The Official Dean Smith Thread | Page 342 | Vital Football

The Official Dean Smith Thread

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Xchurch Villa said:
Sorry Crimson, I'm not buying that
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Sorry mate, I can only explain this for myself, my own perspective. I got on his back all last season, gave him credit for the restart, gave him credit for bringing in Shakey, gave him credit for the start this season.

But it is fair to point to the fact he is still learning and has areas for improvement.

II don't think I saw anyone calling for his head? I'm cheering him on but want him to continue learning too.

Wurzel said:
So where is this improvement needed exactly
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Not decrying his past achievements although they aren't relevant as far as I'm concerned - when I came 3rd in the nationals all round gymnastics it was no use continually saying but I'd won the regionals last year, it didn't make anything my coach said to improve me any less true.

There are lots of areas Dean needs to improve. I hope he would probably recognise many of them himself. In my experience every coach needs a good coach themselves to point to the things we cannot see ourselves.
 
Wurzel said:
What does he need to improve exactly? Going on a ten game winning streak to get us to an unlikely playoff, beating our league rivals over two legs, and then winning the final. Or being tasked with keeping us in the prem, having to rebuild an entire squad in one window, get them playing well enough quickly enough, then realising that he needs to change it in lockdown, and managing to keep us up when EVERYBODY including myself thought we were down.? Or getting us to a cup final? Or winning four games on the trot at the beginning of a season, something that we haven't done in 90 years? So where is this improvement needed exactly?
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Pulling Trez and giving Cash some back up would've been a start. McGinn and Barkley not at the races, try something different.

Those are old arguments, I was using them last season but as I've said this year has to be different and we've done well - however, prior to heads going against Leeds, he could've been proactive.

It might have still gone tits up and yes some would blame him for changing....I'd have been applauding he tried as the game was there for us to take.
 
Villan57 said:
Mate that was going ok until you mentioned Hourihane coming on against a rampant Leeds and it lost all credibility :throw:
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haha I am not saying he should have came on but McGinn and Barkley were so poor he has every right to be upset.

I do genuinely think Marv should have replaced McGinn and sat deeper in beside Luiz. I think that would have given cover to both full-backs and would have at least mitigated against the overloads we kept facing down the right.

That might have freed up Barkley from having to track back so much and maybe would have let him focus more on getting us forward.

If Barkley still wasnt at it and we were still struggling to get forward we could have took of Barkley threw on Davis, moved Grelish central and flipped Watkins to the left. Davis, Watkins and Traore can all play centrally so potentially they have been able to switch.

This is all hindsight, watching the game I didn't think of any of this. I have to admit taking off Trez was my first instinct too. Looking at the bench at 2-0 down trying to muster up an idea to get back into that game was too late.

I can't remember the timeline but Dean had up to the second goal to make the Marv change after or along with the Traore change. The big if is whether that made a difference and what difference it made. If we were stopping the tide but unable to get forward then maybe Davis would have made it stick up top.
 
It’s only tactical genius when it works, otherwise Smith would have been criticised for the wrong substitutions. As you said CDX, you thought of all this after the event - and there are absolutely no guarantees that it would have changed the outcome, it could also have made things worse.

What happened has now happened, we have limited viable options off the bench. We’ve come a long way in a short period, so Dean and his team have done something right. JF is correct, wait 10 games and review, we won’t actually know whether anything has changed from last season until the end of this season. We just have to watch and wait....as always. Fingers crossed we’ll be considerably better off than last season and we can build the next team.
 
DS had his best 11 on the pitch. Good reason for not changing unless he can see a player is flagging. Also, the players are still reaching peak fitness; there was no pre-season to talk of. Players are benefiting; Trez for example is playing much longer than he used to. I think DS is trying to raise the expectations of players as to what they can do. I wouldn't be surprised if it's being done in line with more fitness coaching, now that we have a new fitness centre.

1 point off the top of the table and with a game in hand. 2 points clear of 5th. Of the top 4 teams we've beaten 2 of the other 3. I'd say things are going fine. Let's not over-react to one bad result. Changes aren't necessarily the right thing to do.
 
Xchurch Villa said:
If Klopp had been Villa manager half the people on this site would have been calling for his sacking after his first year
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But it's not Smith's first year.

