Dean Smith

[markavfc40]

6 hours ago, useless said:

Unless we have a disastrous end to the season and end up being comfortably relegated, then I think Smith will keep his job even we go down....

Regardless of how this season ends for us I think Smith will be a better manager for the experiences he has gained from it.

We knew when we brought him in that he had zero top flight experience so this season was always going to be a learning curve for him. I do get the impression with Smith though that he is trying to learn all the time and that he is open to taking on new ideas and different ways of doing things. I know in a few interviews he has said that when he gets chance he will go away for a few days and watch coaches in other sports etc.

If we go down this season obviously there will be calls for his head but I am not sure that would be the right move. Firstly we would want someone in charge who knows his way out of the Championship. I'd also imagine we'd want someone who wants to play the game in the right way, who is keen and capable of working with players that can be coached to improve and a manager with his best years ahead of him. Smith would still tick all the boxes he did when he came in 16 months ago and would also now have the experience of having taken us up and a season in the Premier League where as I say he will have learned a hell of a lot.

Having contemplated worse case scenario this season above I am though still confident we will stay up and I am really excited as to what Smith with the experience of this season behind him, and likewise a number of players who will so much stronger off the back of this season, can achieve next season. 

This thread gets bogged down in doom and gloom, understandably so at times, but I do believe that we have the right man in Smith and have done the right thing in not panicking and going for the quick fix of a Pearson or Allardyce with a known low glass ceiling.

Edited March 3, 2020 by markavfc40

[villalad21]

Still learning?

Defensively we're arguably worse now than at the start of the season.

If anything we're regressing.

Smith has to prove he is able to sort the defence.

We keep losing against 10 men. Struggling to grasp what he is actually learning?

Edited March 3, 2020 by villalad21

[useless]

He's a brilliant boss i'm sure of it.

[Guest av1]

2 minutes ago, markavfc40 said:

Regardless of how this season ends for us I think Smith will be a better manager for the experiences he has gained from it.

We knew when we brought him in that he had zero top flight experience so this season was always going to be a learning curve for him. I do get the impression with Smith though that he is trying to learn all the time and that he is open to taking on new ideas and different ways of doing things. I know in a few interviews he has said that when he gets chance he will go away for a few days and watch coaches in other sports etc.

If we go down this season obviously there will be calls for his head but I am not sue that would be the right move. Firstly we would want someone in charge who knows his way out of the Championship. I'd also imagine we'd want someone who wants to play the game in the right way, who is keen and capable of working with players that can be coached to improve and a manager with his best years ahead of him. Smith would still tick all those boxes as he did when he came in 16 months ago and would also now have the experience of having taken us up and a season in the Premier League where as I say he will have learned a hell of a lot.

Having contemplated worse case scenario this season above I am though still confident we will stay up and I am really excited as to what Smith with the experience of this season behind him, and likewise a number of players who will so much stronger off the back of this season, can achieve next season. 

This thread gets bogged down in doom and gloom, understandably so at times, but I do believe that we have the right man in Smith and have done the right thing in not panicking and going for the quick fix of a Pearson or Allardyce with a known low glass ceiling.

100% agree. 

I also find it interesting how the almost unanimous opinion at the start of season was that 17th would be represent a successful season, which also suggests everyone expected to be in a battle given the upheaval of the summer.  So I'm not quite sure why people are now adamant he is the wrong man given that season is planning out exactly how we all thought it would.  

I'm loathe to say that I think he'll be a success long term because since his arrival I've been to Wembley twice, so I'd argue that he has been a success already. But I'll say it anyway, long term I still think he will prove to be a great appointment. 

[sne]

For me it's down to in what mental state Smith will be after a failure that relegation would be and if the squad and club still had faith in him after that.

Know nothing about how he is as a person so no idea how he'd take it and if he'd be able to kick on immediately after such an experience with his Villa. He may be totally drained.

