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Manager or the Squad


DCJonah

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It's a bit of both and If I wanted to give you a percentage, I'd say it's 80% the squad and 20% the manager. 

The 20% is a combination of him not being proactive, not working on a system that suits the personnel and his failure to make changes at key moments in the game. 
The 80% is, and I don't sit on the fence with this, because of our summer transfer business which was nothing short of disgraceful.
We went into the season with the following as our frontline...
El Ghazi
Trezeguet
Jota
Davis (Injured)
Kodjia
Wesley
That's a midtable championship standard front line. It's appalling. It's embarrassing. 

We're crap. We may be in a slightly better position with a better manager but it would only be papering over the cracks/chasms of our recruitment policy. I've said it in several other threads but heads should be rolling over the signings of Trezeguet, Nakamba, Engels, Wesley etc. 

Edited by Delphinho123
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1 hour ago, Stevo985 said:

They’d all walk into this team. You don’t think Delph would get in our team?!

 

See my post higher up the page - I said Delph, Benteke, Vlaar and Gabby would get in today's team. And Guzan would as we have a liability currently playing in goal for us who shouldn't be anywhere near the team. Let's be honest, Grealish, McGinn, Mings, Luiz walk into that 2013 team. And imo Targett and Guilbert do too. Heaton if he was fit (I know he isn't, but still). You could argue one way or another between El Ghazi and Weimann, but I'd choose El Ghazi personally as I think he's better technically and I feel he's underachieved in performances this season. Weimann was a hard worker who gave his all but was very, very limited.

 

We can argue all we want about this. Both squads aren't great. Those who think Dean is doing a good job will say our squad was stronger under Lambert; those who think he should be doing better will say our current squad is better. Either way, I think he should be getting more out of this bunch of players. 

Edited by VillaFaninLondon
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I think the squad is quite poor, but not as poor as performances would suggest. Smith has not got the best out of them. They are not playing for him, and that is the surest indictment of a failing manager.

I think he has to be sacked, and I doubt we will see him in the PL again.

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2 hours ago, AntrimBlack said:

I think the squad is quite poor, but not as poor as performances would suggest. Smith has not got the best out of them. They are not playing for him, and that is the surest indictment of a failing manager.

I think he has to be sacked, and I doubt we will see him in the PL again.

I agree 100%.Smith does not know how to  motovate the players.How often have you seen our lot come out after half time all fired up.... not once.Its obvious that Smith can not get the best out of them and sticking with him till the end of the season is criminal. JT knows the setup and the players, give him a try,we cant be any worse off can we ?!

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It's the squad. A whole team of new players, from all over the world, and too many of them not very good. No manager had a worse hand this year and that's why we're struggling. 

Smith is the best manager we have had for a long time and I hope we stick with him regardless of whether he can miraculously keep us up. 

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16 minutes ago, PussEKatt said:

I agree 100%.Smith does not know how to  motovate the players.How often have you seen our lot come out after half time all fired up.... not once.Its obvious that Smith can not get the best out of them and sticking with him till the end of the season is criminal. JT knows the setup and the players, give him a try,we cant be any worse off can we ?!

Except we're then going into yet another season with yet another new manager. Who presumably won't get appointed until late in the window. Whoever we appoint is going to struggle to start with, and unless they get given time we are going nowhere. 

By the thought process of most on here that want him gone, it feels like you expect whoever comes in to overachieve with what they have before being given the chance to stay as manager, and then even if they do that, they'll be sacked the second we don't push on the very next season with all sorts of limitations and hindering factors thrown in. We are going nowhere with that approach. 

Is promotion at the first time of asking with only half a season to do it, a league cup final and a tight relegation battle really under acheiving? 

 

 

On topic edit: I feel blame lies with both, but more heavily with the squad, such that Dean shouldn't be the fall guy for this, at this point in time. 

Edited by MrBlack
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I'll be honest. Smith is likeable, but he has never come across naturally confident to me. He also gets too defensive with some questions from the press and looks for too many excuses. It doesn't really match up with a positive winning mentality for me.

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This topic makes me yearn for the late 80's and early 90's, when everyone played 4-4-2 and the manager told the chairman who to buy. He even stuffed their boots with the odd brown envelope to keep the squeaky wheels greased.

It's was a simpler time and we all knew where we stood.

More importantly, we were actually quite good near the end of it.

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30 minutes ago, Vancvillan said:

This topic makes me yearn for the late 80's and early 90's, when everyone played 4-4-2 and the manager told the chairman who to buy. He even stuffed their boots with the odd brown envelope to keep the squeaky wheels greased.

It's was a simpler time and we all knew where we stood.

Hi Harry 😉

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70-30 to the management/ coaching.  The biggest problem for me this season has been physically we haven't improved. Fitness collectively is still poor. This lays squarely on the manager for not having Fitness and strength higher in his list of priorities.   

