The Official Dean Smith Thread | Page 58 | Vital Football

The Official Dean Smith Thread

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Bruce apologist?

I'm not a Bruce apologist, I'm a Bruce fan, so I'll always speak fondly of him. If that offends you I apologise..... does that make me a NorthamptonVillan apologist?

Apologist or fan - your points are the same. Personally, I'm an Aston Villa fan who enjoys watching entertaining, winning football. I want every manager we employ and every player that pulls on the shirt to be successful and back the team regardless. That said, we've had many failures and the only manager I truly came to despise is MON.

No need to apologise, I'm not offended by your opinion, I just disagree with it. This is a discussion forum and we have different views. Bruce had two seasons, did his best and failed. I would expect DS to get the same opportunity and think we are currently better off under him than we would be if SB was still in charge.

If you ask me whose team I have enjoyed watching most, then the answer is DS (so far). As with Bruce, if he ultimately fails to achieve, he will rightly be replaced.
 
I enjoyed last season a lot , but some of the results and performances after we beat Wolves especially v QPR and Norwich were so poor I began to worry a bit and the the less said about Wembley the better.

This season was dreadful Sheffield Utd and Blackburn away stick in the mind as unacceptable and also the Sheffield Wednesday game and the bizarre Preston game.

Bruce isn't a bad manager , I am sure his personal woes took over and he wasn't in the right frame of mind to manage , but some of the football we have played under Smith has been the best we have seen for some years and playing like we do gives us much more of a chance of consistency and the improvement in some of the players show that he is good on the training ground .
 
That is the issue sirden, consistency. We have had more memorable games under Smith's tenure in 28 games than we had under 100 games with Bruce in charge.

I've tried to be fair to Steve Bruce and often stated that JT came because of him (among a list of others), but ultimately Steve Bruce wanted a new team almost every transfer window and the rate that he cast players aside who were not in his clique left us in a shambles. Ultimately he did what he has done everywhere else, it nearly worked, but I lost patience with the lack of direction and turgid football. If we had gone up last season, we would have been another Huddersfield/Fulham or possibly worse.

Things happen for a reason and perhaps we have found the right solution to the problem this time.
 
I'd wager that whoever was in charge Bruce, Smith A Nother, we'd have probably still signed Mings and Hause in January.

Everyone could see we needed a defence and we have a structure in place with Pitarch and the scouts identifying the players.
Apart from Bruce he thought we would be fine we would be there or there abouts.
 
Bruce came in, steadied the ship and had a good go at getting us up then lost the plot. We really should have gone up last season automatically, we had it in the palm of our hand when we lay 2nd after beating blues but we couldn't maintain any consistency after that. Then at Wembley he shit himself and sat back instead of going at Fulham.

He's old news to us now. He did a mostly OK job for 2 years but failed overall, not a disaster but nothing special. Will Smith do better long term? It remains to be seen but so far I've seen more good performances than bad, which is something I've not said about Villa in a long while.
 
Bruce actually averaged 1.92 ppg with RDM's team. After his first transfer window he averaged 1.23 ppg for the rest of the season. With his own players in the 17/18 season he averaged 1.80 for the season. Strange that he performed better on average with someone elses team. Now he appears to be doing the same with Sheff Wed - not lost yet.

Funny old game.
 
Neither did Smith when Jack was out. We were very boring.

I think the Steve Bruce thing is a bit of a myth anyway. Yes it was a bit turgid at the end but he'd lost all his best players and was rebuilding.

But in the season we finished 4th we were 3rd highest goalscorers in the division. I don't think that smacks of a defensive philosophy.

It's just people have short memories, and are seemingly very ageist (all the dinosaur crap).

Under Bruce I would say we were consistently average but typically won games. Under Smith we've been jackal and hyde with our poor performances basically being how we played under Bruce without winning.

That is the debate in a nutshell as far as I can see and it seems to be a question of:
A) Why sack Bruce if this how the team is going to perform vs.
B) When we have played well it is no comparison, we've had a clear and distinct change in playing style and performances

There is little acknowledgment from either side of whatever point they're not focusing on.

In your case Deano it seems to be 'we've won 5 in a row thats all well and good but what about that 10 game run'. The other side is we've had a 7 game run and now a 5 game run with clear change in performances. For me personally I would argue a large proportion of those games were as good or better than the 4-0 vs. Wolves. We'll never know but I think vs. Derby we'd have won without Grealish but nervously and from there may have improved. We certainly weren't bad against Stoke and should have won.

I just think when we all have these rigid opinions we'll get nowhere. To some the only positive way Dean Smith can prove himself is to get promoted this season because the only other way I see him proving some wrong is for very negative things to happen e.g. Grealish gets injured but we continue winning or we have a catastrophic run that he turns around without Grealish.
 
Managers come and go but the ones I have an affinity with are the ones that have an affinity with us In my time it's been

Vic Crowe , Ron Saunders, Graham Taylor, BFR, Brian Little and John Gregory the rest have just been employees of the club .
Dean Smith will be another one should he get us back to the promised land and playing the " Villa way"
 
Great display from Deano tonight.

I can't imagine Pulis , Moyes Hughes etc being so tactically good.

I am glad he is our manager.

It was about having the balls and confidence that our way of playing would win in the end or die on your sword.

I can only imagine Pulis etc. would set up not to lose and nick a goal, granted the situation was a little different. Not to take away from Deano but I think what helped play into his decision was that we had to come out and score.

I remember Mourinho actually did something similar when he was at Inter. Played a 4-3-2 when down to 10 and blew the other side away. Usually is 4-4-1, with our midfield trio of late playing how they have been it made sense to go more positive.

Again all marks to Deano because it certainly wasn't just tactics it was whatever was said at HT too because we came straight out the blocks.
 
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