The Official Dean Smith Thread | Page 253 | Vital Football

The Official Dean Smith Thread

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Yeah I suppose I'm a dreamer to think we would have been better than the likes of Southampton, Newcastle, Crystal Palace and Burnley with a striker who can actually score goals.

I thought goals weren't the problem as we've scored more than 7 other teams in the Prem ?
(Well ignore we've conceded more than all bar Norwich (so far) and have the 3rd worse goal diff before todays game)
 
Reading few some of these comments it makes me think that a manager at AVFC really has no chance...into a toxic club in October, promotion gained by May...no credit whatsoever...all to do with key players.......poor this season, struggling to survive....the manager is useless. From October to that great day in May last season I loved it...both home and away...football on the front foot, crowds flocking back, unity on and off the pitch. Yes, this season has been a struggle but to say Dean Smith had nothing to do with last season’s success on the pitch and in revitalising a pretty despondent fan base ( just because of an agenda against the bloke based on this season alone).. is harsh in the extreme.

He's done alright since he came in and he received ample credit for promotion, even though we had a poor return in the league that season. However if you get a team relegated with extremely poor football you'll get criticism. There's no agenda against him we slate all of our managers, he's had it easy in comparison to some. I don't go in for this poor Dean thing. He hasn't produced the results nor the performances simple as that. Net result of Smith's tenure is that he hasn't really got us anywhere as we'll be back in the Championship next season.
 
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The definition of fickle.

Jesus don’t be so fucking stupid.

And so fucking pious 🙄

I’m giving him credit for last season, but I don’t owe him any long term loyalty as you seem to suggest from this moronic ‘fickle’ accusation.

Just because you’re in love with the guy and seemingly utterly blinded to his failings this season, so much so you need to find everyone but him accountable, don’t expect everyone else to be.
 
Yes spot on, and while your at it I think it needs saying that Bruce before him played a vital part in stopping the rot.
If he could have just treated the Fulham game as the one off that it was and gone for it we could have gone up that season.
He gets a lot of undeserved stick on here for whatever reason.
I accept he wasnt everyones cup of tea but after the relegation we had been through and the off the park antics we perhaps needed a bit of a dour type to settle things down.

Yep, very good point re Bruce and it was the same with him to a degree. Did a bloody good job in stopping the rot and stabilising the club but by the time he was sacked he got pelters from many and was accused of being useless, stubborn,tactically inept etc etc Little praise for what he got right but plenty of focus on what he got wrong.
 
He's done alright since he came in and he received ample credit for promotion, even though we had a poor return in the league that season. However if you get a team relegated with extremely poor football you'll get criticism. There's no agenda against him we slate all of our managers, he's had it easy in comparison to some. I don't go in for this poor Dean thing. He hasn't produced the results nor the performances simple as that. Net result of Smith's tenure is that he hasn't really got us anywhere as we'll be back in the Championship next season.

I’m not criticising posts with a semblance of balance. You’ve credited him for promotion but criticised him for the performances this season and rightly so but I’ve read posts which slate him and give him zero credit for promotion. So in my opinion, if you slate him for this season but don’t back that up by saying he did well to get us promoted then yes, I feel that view is unbalanced and suggests an agenda against Smith. How can a club get promotion and the manager not play a part in that? Im not going in for ‘Poor Dean‘ at all...but I’ll always give credit to a manager who achieves a semblance of success even if he struggles the following season. That success won’t be immediately erased from my memory bank.
 
I honestly don’t think the buck should stop with him, whoever that sporting director is that brought these players in and forced him to work with them should get the boot. Let the manager sign the players he wants to fit the system he wants to play, it’s 2016 all over again.
 
I'm not interested in the blame game. What I saw today was a pretty decent team putting in a disciplined performance with a good game plan. Shove a class striker up front and we'd be sailing.

I saw enough to think that if we do go down we'd have a very good chance of coming straight back up, with these players and this manager. Even without Jack. Whether Dean's the right manager for the long term is a different question, but maybe that's not the question for today.
 
Pretty tidy performance today for an hour, but we were never likely to score with our impotent strikers. We did as well as most teams do against Liverpool, though they weren't near their best. It's capitulating against the likes of Watford and Bournemouth that has cost us so dear.
 
Tidy performance, decent disciplined performance, good game plan still =

Nil points.

Running out of time .

No sign of a win .

My standards of acceptable being 3rd from bottom with 5 games to go are vastly different from some who seem to be under some delusion that we have time to fcuk about not getting any wins .
 
Pretty tidy performance today for an hour, but we were never likely to score with our impotent strikers. We did as well as most teams do against Liverpool, though they weren't near their best. It's capitulating against the likes of Watford and Bournemouth that has cost us so dear.