We have shown enough in games throughout the season that the players can mix it. Watch back our performance against Man Utd, Liverpool, First half with Tottenham (first game) there's others but I can't remember them all. 

When Klopp first went to Liverpool a metric was shown that their running stats had improved.  Pochettino at Southampton etc. For a manager who is supposed to love attacking pressing football I haven't seen it in too many games this season. Fitness is one of the reasons. 

Swansea when they got promoted were out passing teams way more expensive than them. This squad has weaknesses but the biggest weakness is Dean Smith.

people said i was mad when I suggested he be shown the door when we got promoted. I said he would be our biggest limiting factor and it has been so IMO. Some players didn't want to come because of they didn't know who the manager is.

Changing the manager is cheaper than totally changing the squad. 

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15 hours ago, Tom13 said:

I'll be honest. Smith is likeable, but he has never come across naturally confident to me. He also gets too defensive with some questions from the press and looks for too many excuses. It doesn't really match up with a positive winning mentality for me.

This is exactly where I'm at. The mentality of the team mirrors the manager imo. 

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21 hours ago, MrBlack said:

Except we're then going into yet another season with yet another new manager. Who presumably won't get appointed until late in the window. Whoever we appoint is going to struggle to start with, and unless they get given time we are going nowhere. 

Is promotion at the first time of asking with only half a season to do it, a league cup final and a tight relegation battle really under acheiving? 

 

 

On topic edit: I feel blame lies with both, but more heavily with the squad, such that Dean shouldn't be the fall guy for this, at this point in time. 

When we start with "Yet another new manager" hopefully he will be a manager that knows what he is doing.

Promotion at the first attempt.We did not even look close to promotion till Jack came back.Who got us promoted,Jack or DS.

We were made to look stupid in that League Cup final and as for the relegation battle.We are 19th.We have 2 points from our last 3 games AND this is after DS said he studied our games so that he can correct the mistakes we made previously,......still waiting for that to happen. 

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9 hours ago, PussEKatt said:

When we start with "Yet another new manager" hopefully he will be a manager that knows what he is doing.

Promotion at the first attempt.We did not even look close to promotion till Jack came back.Who got us promoted,Jack or DS.

We were made to look stupid in that League Cup final and as for the relegation battle.We are 19th.We have 2 points from our last 3 games AND this is after DS said he studied our games so that he can correct the mistakes we made previously,......still waiting for that to happen. 

How were we made to look stupid in the league cup final? We played one of the best teams in the world and lost by one goal.

One of their goals was scored from a corner that was never a corner in the first place. Their keeper made an outrageous save to avoid the game going to extra time.

Sometimes when I read some of the things on here I wonder what people expect and start to see where this impression other fans have of Villa fans being entitled comes from. 

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10 hours ago, Sulberto21 said:

70-30 to the management/ coaching.  The biggest problem for me this season has been physically we haven't improved. Fitness collectively is still poor. This lays squarely on the manager for not having Fitness and strength higher in his list of priorities.   

We have shown enough in games throughout the season that the players can mix it. Watch back our performance against Man Utd, Liverpool, First half with Tottenham (first game) there's others but I can't remember them all. 

When Klopp first went to Liverpool a metric was shown that their running stats had improved.  Pochettino at Southampton etc. For a manager who is supposed to love attacking pressing football I haven't seen it in too many games this season. Fitness is one of the reasons. 

Swansea when they got promoted were out passing teams way more expensive than them. This squad has weaknesses but the biggest weakness is Dean Smith.

people said i was mad when I suggested he be shown the door when we got promoted. I said he would be our biggest limiting factor and it has been so IMO. Some players didn't want to come because of they didn't know who the manager is.

Changing the manager is cheaper than totally changing the squad. 

So say we stay up, by some mad act of god.

You think we'd be fine next year if we just changed the manager? Let's say we even keep Jack.

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We had to rebuild  a complete new team  - this was always going to be a challenge and risky.  We also needed to replace Tammy this we didnt!  Smith was responsible and has to take some responsibility for recruitment!  He was pictured many times in the stands scouting players  such as Trezeguet  and Marvelous  so he cant be blameless .

However i have seen enough with the squad in patches and periods of games to believe we could have survived. The bottom 6 - teams  are poor this year were not to far away from them  .However Smiths game management has been  non existent!

The fundamental thing that was wrong was the strategy Smith took to try and play open football, we were never going to manage this with such a new squad of players. He is responsible for coaching and the structure of how he coaches and develops the team . Nothing has improved all season! My biggest criticism is how badly we defended as a team  constantly allowing opposition space and time in our own half was scandalous. As the season developed the players confidence drained and the individual errors increased and he was unable to pick them up!

To be fair since the restart we have looked a little better defensively but at the cost of being non existent as an attacking threat! Its not a particular good squad but it  could have been enough!  "Miracle on Mersey side maybe?

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