy, Elmo, Tuanzebe, Jed Steer, Nyland

Bloody hell clutching at straws there aren't we. 1. He don't coach the keepers so that's 2 out. Grealish is cheating, because he is class anyway, an cracked on as soon as Smith played him, Ming's debatable, an what about the players we have now. Your sounding like Smith makes quality then they leave??

It's an argument whether he has coached anything into the players that we have. Concentrate on Luiz and we would have a player there to start.

[Sam-AVFC]

I'm amazed by the amount of goodwill Luiz seems to have compared to other players.

I think most of us agree there is something there and he appears to have the talent to become a good player.

In my eyes Luiz is nowhere near ready to start until he becomes much less casual. The amount of times he tries a silly little flick off a situation like receiving a throw in and gives the ball straight to the opposition drives me mad.

There is no doubt in my mind this decision making will have been looked at in training and video sessions, but ultimately it will come down to him in that moment whether he decides to take to 10 yard pass or try to flick the ball off the back of his heel and over 3 opposition players.

[villalad21]

18 minutes ago, Sam-AVFC said:

I'm amazed by the amount of goodwill Luiz seems to have compared to other players.

I think most of us agree there is something there and he appears to have the talent to become a good player.

In my eyes Luiz is nowhere near ready to start until he becomes much less casual. The amount of times he tries a silly little flick off a situation like receiving a throw in and gives the ball straight to the opposition drives me mad.

There is no doubt in my mind this decision making will have been looked at in training and video sessions, but ultimately it will come down to him in that moment whether he decides to take to 10 yard pass or try to flick the ball off the back of his heel and over 3 opposition players.

Not having a settled midfield doesn't really help any of the midfielders either.

Even with McGinn fit i've got no idea who will play alongside him. Seem to be changing every week.

[villa4europe]

he needs an older head sat alongside him talking and helping him through games, drinkwater was the right idea but wrong player, not sure McGinn is it either (or that he'd understand a **** word!)

Whelan and Jedinak were too old but that's the kind of player he needs, not necessarily better coaching or management but some on the pitch micro management in given situations just to calm him down and make better decisions

[Sam-AVFC]

9 minutes ago, villalad21 said:

Not having a settled midfield doesn't really help any of the midfielders either.

4 minutes ago, villa4europe said:

he needs an older head sat alongside him talking and helping him through games, drinkwater was the right idea but wrong player, not sure McGinn is it either (or that he'd understand a **** word!)

Agree with both of these points. A signing like Moutinho for Wolves could potentially have been completely transformative imo.

[foreveryoung]

39 minutes ago, Sam-AVFC said:

I'm amazed by the amount of goodwill Luiz seems to have compared to other players.

I think most of us agree there is something there and he appears to have the talent to become a good player.

In my eyes Luiz is nowhere near ready to start until he becomes much less casual. The amount of times he tries a silly little flick off a situation like receiving a throw in and gives the ball straight to the opposition drives me mad.

There is no doubt in my mind this decision making will have been looked at in training and video sessions, but ultimately it will come down to him in that moment whether he decides to take to 10 yard pass or try to flick the ball off the back of his heel and over 3 opposition players.

You have just agreed with me with this quote. Most of the team is to casual, for me this comes down to inadequate coaching and discipline. This is not a team you see put a shift in more games than most. It's a lazy team that is not being used to it's full potential. We have all seen the whole team perform, even though we lost against Tottenham first game, it was probably one of the hardest working Iv'e seen this team, also Liverpool without Grealish, so it's in there and had Smith found the consistency to use through out the season, we certainly would not be in this position.