weedman

2 hours ago, Vive_La_Villa said:

I see where you are coming from but he was called upon just 5 times in the game.  He just needed to save one or two of them shots and we have 3 points. 

Smith wants us to play a very attacking game so back four and keeper will get exposed at times.  He won’t get the protection of a Steve Bruce style everyone behind the ball team like Johnson was afforded last year. 

We need a top keeper more than ever. 

I agree, but I think it's more a case of "the way we play we need a top keeper" rather than "Nyland is a terrible keeper" 

I don't actually think he's that bad but like you said he's not good enough if we're going to play a system that will leave us more open at the back.

If he was 21 I'd be quite happy with him because he does a fair amount right and you'd expect him to iron out his mistakes over time but he's 28/9 isn't he? Can't see him getting much better than he is right now unfortunately 

I was so angry about the 5th goal but having watched it back he's kind of unlucky there, he was set and moved slightly to his right as the ball was struck (which would have put the ball straight into him) and its then taken that tiny knick off Tuanzebe and snuck around him on the inside. Its actually really unlucky! The 4th he really should be saving and no chance on the others. 

Don't rate him and we need someone with more presence but he wasnt quite as bad as most are saying here, he was bad of course, but if the defence were doing there jobs at all he probably would have got a clean sheet! 

20 minutes ago, tonyh29 said:

not comfortable enough on the ball for Smith's style of play imo ..maybe that's what is making him shaky ?

think we will sign a new CB in Jan to replace him

He was poor before Smith though (although it seemed many blamed that on SB and Jedinak), he's continued being poor since Smith. Baggies didn't care when he left, maybe last season was the anomaly and he's just not that good? 

I don't know, he could still improve, but this season he's been the 3rd best CB in a team with only 2 CB's, which simply isn't good enough for any team let alone a team going for promotion, particularly for the captain of that team 

7 hours ago, ciggiesnbeer said:

Lets hope not.

I have no respect for Tony Pulis at all. His teams play garbage football. Who would pay to watch that crap every week? 

I think they will, they're basically us last season, and there's no Wolves this year and I can't see anyone doing a Cardiff again, so unless a team puts together a great run I think they'll win it

It's typical that he plays his best game in absolutely ages, committing defenders, beating his men, playing a pivotal role in 3 goals, finally showing some form again, and goes and gets bloody injured in the process 

22 minutes ago, sir_gary_cahill said:

What is the biggest game if it’s not a local derby then?

Games in the run in when we're fighting for promotion are all bigger than a local derby against a tin pot joke of a club 

It's an important game for sure, but it's only the "biggest game of the season" if you aren't fighting for anything else. If we're in the promotion chase in March then every single game between then and the end of the season is bigger and more important than this one 

Its bigger for them than it is for us because we have bigger fish to fry, they have nothing else apart from a potential relegation battle to look forward to 

7 hours ago, srsmithusa said:

Not really related to the thread or you.  But the adjectives we use on this thread about players... it frequently baffles me.  “Absolutely awful” and “rank” are strange adjectives for us, generally amateurs, to use about a guy has played as a pro for many years.  “Not good enough for our needs”?   Fair enough.  Although our manager at the time thought he was good enough to start in the premiership. “Rank”?   Compared to who?  Eden Hazard?  His brother?  You and me?   

Although I somewhat agree, people tend to use very absolute terms when describing players as it helps enhance their point, however the comparison here is as clear as day isn't it? He's not "absolutely awful" compared to Big Bob down the park playing for the local pub team, he's not "absolutely awful" compared to you or I, he's "absolutely awful" at the level Aston Villa are at and as a result most of his performances for us have been "absolutely awful". 

He was a player with the potential to be really good for us when we were a PL team, but he's never come close to realising that, he seems to be doing well for Blues so good for him, maybe his level is a bottom end Championship team, which compared to you or I is fantastic, compared to the level Aston Villa are or plan to be in the future, is simply nowhere near good enough 

1 hour ago, Vive_La_Villa said:

I only thing they ignored it due to the disrespectful nature of bidding a pound over 40M for a player that had just won player of the year award, was one of the best players in the world at the time and would have probably led Arsenal to their first title in years and more.

Any chance of Negotiations broke down straight away. 

