The manager situation

[CVByrne]

The issue for me is we don't really have the time to be waiting on Smith to learn on the job. If we look back on his term so far. Got us promoted which was a great season. Then he was essentially fired if it wasn't for Covid break which saved us and him. We carried that positivity and form into last season as there was a short pre-season. The form dwindled off before Grealish got injured and it's never come back. Smith then goes to get "new ideas" into the team with set piece coach and his new attack coach and it's clear the players are not getting it and are frustrated. Dropping your Captain when nobody was asking for it other than the "Mings haters" is kind of astonishing really. 

My main issue with give him time to turn it around is even if he does turn it around we know it's temporary like it was last time and we'll be back in a rut at some point because we lack consistency under Dean. The players know he's not experienced and so bringing in a coach who has experience and has won trophies with a set philosophy (not trying to find one) which fits our squad of players is what's needed right now. Dean won't get a new contract so why wait till later in the season to make the change? The only reason to do that is if there is no candidate available at the moment you want and you're hoping end of season is better time. 

I'd say sack him after Southampton and bring Fonseca in. 

[The Fun Factory]

Smith isn't learning on the job. I am fed up of that comment. He is a 50 year old with 10 years of management.

[The Fun Factory]

9 hours ago, kidlewis said:

If we have a good November it’s fine, if not he’s probably gone.

Nothin' lasts forever
And we both know hearts can change
And it's hard to hold a candle
In the cold November rain

Edited November 3, 2021 by The Fun Factory

[Blasterpocket68]

6 hours ago, tomsky_11 said:

Voted back him for foreseeable and honestly don’t get how this is even under discussion, never mind that more than half of the votes are veering towards getting rid.

Two things that are especially bugging me about this discussion: 1) the sense of impending doom from some when we are in 15th ten games into the season, and 2) there seems to be little to no consideration for a whole bunch of factors outside of Smith’s control that have clearly affected the season so far.

On the first point, we are in no danger of relegation right now, we won’t be anytime in the near future, and until this scenario looks at all likely, I don’t get the worry. Are we below where I’d expect us to be? Absolutely. My view preseason was somewhere between decent midtable and a push for 5th-7th. I think this was at the higher end of the predictions on here. But I’m really not worried about where we are right now or the recent performances, because as per my second point, for me there’s a whole bunch of mitigating factors that seem to be getting little consideration from many.

The biggest of these is the player absences meaning we’ve not had a settled XI all season, and we still haven’t seen our best XI play once yet. For comparison, by this time last season we’d had  the same 9 players occupy the same starting positions in every game. This season so far it’s 2 if you count Cash at RB or RWB/RM as one position. The other player is Konsa who misses Friday. I can’t imagine any other teams this season have had such enforced disruption to their line up. For this alone, I actually think we could easily have been worse off than we are.

Add to this:

- we’ve had to try and fill the massive hole left by selling by far and away our best player

- one of the key replacements for him, and IMO the only player we’ve got who can scare the opposition like he could, Bailey, has barely played and probably still isn’t fully fit yet

- turnover of coaching staff

- disruption to preseason, games cancelled, etc.

… and to me it’s not at all surprising we are where we are.

I’m not getting hung up on the last four games either. Spurs game was basically decided by one world class player. I don’t think going 352 helped either but given availability and coming off the back of the Chelsea, Everton and Utd games I get why Smith stuck with it. Wolves I missed but get the impression late injuries forced changes that didn’t help us, and all the their goals were helped by varying degrees of luck. Arsenal first half was terrible and IMO was a lot down to our 352 playing to Arsenal’s strengths, but at least we changed it at half time and looked a lot better. Take away some dodgy reffing and we start the second half only 1-0 down and much better set up for second half.

At this point is probably worth mentioning that the 6 points we got from the 5 game Everton to Arsenal run was within the expectations of over half of those that voted on the last “next 5 games” thread on this forum. 89% thought we’d get 7-9 points or less from those games and we were a 95th minute massively deflected goal away from that. That kind of margin seems fine enough that few could be too surprised by where we were at after the Arsenal game, but apparently not judging by how opinions on the manger were already shifting by this point.

I’m guessing few thought the WHU game would be easy either, even with a full squad. More injuries, both before and early on in the game made it even harder still. Despite this I felt the first half was ok. Chances seemed fairly even by the end of the half and their goals were somewhat fortunate. Red card and some other poor reffing second half made defeat inevitable, but even a man down we looked pretty good until their third. Had it stayed 11v11 we’d have had every chance of taking something from a team who now sit 4th I the table. That to me doesn’t feel like the kind of game people should be coming out of thinking the manager’s time is up. 6 points from 6 games against teams currently occupying the top half of the table, especially with all the issues we’ve had, isn’t even close to sack the manager time for me.

I’m not calling for Smiths head but take issue with some of your comments. 
yes we have had some injuries but so have other teams. We have not been playing fantastic all season . Man U we rode our luck Everton we had a short spell with Bailey on otherwise we were dreadful against them . We have been really poor as a team since Wolves debacle when we fell apart . I appreciate confidence is low but it’s the managers responsibility alone  to tactically put the the team on the park. We have looked devoid of attacking ideas  clueless defensively . The players look lost . If we had 15 players out against WH we would have lost , yes we had a spell when we went down to ten men but we were soon easily picked off on the counter attack . 
I’m all for Dean been given time but we have to see the basics return to the team structure . He is responsible for the team performance and results . He is responsible for the coaches and the dressing room. 
The dean smith villa fairytale holds nothing for me it’s a results business he has to turn the  current slump around quickly, hopefully with  a good performance and 3 points against Southampton Friday. 