Same with the squad, no idea how their state would be after relegation, they might have lost fate (even thou I can't see I've seen any signs of this so far)

Mentioned it before but I'd be more inclined to change manager if we stay up because as a PL side we can attract top managers, especially with out owners and I do feel Smith has a ceiling currently and is a fair bit away from where I think the ambition of owners is going forward.

[foreveryoung]

We have shown no real improvement from the start of the season, if anything taking the claret and blue glasses off (that belong to Smith) I would say we look worse. I like Smith like many on here, but what I don't do is get blinded by "Smith is one of us". If he is to stay he needs to do much better, but without Grealish who has saved his bacon on too many occasions, including being the architect to our promotion from the Championship, I doubt he will end up being the manager we all want him to be. 

Fans who support him make excuses like, we came up to early. What you need to consider is, maybe in reality it was to early for the manager?

[Keyblade]

24 minutes ago, foreveryoung said:

If he is to stay he needs to do much better, but without Grealish who has saved his bacon on too many occasions, including being the architect to our promotion from the Championship

That is doing Smith a massive disservice.

[Zatman]

People forget that Smith designed a system to get the most out of Jack, we were on course for mid-table until that happened. We also probably would have challenged for automatic promotion if Jack didnt get injured last season

Edited March 3, 2020 by Zatman

[LakotaDakota]

3 hours ago, Vive_La_Villa said:

We literally had 3 players that started on Sunday and one of them isn’t a first team player.  Fans seem to conveniently forget this when having a dig. If we stay up it will be an incredible achievement. 

Nyland, Mings, Elmo, Grealish & El Ghazi were all here last year.

Sure we might not have owned them but not like they had never played with any of the squad & we also technically owned Guilbert too.

 4 of the 7 subs were also players from last year or earlier

 

[Vive_La_Villa]

14 minutes ago, LakotaDakota said:

Nyland, Mings, Elmo, Grealish & El Ghazi were all here last year.

Sure we might not have owned them but not like they had never played with any of the squad & we also technically owned Guilbert too.

 4 of the 7 subs were also players from last year or earlier

 

Fair enough. Still when you compare that to Sheffield United and Norwich there’s a lot of change.  I think they were able to add the odd player. 

[KHV]

1 hour ago, Keyblade said:

That is doing Smith a massive disservice.

It isn’t, we were shite under Smith until Grealish returned from injury

We were 13th and in dire form

Take Grealish out and Smith is capable of nothing 

[markavfc40]

12 hours ago, Vive_La_Villa said:

Fair enough. Still when you compare that to Sheffield United and Norwich there’s a lot of change.  I think they were able to add the odd player. 

It is not just about the amount of players we had to bring it it is also about those that were here last season having to build up an understanding with new players.

Mings was here last season but he has had to build an understanding with Engles, then Konsa, then as apart of a back 3 with Konsa and Hause. I actually doubt very much we have played the same back 4 or back 3/5 more than half a dozen times due to injuries. Then you have the fact that initially Heaton, himself a new signing, was playing behind them and now it is Reina.

McGinn was here last season but had to build up an understanding with Luiz and/or Nakamba. El Ghazi was here last season but has had to build up an understanding with Guilbert. Likewise Grealish has had Targett behind him. Midfielders/wide men have had to build an understanding with Wesley and now Samatta.

You bring 12 players into a squad in the summer, then another 4 in January that is a lot of players to integrate and even if you have ten players in the squad from the previous season and 3 or 4 of them are starting they still have to build partnerships and understandings with those new players. You throw in the fact we have had more than our fair share of injuries then it is no surprise that we have struggled for consistency and often look really disjointed.

Edited March 4, 2020 by markavfc40

[Keyblade]

5 minutes ago, KHV said:

It isn’t, we were shite under Smith until Grealish returned from injury

We were 13th and in dire form

Take Grealish out and Smith is capable of nothing 

We performed worse without our best player, who'da thunk it?

This is also ignoring we had a significant injury to Tuanzebe who was our only natural CB left after Chester was injured before we signed Mings and Hause, but yeah no it was all Grealish.