Well his release clause was £40m, negotiations shouldn't have been required once they activated it, but they rejected it anyway and luckily for them convinced Suarez not to take it further and to sign a new contract instead. They were lucky it worked out as well as it did for them 

Anyway back on topic, that Gresford seems alright doesn't he? 

19 hours ago, Zatman said:

Well Liverpool not accepting the Suarez bid from Arsenal was never really investigated

Liverpool broke the contract agreement to reject the offer and had it gone to court they would have lost, however the only way for it to go to court was for Suarez to sue them which would have really screwed him as it was too late to make the transfer anyway by that point and it may have even put off clubs from bidding for him in the future meaning he'd be stuck at a club he's just sued so it never happened, the club then convinced him to sign a new contract and sold him the following summer and I'm assuming there was some kind of agreement in place that that would happen.

It really was a one off and I don't think any team should make it their policy to ignore contractual obligations and hope the player is OK with it

14 minutes ago, av1 said:

Of the top of my head I'd take Grabban, Rodriguez, and Gayle ahead him.

Don't really know much about Rodriguez, but I've seen enough of Abraham to know he has a far higher ceiling than the other 2, and even if they were all 21 now I'd still value him higher. In saying that the only league in the world he's worth anywhere near £40m is the PL where fees are ridiculous, and even then its a real stretch.

To the sort of clubs he'd attract he'd be more the £25m mark I think, as he's not really good enough for the top 6 who can afford to pay more than that based on his potential

11 hours ago, Zatman said:

Collins is an actual defender though, not the answer but we could do worse as back up

If anything it shows how  shit Bruce was it got to this stage

Being an "actual defender" is basically meaningless if he doesn't offer anything better than a player we already have. A guy on my Sunday league team is an "actual defender" as well but I'd still pick Jedinak there over him. 

Agree with the last point, although you definately can't pin 100% of the blame on Bruce (despite him clearly being a part of the total shambles leaving us with no CB cover) 

On 08/11/2018 at 12:49, Mr.Messy said:

I think I'd prefer Jedi as 3rd choice CB currently.

Don't need Collins now or in the future for me, but if he wants to hang around and train to get hinself fit and get a contract sonewhere else I'm all for that.

This, Jedinak and Collins are basically the same. Slow, ponderous, poor in possession and great in the air, but Jedinak has a better beard, isn't ginger and has actually played more than 5 minutes of football in the last 2 years 

15 minutes ago, John said:

The problem is the young player's do not look beyond signing for one of these big clubs and the status and high wages that will initially bring them. Far better they sign for a club where if they are good enough they will get first team opportunities and develop as a player rather than be loaned out season after season or be left to rot outside of the first team squad.

The flip side of course is that not only is a footballers career short, but anything can happen and instantly kill that career (injuries or illness etc), signing that first big contract (big in normal terms, not necessarily footballer terms) is a huge deal. A 16 year old could play in the conference on £200 a week and develop, or move to Chelsea on £5-10k a week and probably be loaned out to the same conference team anyway. 

Its a tough one, it's good for bigger clubs that can afford the risk of having young players on big contracts based on nothing but potential, it's good for young players getting some early security in the form of that contract, but it sucks for the smaller teams that get screwed over by tribunals. Maybe possible to have to include a 20% sell on fee on top of the tribunal amount, allows a club like Exeter to get the £2m odd tribunal fee, but also allows them some actual profit when that player is inevitably sold having never featured for the club he moved to

3 hours ago, srsmithusa said:

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10 hours ago, Junxs said:

But did you not think that would happen at Villa anyway? there were whispers we were looking for a sporting director before Bruce was even sacked, and obviously he was going to have his assistants as no manager / head coach in the world doesnt. Despite this some people were making out that he wasn't that important at Brentford, yes he was a cog but he was the most important cog, some people were giving him little to no credit for the work he did at Brentford.

Absolutely I did, I think I even said in the summer when Bruce was kept on it was clearly a short term measure while they identified the right people for the right roles and brought them in. Which was absolutely the right thing to do. 

I think people would have been wrong to suggest he wasn't important at Brentford, but due to the team of people around him he wasn't AS important for Brentford as Bruce was to us, for example (not comparing quality of course, merely job roles). Bruce was basically in charge of everything, from training to coaches to scouts etc. Smith is in charge of training and matchdays. Of course its an important role, you could easily argue the most important role (although poor planning and transfer dealings over a decade are what leave us in our current mess, rather than necessarily poor coaching), but it's not the only role.

