Aston Villa v Southampton Thread - 1st Nov - 12 noon | Page 32 | Vital Football

Aston Villa v Southampton Thread - 1st Nov - 12 noon

Villan57 said:
4-2 at the moment in his favour same team every week, just a week ago people were saying stick with the same team and everyone was ok with everything.

I said after the Fulham game our 2 CBs spent the entire game heading balls out of our own 6-yard box but everyone ignored that and said what an easy win it was etc.. It's not going to happen every week just as scoring 7 isn't but he has to learn to stop goals first and foremost
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yep odd - it was even described as a 'tactic' - I guess because how dominant our centrehalves are (no really!)
lack of workrate and lack of organisation more likely which we've seen for quite some time now.

We can't really still be making excuses which is something I suppose
 
Fulford said:
He sorted them out after the 9-0 and they didn't look back after that. That's the sign of a good manager and unfortunately we don't have one.
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You don't know that though, 2 defeats on the bonce and suddenly he's no good, 4 wins and people shut up. or just awaited a defeat to come back and have a go.
I bet there are Everton fans saying the same about Ancelotti now and I get told they have signed a wonder manager and players. We have a long way to go and it's hindered by spending limits sadly
 
Villan57 said:
You don't know that though, 2 defeats on the bonce and suddenly he's no good, 4 wins and people shut up. or just awaited a defeat to come back and have a go.
I bet there are Everton fans saying the same about Ancelotti now and I get told they have signed a wonder manager and players. We have a long way to go and it's hindered by spending limits sadly
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I've been consistent about Smith, he will never be more than a chumps manager or a PE teacher. I was worried after the Fulham game and yes I haven't asked for his head after wins against plop and Leicester but nobody can fool me into thinking he will ever be the standard we need to progress.
 
Villan57 said:
You don't know that though, 2 defeats on the bonce and suddenly he's no good, 4 wins and people shut up. or just awaited a defeat to come back and have a go.
I bet there are Everton fans saying the same about Ancelotti now and I get told they have signed a wonder manager and players. We have a long way to go and it's hindered by spending limits sadly
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I’m not jumping on his back because of 2 defeats, I just don’t rate him, it’s that simple for me.
 
I don't think Smith is a bad manager but he certainly has his share of limitations and these limitations will prove to be, well, limiting factors going forward.

I personally see the objective this season as being a more comfortable survival. So this means anywhere between 14th and 10th depending on how tight things are in the bottom half. If Smith delivers on that then he has done a decent job but I do think there comes a natural point such that if we really want to push on then we will need better a calibre of manager at the helm.
 
eltoro said:
I’m not jumping on his back because of 2 defeats, I just don’t rate him, it’s that simple for me.
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Fair enough, I guess it's a bit pointless when he's won 4 on the bounce.
Not sure what he could actually do much better this season. except winning every game.
He's not the best manager we've ever had but neither was Ron Saunders at first. Plenty didn't want him including me, he was a dour miserable old bastard who played boring football. Turned out ok, no Bob Paisley Or Shankley but not bad .

We are still 4 players away from a decent team, but we are where we are with what we have
 
eltoro said:
I’m not jumping on his back because of 2 defeats, I just don’t rate him, it’s that simple for me.
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Until he can demonstrate that he can prepare the players (regardless of talent) in plan A let alone B, then for me he will remain a very poor coach, because of all the responsibilities of a head coach, setting out a pattern of play and executing it are just the absolute basics.
 
Villan57 said:
Fair enough, I guess it's a bit pointless when he's won 4 on the bounce.
Not sure what he could actually do much better this season. except winning every game.
He's not the best manager we've ever had but neither was Ron Saunders at first. Plenty didn't want him including me, he was a dour miserable old bastard who played boring football. Turned out ok, no Bob Paisley Or Shankley but not bad .

We are still 4 players away from a decent team, but we are where we are with what we have
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You really think he deserves another 4 players thrown his way?
I think we’re 1 good manager away from a decent team.
 
Xchurch Villa said:
I won't mention the first half - we were awful.

Very pleased with the second half response.

Grealish - I'm starting to notice at last what others have criticised him for. Slows play down and needs to play a quicker ball.

Watkins - not getting the supply. Still believe he will succeed at this level.

Trez - fair play to him. I can see him keeping Traore out of the side. Battles hard and several good strikes of the ball on goal today. Just didn't get the rub of the green.

Mings - poor first half but showed good leadership in taking the game to Saints 2nd half.

Luiz - much more involved second half.

Barkley - needs to make much more effort when we don't have possession.

Traore - serious concerns already. OK we have to give him a chance but from what I've seen so far he strikes me that he would be good if he's in a winning team. For those of you who know your rugby union (can't think of a soccer equivalent) he reminds me of David Campese. Moments of brilliance but a player that doesn't work hard enough and is prone to a mistake. I blame him for Saints first goal. If crowds were allowed I could see the faithful getting on his back very quickly.
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Very calm headed summary, thanks for that.
 
ironside said:
What happened to those defensive performances we pulled off after lockdown?
Was it a less free flowing football approach and a more pragmatic attitude? Or were we just lucky ?
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I just get the impression that we focus on what we're going to do with the ball against teams he think are at or below our level. We only seem to prepare for games without the ball when we don't expect a result "Leceister, Liverpool, City etc.".

Clearly he can prepare a team to get a result and attack weaknesses e.g. Liverpool. We can't deny there is a tactician in there somewhere or at least in the coaching setup.

All that preparation seems to go out the window when its against someone who man for man isn't much better than us.
 
The Fear said:
This is what worries me. They say he had time to have a good look and talk with players, get things back on track. That should have been being done throughout the season before lockdown.

And although I VERY much appreciate the results and staying up (thanks to VAR as well remember) I didn't think it was our genius, I just thought we had more to play for and the other teams seemed to be on the beach, not at the races. That isn't to totally dismiss us, because we were at the races.

But it didn't look like genius to me, genius would have been doing such things before the break.
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Just like I don't give Smith any credit for getting us promoted, similarly I do not give him any credit for keeping us up, because for him to be given credit I need to see proper consistent progress. We stayed up thanks to Trez. Many were excited about our results before the Leeds game thinking we have now improved, but I preferred to wait until i saw consistency, which I have not, and although this game was not as bad the Leeds one for me, we still need massive improvement in performance which will only come from effective coaching of the players to play an attacking game as a team, like Leeds and Southampton's managers have got their teams playing.

This frequently commented solution of counting how many quality players we need is never going to be the solution because that means spending money, which won't be the answer unless we Man city or Chelsea levels of money.

Emphasis should be on improving the players we have. That also explains why our players play well after they have left the club.
 
eltoro said:
No I don’t, I just don’t believe we can keep blaming players while spending 200m on new ones, and when they don’t work out we blame them and think bringing in even more will help, all the while the manager slips under the radar.
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So where do you think this group of players should have the club, what position?
 
ldgavfc said:
Very calm headed summary, thanks for that.
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Here’s mine, Southampton went 4- nil up after out playing us for an hour, and then realised that with 30 mins to go we had nothing to offer, so went full breaks on allowing us to get back in the game.

if you check the score on LiveScore people will think it was a tight game with Southampton just edging us out in. 7 goal thriller, in reality they fuck us over just like Leeds did.

and I wrote that whilst remaining completely calm and in control.
 
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