flashingqwerty

He comes on and we instantly look a better team, yet, he never gets a start, and we never try the tactic that involves a big strong CF despite it clearly suiting the players we have. I'd love us to play attractive, free flowing, attacking football all the time, but our players just do not have the technical ability to do it consistently. We needs to be making the most of the talent we have rather than forcing square pegs into round holes so that the manager can satisfy his ego by playing only one way

Without Emi, we lose by a big margin. As much as I'm a fan of Davis, and chuffed he scored, he was some way behind Emi for the MoM as he kept us in it for a large portion.

Baggies could just as easily have scored 5 but for a string of top saves from Emi. 2nd half we had a lot of possession, not really chances until the subs were made. 1st half, 15 minutes aside, baggies bossed the game.

This is the reason why I wholeheartedly believe that our best transfer this summer would be a new manager. Smith hasn't got the ability to push us any further.

"We're shit, and we know we are..."

Who said anything about the top? We are at the top of Smiths ability that's for sure

You don't have to agree, but from day 1 its been clear to me that Smith was never the man to take us to the top. Mid table prem is his level, and as an ambitious club, he's taken us as far as he can. Time to move on. He's capable of creative a style of play that works but takes him 6 months to get there. When teams figure out the weakness and results turn sour, it takes him another 6 months to come up with a solution. You don't get that kind of time at this level. And hes not shown he is learning anything as we are making the same basic errors tonight as we were making in his first game in charge and have featured in nearly every game during his tenure. As a coach, i think he can make a player better, as a manager, he is simply too slow and too naive.

I've seen enough from Smith to know he just isn't good enough to take us further. No plan b, can't change a game, can't motivate, goes through long spells of absolute dogshit form, doesn't learn from his mistakes. Hes been decent, but we need better.

Don't think he knows what those words mean. Like for like changes, Deanos your man!

This is the difference between Smith and a top manager. When things aren't going well and things aren't working, good managers have a plan b and make the necessary changes. Smith just sits there with a big face 9n him twiddling his thumbs.

He will want out as he wont get a game under Tuchel

Only time will tell...

Hes not a dm. Put someone else in the dm role and put luiz in mcginns role and he will look a better player

Replacing Smith would be my first move if I were NSWE. I can't see any signs that he is learning, and have no confidence he can take us where we want to go

Nope

Take the individual errors out and we are still 2nd best. Smith cant motivate his players and only has 1 set of tactics. Hes been found out and is being made to look a fool.

Hahahaha We are pathetic

So am I. Leeds performance against City was better than ours. They didn't make the individual errors we did, they pressed harder and higher up the pitch, they generally worked harder and created better opportunities than us. Yeah, City had a lot of shots but they were mostly poor and long range. City had much better, and more genuine chance (note i did not say shots) against us than against Leeds. Leeds have been doing this all season. Being very clinical and outworking better teams, and getting some reward for it. They are everything we are not in good ways and bad.

Their xg for those 29 shots was 1.89. so they weren't very good chances. So I'm fairly confident in my argument. The xg for leeds 2 shots for instance was 1.3, so Leeds chances were of a far superior quality.

I'm struggling to find a cm in our squad that's genuinely good enough to play consistently at this level. We have a bunch of bench warmers at best. Passing is poor, tackling not great, and they seem completely unaware that they can close down or track players. My wife, who rarely watches football asked why villas players were always 10m away from the Man City players when City had the ball, but when Villa had it, they were very close to a City player. As a team we just don't know how to pass and move. So static. We don't track runners and mark spaces rather than players. This is something that is coached, and causes us to concede so many basic errors.

I saw the game, and they played better and worked harder than we did tonight

Or maybe they just didn't make the individual errors we did? Or maybe they pressed harder and kept their shape better? They certainly put in more work than we did as the distance covered per player was nearly 4km more than the villa average tonight. Funny how when teams work hard as a unit, they tend to get results, isn't it?

Noone told Leeds.

Barkley doing his best mcginn impression

McGinn, Man Citys most dangerous player