Let's not forget the "dinosaur", "old school" managers hire coaches to coach players, and they take the rest. It's an outdated approach in the modern game, in my opinion, but by hiring Smith we have to have people in place to do the additional, non training and non matchday work that a traditional manager would do, that Steve Bruce did for us, and it's football in 2018, its not as simple as "get any old sporting director to sign players". Its easy to say most clubs operate this way anyway, but we didn't, that was the point. 

3 hours ago, srsmithusa said:

I may not have fairly represented you, but I accurately represented many.   The fact is they were completely wrong, while you were merely substantively wrong.  He still doesn’t have a system in which his small little cog can be effective, but we are playing much better football.  Clearly he’s capable far beyond the limitations you were intimating.  He may not be the next Pep.   But he’s not as limited as you inaccurately feared.   

Again, "small little cog" is not the same as "very important cog", which is what I actually said. There's really no need to adjust what I said to make your point more valid, it's a fine point.

And again, he's a good coach, for sure, and I've certainly noticed what most people have in the difference in our play, but as I said above there is more to being a manager than coaching, and a club needs someone to perform that role. We did not have that earlier in the season, we seem to now, and perhaps the club taking some time and appointing the right people will be worth it in the end

On 03/11/2018 at 23:46, srsmithusa said:

So, since we were assured that DS wasn’t in charge of anything except making sure the subs were wearing bibs, he seems to be figuring out some of the other parts of management pretty quickly.  

It would certainly be a revelation, except the only people actually saying that were people like you completely straw manning any concerns people had with Smith. 

I'll echo roughly what was actually said about him. He works well in a specific structure, one we did not have at the start of the season. That's not to say he wouldn't work well in another system, just that it's far more risky. He was a cog in a machine at Brentford - an important cog, but a cog nonetheless, and taking him out of that and into a club like ours, especially without pretty much any backroom staff at the time would be a risk because we had absolutely no way of knowing if he could replicate any success without the team behind him. Because you don't have an argument for this line of questioning, you ignore it, make up your own argument ("so all he does is hand out bibs") and argue against that. It's ludicrous 

Around the time we hired him we have revamped our backroom team, with new key personnel coming in left and right. He is now a cog in our machine, a different machine, but hopefully one that will bring us success along with Smith, who is now as important a cog for us as he was for Brentford 

2 hours ago, Keyblade said:

I think the more plausible explanation is that he was playing in an unfamiliar position which led him to play in a way that he wouldn't normally in his preferred position. Defending at RB is a completely different beast o defending at CB.

Certainly plausible, however he looked equally shaky in his (albeit limited) CB appearances prior to the last 2 games, and being put at RB rather than CB will not cause you to be out muscled and consistently beaten in the air against much smaller or weaker players.

I know professional football is not comparable to the Saturday level that I played, however I'm 6'2 and broad, generally a goalkeeper however have filled in at LB, RB, LW and CF in my time and in every one of those positions my main strengths were still my main strengths, I still won most headers, still relied on strength to shield or win the ball etc, I didn't forget how to head the ball when I was put in at LB rather than RB, a tricky 5'4 winger didn't start barging me off the ball because I was playing away from my natural position. 

Being out of position causes mistakes for sure, but being bullied and beaten easily isn't down to position. Mile Jedinak continued to win everything in the air when he was out of position, for example. 

I would also like to point out that I don't think the gamble paid off, as we were just as crap with Mile there (for different reasons) but I was simply offering what I'd consider to be a logical reason why he was played at RB in the first place and why he looked so rubbish at actual defending in the first few months, he certainly seems to be up to speed now, and if the performances of the last 2 games continue throughout the season he will have been an excellent loan signing 

7 minutes ago, AvfcRigo82 said:

Sorry, have to disagree with you.

There was a 1st team game he featured in last season for Man Utd iirc where he had Cesc Fabregas in his pocket for the entire game and even then he looked like he had been playing the game for years.

All this RB thing is complete shit and it was not benefiting him in anyway - more a case of rather he was becoming a scapegoat to a few and confidence dipping while at RB.

SB spouting "He can play anywhere across the back four". Hell, he could play anywhere on the pitch - don't mean he would be good in that said position!