Edited March 3, 2020 by Keyblade

[Guest av1]

18 minutes ago, Keyblade said:

We performed worse without our best player, who'da thunk it?

 

Yep, hasn't José spent the last few months blaming spurs shit form on Kane being injured?

[Keyblade]

Just now, av1 said:

Yep, hasn't José spent the last few months blaming spurs shit form on Kane being injured?

The greatest manager has went from winning the league twice in a row with a combined 198 points to trailing Liverpool by 22 points this season after losing Laporte and Sane despite having an embarrassment of riches at his disposal.

[useless]

It seems some will defend Smith no matter what and others will lampoon his tenure as head honcho no matter what. Sometimes things can be good and bad at the same time, and you can think positive and negative things at the same time, the moon is always the same shape but looks different depending on the angle we look at it from.

[KentVillan]

11 minutes ago, useless said:

It seems some will defend Smith no matter what and others will lampoon his tenure as head honcho no matter what. Sometimes things can be good and bad at the same time, and you can think positive and negative things at the same time, the moon is always the same shape but looks different depending on the angle we look at it from.

There are some good criticisms of Smith and there are some really silly ones. The whole "not being able to beat 10 men" thing is dense.

We struggle to beat teams generally, of course we're also going to struggle against 10 men. That's the nature of being second favourites for most games. 11v10 is not this dramatic advantage people think it is that suddenly makes Yeovil capable of beating Barcelona.

The defence thing does bother me a touch as well. We have a RB who got relegated from Ligue 1 last year. One LB who can't defend, and another LB who can't do anything. One injury-prone CB who is international quality, 1 CB who reads the game well but has the mobility of a tanker, 2 CBs who turn up every other game. We've started 4 different goalkeepers. We have one ballwinning DM who can't pass a football, two ballplaying DMs who don't want to tackle, and a ballwinning CM who has been on a stag do for the last 5 years.

I could go on. If you think Dean Smith and John Terry can't coach a defence, fair enough, but they aren't **** alchemists. Turning dog shit into gold is a very difficult thing to do.

If we'd sacked Dean Smith in December and brought in Fat Sam, the first thing he would have done is demand to sign at least one new centre back, as he has in several of his famous relegation survival battles. Of course he wouldn't have had the money to do that, because we also needed two strikers to replace Wesley and Davis/Kodjia, a midfielder to replace McGinn, and a new goalkeeper, and are completely hamstrung by inane FFP rules.

You only have to delve into any of these criticisms in any depth to what a difficult situation DS has found himself in for most of the past 18 months, and fair play to him for plugging away constantly without losing the plot.

We all know he's not going to win the Champions League and World Cup in his career. He isn't a world class manager. But the question is whether he's good enough for Villa at the moment, and, if not, whether there's anyone out there who can fix things. I still think the answer to the first question is yes, and I haven't seen any credible answer to the second question.

[Adam2003]

36 minutes ago, useless said:

It seems some will defend Smith no matter what and others will lampoon his tenure as head honcho no matter what. Sometimes things can be good and bad at the same time, and you can think positive and negative things at the same time, the moon is always the same shape but looks different depending on the angle we look at it from.

This is almost poetic.

[PrimevalVillan]

My criticism of Smith would be: 

Give the boys some confidence to hold the ball and keep possession when we need to.

Stop subbing AEG off for Trez, atm.

[terrytini]

1 hour ago, markavfc40 said:

It is not just about the amount of players we had to bring it it is also about those that were here last season having to build up an understanding with new players.

The amount of players.

Their ability ( in terms of fees and wages we were not buying at Harrods).

Build up an understanding with players from all over.

And.....those players having to debut in one of the toughest Leagues in the world.

And....settle into a new country.

In a matter of weeks.

And the Coach had to manage this AND find out, on the job, while matches ( and injuries) came thick and fast. Who works with who, what triangles worked best, what set up favoured our best eleven, who that eleven was, which players could do 90 minutes mentally and physically....and which could do it week in and week out.

Absolutely huge task.