Rightdm00

Great game defensively. Just wish he had some amount of ball progression and/or passing. Just feel we invite a fair amount of pressure when we play him against the better teams. 

If you don't LOVE our Bertie, who hurt you?

I think some forget that scoring a goal is one of the hardest feat of any sport. 

52 minutes ago, Osirus said:

Got to be Traore vs Bristol City

He definitely meant that 

Everybody in the post game was arguing whether he meant it so Bert unleased 4 other worldies in the same campaign. Love him. 

Doubt we lose that game with our full back line. He was found lacking on multiple occasions. After this season it's time to move on. 

Perfect squad player. Couldn't ask for much more given his wages and fee. 

Just now, Harry said:

I agree Grealish is miles off being match fit and he is being played in the vain hope that somehow he will make the difference. I doubt we will get any more points this season and I would much rather Smith tried something different for the last couple of games namely different tactics and formations. We seem to have a Plan A and nothing else.

Grealish is being played because he wants to goto the Euros, and Dean being a good manager and looking out for his players, is giving him the opportunity to get some game time before the season ends. 

We don't have a plan B because we don't have the quality off the bench to enact one. This has been spoken about all season. When we were playing well Villa were covering more distance than any other squad.  Eventually it would catch up to us and it has, especially in midfield.

It's an obvious flaw that the recruitment team is probably well aware of. Let's see how they attempt to correct it this summer. 

4 minutes ago, dudevillaisnice said:

With Grealish back now hopefully the results improve. The big worry was the signs were there of the decline since Jan when he was in the team before he got injured though.

Probably not. Grealish looks miles from being fit. Fair play to Dean for giving him a chance to showcase before the Euros but he is probably not going to be the answer for our remaining fixtures. 

4 hours ago, DCJonah said:

I disagree. I think we 100% buy one. Davis isn't good enough and Wes still has big question marks. 

I could see a wide attacker who could play some time at striker but I can't see us buying a full time forward. 

1 minute ago, rjw63 said:

All their fans will be quoting you on their forum

Seriously though Burnley over Leeds. You aren't even a fan of football if you do that.

I can go back to my indifference of Leeds right after the FT whistle. 

I know the flavor of the month is hating Leeds but I will take Burnley getting stomped any day. A boring, dirty tackling football club. 

19 minutes ago, turvontour said:

Oh no, not this thread. Dont tell me it's starting already.

It hasn't even really got going. Over/under is 900 pages. 

13 minutes ago, Vive_La_Villa said:

Our first team squad when we got promoted:

Nyland, Steer, Kalanic, Elmo, Guilbert, Taylor, Hourihane, Gardner, Mcginn, Davis. 
 

If our net spent wasn’t high, not only would we have got relegated, we’d have struggled to field a team. 

That's my point really. If the owners hadn't spent then the club would have been back in the Championship worth f*ck all.  

10 minutes ago, KentVillan said:

Most of the net spend has been under Dean. You’re just ignoring the point that we have top 10 highest net spend in the league, and will likely be top 8 on net spend after this summer.

I’m not attacking Smith at all, I think he’s a quality manager, but bottom half next season will be a failure, and it’s reasonable to point to all the investment in the club (over several seasons now) as reason for expecting a top half finish as “par” in 2021/22.

I don't get the use of net spend to judge a manager's success.  If a manager blows £100 million on poor transfers he should be fired. It doesn't matter if his net spend was £0. 

It's £100 million wasted either way. 

1 hour ago, KentVillan said:

I’m talking about the amount of money being invested season after season into the club.

You need to look at net spend over a 5-year period. Last year we were 9th on that figure. I think this will be a big summer of increased spend, so we will be climbing up and outspending clubs around us.

It’s easy to cherrypick a one off big summer of spending, or to ignore the fact that some clubs finance their deals by selling.

To say we’re spending at a similar level to Sheffield Utd is just factually wrong.

What does net spend have to do with Dean?  He wasn't here when the previous managers cocked up all those transfer. In the end you either spend roughly £80-100 million year in transfers or you risk falling behind your PL competition. 

7 minutes ago, KentVillan said:

Who’s actually demanded it though? Think there’s been some misunderstandings here.

The amount of money that’s been spent, and the age of the squad, I think a lower half finish would justifiably raise eyebrows. Grealish won’t be 25 forever.

I say all this as a very big fan of Dean Smith, and I think he will deliver it. Something like 7th or 8th next season would be a par effort IMO.

Why does everyone keep mentioning money like we have spent more than those around us. Sheffield United spent £70 million, Wolves £90 million, Spurs £115 million. Our outlay of about £100 million a year is solidly average for the modern day PL. Nothing special. It's what you have to spend to just stay competitive. 

It's why this summer we will likely see a similar number spent but on targets who are either under valued or young and full of potential. It's the only way we can compete baring a Man City like £200 million plus outlay. 

6 minutes ago, turvontour said:

Are you trying to say that we're not a bottom 3 team when we're without Jack? Because using the bottom 3 this season as a wins comparison isnt particularly representative. 

The 3 wins in 12 without Jack is pretty similar to our win rate last season.

Which shows the improvement we have made. Our win rate without Jack is the same as it was last season with him in the team. 

Just entering his prime so their is always a chance he makes a leap .

Definitely good enough for where we are now but will eventually need to be replaced if he can't cut out the misplaced passes/dribbles. 

7 minutes ago, villalad21 said:

I said he is better than Wesley which he is. 

Still debatable when you add in the fact his teammates hate him. Dean was right to stay away. 

Last season we leak 1 or maybe 2 goals in the 2nd half on the way to losing. So that's progress. Bore draw but I'll take that compared to last season. 

Isn't Lo Celso more of an attacking midfielder.  Hojbjerg the only midfielder in the team right now.  Mason has completely conceded the midfield to Leeds with his team selection. 

Spurs are so naive. They are trying to out play Leeds at their own game. 

1 hour ago, MessiWillSignForVilla said:

For me yes, if that's the case (Although it seems too speculative for me to be true). Too many people think that Covid is something people recover from quickly, which I can say from personal experience it isn't. Then you have the below from Nuno today;

And this from an NBA player a few weeks ago;

It's a **** awful disease where your own immune system attacks your lungs, of course people are going to suffer long term from it, like any serious disease.

Honestly it's make the most sense from a speculative standpoint. Does his hamstring which causes a loss of conditioning then picks up COVID and can't shake the symptoms for a couple months. 

Otherwise we are to believe he just decided to be a lazy f*ucker after starting the season on fire. Then all of a sudden he just decides to start playing again. If he finishes the season the way he started then some type of injury/long covid makes the most sense for his loss of form during the middle 3rd of the season. 

Slightly off topic but I find it so weird when posters state individual defenders haven't improved but our defense went from 2nd worst in the PL to Top 5. 

Same goes for our attack. We are one goal better off than last season with 5 to play. Our players have gotten better or we would be in a relegation scrap right now.