 

Cesc Fabregas, for all his qualities, isn't exactly Diego Costa on the physicality front is he? The next sentence in the post you just quoted I said playing games at RB hasn't made him a better player, but has helped him get up to speed with what is a physical league where strikers will bully you if they can, or words to that effect. 

You need different skills for different opponents, no good being able to defend superbly against Cesc Fabregas 1 game and being out muscled, bullied and run ragged by a Troy Deeney type the next. It wasn't even big brutes he was being beaten by either, he was being out jumped and out muscled by opposition wingers, he was pretty much run ragged in the cup against a league 1 or 2 side (can't remember which!) - and he was at CB in that one! The world we live in now is built on instant gratification so it can be hard to accept that these things take time but they do.

The step up from youth football to men's football is technically not a huge jump, but physically it's enormous, that's why most of the young prospects that break through are either incredibly gifted, or big and strong for their age. Look at the difference in performances between RHM and Davis, by all accounts RHM is far superior technically, but Davis is the one who's actually made an impact on our first team as despite his lesser ability, he can cope with the physicality of the league. Andre Green looked amazing in friendlies, before immediately looking like a competition winner in league matches and had to go to league 2 to get football 

Tuanzebe is a big guy, he's got the size to compete, but he'd never really had to use it before this season as his technical skill and speed was more than enough at the level he was used to

Apologies, I seem to have rambled on a bit there but I'm trying to avoid doing too much work this afternoon

5 minutes ago, DCJonah said:

Our mess of a defence with everyone out of position was costing us plenty of goals. Lets not pretend we were rock solid while this supposed genius move of playing him at rb took place

I don't recall describing our defense as "rock solid" or the decision to play him at RB as a "genius move", I was simply offering a possible explanation as to why SB played him at RB. I guess if you have to make things up to disagree with then my post must have made some good points so I'll take it as a compliment 

10 hours ago, DCJonah said:

Come on. Look how he is playing. You think a few games at rb have made that happen?

His ability wasn't the issue though, it was his lack of physicality because he wasn't used to the standard of players he is up against now. "a few games at RB" haven't made him the player he is now (well, has been for 2 games which we all hope will continue). However he was consistently beaten in the air by much smaller players at the start of the season, now he's imposing himself and actually winning the ball, "a few games at RB" may absolutely have made that happen. Of course it would have happened at CB too, but that learning curve would have cost us far more goals while he got up to speed

35 minutes ago, sparrow1988 said:

I don't know. Who has the better pass completion rate?

Think we need to see some heat maps before we can close the debate 

30 minutes ago, fightoffyour said:

In summary, Ross McCormack has gone out to Australia twice because it’s like a holiday over there or it shows his desire to prove himself as a committed footballer, doing well to score plenty of goals that could have just been against poor defences or coming from free kicks/penalties, all whilst dealing with mental health/alcohol issues that he may or may not have and which the club have/have not given him the requisite support for.

Sounds about right

6 hours ago, Czechlad said:

TO be fair, a lot of the players we let go are now mid range championship players, and at the time, we were in the premier league and needed more that their quality. Bannan didn't look premier league quality back then, and we couldn't wait years to hope he developed. 

This. We can't keep hold of players that aren't good enough just in case we get relegated in 10 years time

2 hours ago, Dave J said:

Or he could have stayed in Brum whilst still drawing that big fat salary for doing diddly squat.

You're in a job where you have a lot of time off, would you rather spend that time off chilling in Australia or Birmingham?

He gets to be a big cheese scoring plenty of goals without having to put too much into it out there or slogging through training in the British winter barely even being a cog because that would require actually putting some effort in to get fit, all while earning the same amount either way. 

You make it sound like moving to Australia is basically the worst thing ever and only a truly selfless and dedicated professional would ever do it, in reality it's really not a difficult choice to make and the quality of life he can enjoy over there is far greater than here, I don't imagine he's gone over there for footballing reasons

This is all only my opinion of course 

Surprised to see this thread so far down. I've been critical of him this season but last night was much better, he even rode a couple of challenges instead of instantly going down looking for a free kick! More performances like that and (win or lose) his critics will soon disappear 

Edit : although his set plays are generally terrible he's actually really good at those deep free kicks and he can get really good whip on the ball in, a little bit more work on that and it will be a very dangerous weapon for him