[Amsterdam_Neil_D]

2 minutes ago, Blasterpocket68 said:

The dean smith villa fairytale holds nothing for me it’s a results business he has to turn the  current slump around quickly, hopefully with  a good performance and 3 points against Southampton Friday. 

This is where I am at with it but also,  why do we keep getting in this situation of needed to turn things around all the time in the first place. 

We are in the not scoring enough,  letting in too many goals in scenario.  At least fix one of these for the next game or Smith or anyone might not be able to fix it.

[AvfcRigo82]

28 minutes ago, tomav84 said:

he's turned it around before, he'll do it again.

I don't think he will this time.

As stated already, he has no Grealish, he has not pandemic stopping the season.

I will be amazed if he turns this round.

[AvfcRigo82]

14 minutes ago, The Fun Factory said:

Nothin' lasts forever
And we both know hearts can change
And it's hard to hold a candle
In the cold November rain

We've been through this such a long long time
Just tryin' to kill the pain, ooh yeah
Love is always coming, love is always going
No one's really sure who's lettin' go today
Walking away...

[villa4europe]

2 minutes ago, Amsterdam_Neil_D said:

This is where I am at with it but also,  why do we keep getting in this situation of needed to turn things around all the time in the first place. 

We are in the not scoring enough,  letting in too many goals in scenario.  At least fix one of these for the next game or Smith or anyone might not be able to fix it.

worse than that, the deeper dive from the west ham game suggests we arent covering enough ground, pressing, making tackles or winning duels 

we're back to needing a fire lit under lazy players and then hoping that the rest comes after

the fact that we have statistically "lazy" players might as well be called astonvillaitis 

[avfc1982am]

We've played well over 90mins once this season and still conceded 27 shots on goal in that game. It's not good enough by a long stretch.

[AvfcRigo82]

25 minutes ago, fightoffyour said:

18/19: Maybe sneak a playoff place but basically just improve. Definitely not an expectation to go up, as has been stated factually by Purslow.

19/20: Get promoted

20/21: Avoid relegation

21/22: Mid table consolidation

22/23: European places

 

I’m really not sure how else you could see the board’s targets unless you think either Purslow lied about promotion in the first season, we should’ve been mid table first year in the PL, or you want us to jump straight from survival to Europe.

That worries me too and we've been here before with Lerner and his '5 year plan'.

Purslow is a mere PR puppet to the owners. We had one before who posted on this forum over 15 years ago.

Back then they were a big fan of throwing everything in Nicola Keye's direction.

[JAMAICAN-VILLAN]

There was no " unsure " option, so I had to go with " back him for the foreseeable future ".

Because I think it's a bit deeper than just " results ".

Say for example, we lose or draw to Southampton, but it's a swashbuckling performance, but we were unlucky, or on the end of bad VAR or referee decisions.

That would make it more difficult to just say " sack him for the result ".

However if it's another terrible performance, and we get beaten badly, I think that sways.

[DevonIsAPlaceOnEarth]

I think this all stands on a knife-edge - and I have never felt that I've wanted a manager to get it right quite as much as I have with Smith. I really think whatever happens in the next 3 weeks, he has been a great success for us and we need to remember where we were and where we are now.

I think there are two footballing outcomes from the Southampton match - Ings comes back and does them over in a comfortable Villa win, or Ward-Prowse scores a 25yrd free kick condemning us to defeat and Smith to a dismissal. 

[AvfcRigo82]

14 minutes ago, DevonIsAPlaceOnEarth said:

I have never felt that I've wanted a manager to get it right quite as much as I have with Smith.

Steve Bruce

[CVByrne]

54 minutes ago, The Fun Factory said:

Smith isn't learning on the job. I am fed up of that comment. He is a 50 year old with 10 years of management.

He's learning on the job in his top league experience. He's had 2 and a bit seasons. 

[briny_ear]

1 minute ago, CVByrne said:

He's learning on the job in his top league experience. He's had 2 and a bit seasons. 

Could someone perhaps do a short recap of what he has actually learnt and how that shows in the football we are playing at present?

 

[WallisFrizz]

I can’t vote because I genuinely don’t know. Honestly, not a clue what the right thing to do is. 
If the club have lost faith in him then it would make sense to replace him over the international break and ahead of the Jan transfer window. Can’t say I’m excited by Fonseca links though. 
I almost think the performance is more important than the result against Southampton as he needs to show he can set up the team, they can respond to his instruction and play really well. A point or even 3 playing badly doesn’t suggest a turnaround as we’ll still get turned over next match. 
I do think he’s been let down by some of the players as too many individuals have been under performing…Targett and Watkins being the main culprits in my eyes. 
That said, I’ve never been more frustrated with Smith than his complete refusal to change things in that first half against Arsenal, almost unforgivable. 
I’m glad I don’t have to make the decision.

One thing I am sure of is that if he is going to be sacked, I don’t want it done until they have a shortlist of willing, available and high quality candidates ready to move.

 

[hippo]

In 80 years time everyone on this forum will be dead. And none of this will matter.

[Risso]

I would like to see a new manager, and am struggling to see why Dean Smith is still in a job. As to who, I’m not sufficiently up on world football to really know, but trust the board to come up with the right person.

[hippo]

1 minute ago, Risso said:

I would like to see a new manager, and am struggling to see why Dean Smith is still in a job. As to who, I’m not sufficiently up on world football to really know, but trust the board to come up with the right person.

Its the last bit that really bothers me.

[Stevo985]

My answer would be: Back him until there is a very good alternative available and attainable