He has to stop making the same mistakes time after time. Friday was a shambles both on the pitch and off it. Why is it that virtually everyone on here could see what was wrong, yet the guy who gets paid millions couldn't or decided not to put it right.
 
Fulford said:
But it's not Smith's first year.

He has to stop making the same mistakes time after time. Friday was a shambles both on the pitch and off it. Why is it that virtually everyone on here could see what was wrong, yet the guy who gets paid millions couldn't or decided not to put it right.
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What was wrong? My guess is that we don't agree. I think we weren't set up to be tight enough, or if we were the players weren't following the game plan. Not easy to correct in the middle of a match.

It was the sort of match where if Jack had got his penalty we'd probably have won. And people would have said it shows how far we've progressed when we can beat Leeds even when we're not at our best.
 
McParlandTheGreat said:
What was wrong? My guess is that we don't agree. I think we weren't set up to be tight enough, or if we were the players weren't following the game plan. Not easy to correct in the middle of a match.

It was the sort of match where if Jack had got his penalty we'd probably have won. And people would have said it shows how far we've progressed when we can beat Leeds even when we're not at our best.
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It was obvious that our right side was being targeted by Leeds. Trez was having a shocker and should have been subbed at half time. Both McGinn and Barkley were also having poor games and the midfield was getting over-run. Despite this Smith kept the same team and formation and to have only lost by 3 goals was lucky given they had 27 attempts on goal.

When things are going well it masks the times when things are not going our way and he fails to change tactics or formation.
 
Fulford said:
It was obvious that our right side was being targeted by Leeds. Trez was having a shocker and should have been subbed at half time. Both McGinn and Barkley were also having poor games and the midfield was getting over-run. Despite this Smith kept the same team and formation and to have only lost by 3 goals was lucky given they had 27 attempts on goal.

When things are going well it masks the times when things are not going our way and he fails to change tactics or formation.
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He puts a team out to win the game, but when things are not going so well, he struggles to come up with a plan to deal with it.
 
Melon Donkey said:
Despite the Leeds loss we are still third after the weekend results which just shows that Smith has got us off to an unbelievable start.
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Great start Melon, and he's keeping us up there,so he has my support, just hope he can correct the silly mistakes.
 
Fulford said:
It was obvious that our right side was being targeted by Leeds. Trez was having a shocker and should have been subbed at half time. Both McGinn and Barkley were also having poor games and the midfield was getting over-run. Despite this Smith kept the same team and formation and to have only lost by 3 goals was lucky given they had 27 attempts on goal.

When things are going well it masks the times when things are not going our way and he fails to change tactics or formation.
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I thought we were still in it till past 55 odd mins until we missed a great chance and they went up and scored , with another 2 quickly after. Its a league that any team can beat anyone As results have shown, just a bad 20 mins against a better team on the night.
 
AV Dave said:
Great start Melon, and he's keeping us up there,so he has my support, just hope he can correct the silly mistakes.
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How many teams can actually change formations and tactics during the game and still be as strong not many is the answer.We aren't one of the big boys yet who have top quality players sitting on the bench that can turn games on it's head and even them teams with the massive squads only pull off miraculous turn arounds every hop and a catch.The only option we had the other night was to go more defensive but once they went one up it was pointless.For me it was one of them games the best team won and hopefully we learn from it and become stronger for it. 80/81 Ipswich did the double over us and knocked us out the FA Cup and I must admit that night Ipswich beat us at VP after we had totally smashed them I thought our chance had gone but obviously history tells a different story.Leeds is one game out of 38 that's all.
 
gator said:
How many teams can actually change formations and tactics during the game and still be as strong not many is the answer.We aren't one of the big boys yet who have top quality players sitting on the bench that can turn games on it's head and even them teams with the massive squads only pull off miraculous turn arounds every hop and a catch.The only option we had the other night was to go more defensive but once they went one up it was pointless.For me it was one of them games the best team won and hopefully we learn from it and become stronger for it. 80/81 Ipswich did the double over us and knocked us out the FA Cup and I must admit that night Ipswich beat us at VP after we had totally smashed them I thought our chance had gone but obviously history tells a different story.Leeds is one game out of 38 that's all.
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Great points. Our bench isn't yet strong enough to alter the course of games in my opinion.
 
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