Mad to think that you throw in a several games that stick in my head (Burnley, Liverpool, Spurs) , and we could so easily be 5-6 points better off and that is the difference between success and failure.
 
Tidy performance, decent disciplined performance, good game plan still =

Nil points.

Running out of time .

No sign of a win .

My standards of acceptable being 3rd from bottom with 5 games to go are vastly different from some who seem to be under some delusion that we have time to fcuk about not getting any wins .

We had to beat Sheff Utd, Newcastle, or Wolves. Just one of them at least. We really had to.
 
Tidy performance, decent disciplined performance, good game plan still =

Nil points.

Running out of time .

No sign of a win .

My standards of acceptable being 3rd from bottom with 5 games to go are vastly different from some who seem to be under some delusion that we have time to fcuk about not getting any wins .

Defies belief doesn't it?

Maybe we should just accept mediocrity and stop banging our heads against a brick wall, could make for a more peaceful life, less damage to our heads and indeed, the wall.
 
Just finished watching Southampton beat Man City. Saints players throwing themselves into challenges, blocking shots and crosses, chasing lost-causes. Got their reward with nothing to really play for other than professional pride. And we have Tyrone Mings standing watching while blocking his own goalkeeper 4 yards away from a player teeing up to shoot....
 
I didn't expect a result today. Liverpool have won every home game this season. I thought it was a very encouraging performance though. We've still got it all to play for. 1 point behind Watford with 5 games left and our most difficult game out of the way. Maybe I'm one who is "accepting mediocrity" but I knew this season would be tough. Just look at the recent history of all the teams who have come up through the playoffs.
 
Tidy performance, decent disciplined performance, good game plan still =

Nil points.

Running out of time .

No sign of a win .

My standards of acceptable being 3rd from bottom with 5 games to go are vastly different from some who seem to be under some delusion that we have time to fcuk about not getting any wins .


The type of performance where if it had occurred in September or whatever I might have been encouraged by but its not good enough now. Bar Douglas no one has really looked like they are frantic to keep in this league since the restart.
 
The type of performance where if it had occurred in September or whatever I might have been encouraged by but its not good enough now. Bar Douglas no one has really looked like they are frantic to keep in this league since the restart.

I thought we had a free hit really, should have been all spite and venom v Blades, they'd have crumbled. We didn't, that was the end of any hope for momentum for me. That comes from the manager and coaches, and should also come from the captain and the team. It just hasn't. We've accepted the lack of fight for too long as far as I am concerned, few pretty passes and a little bit of, well for me god knows what, and people seem satisfied.

After over 15 years of writing about Villa I slowly but surely had to stop, because it seems I don't like any manager, many players, much at all. That isn't me, I am an ultra positive fighter - you only have to read my book, or the snippets about me to see that (sorry, I don't like self praise but fuck it, it is true). If I had the attitude of this lot, or the quit of so many managers, I'd be dead, not just relegated. But it all became so much of a much, I just had to stop writing, my writing is full of passion and there was no passion to write about, only negativity.

For me, I'd rather have seen some bigger defeats with us being balls to the wall trying. I think despite the fact a few defeats might have been bigger, we could have shocked a team or two and won a few... fight for your life, or just accept :surrender:

To me, we've have done the latter, we have done it before... and I don't get the fans who accept it. I puzzle about that, I respect their view obviously, but I don't get it at all.

I expect 110% and so when I see 55% including from the man who no way would be captain if I was the boss at Villa, I don't accept it at all. Sadly, these days, I do expect it though and that many fans will say it is ok.

This was a big club. This club should be a big club. This club could be a big club. This club acts like a small club and our results reflect how we act, no matter how much spin we are spun.

It is a results game, not an excuses game. Our results are not acceptable.
 
The sum total of Smith's reflections over lockdown is to make us more compact at the back and less ambitious going forward. The result is a side who carries almost zero goal threat and a side which is still not getting the required results.

He has tried absolutely everything here, from 4-5-1, to 3-5-2, he's tried a high line, high press and tried a deep line. Nothing has worked. Recruitment is poor but the coaching is overwhelmingly poor. Time and time again we look weaker than the opposition and this reflects on the strength and conditioning plan in place. Ball retention and movement in the opposition half is extremely poor and again this is developed on the training pitch. Smith is just not up to it.
 
The type of performance where if it had occurred in September or whatever I might have been encouraged by but its not good enough now. Bar Douglas no one has really looked like they are frantic to keep in this league since the restart.

Thought the whole team was committed today, a good team performance. Still think we'd have been better of with Samatta up front and a plan to use him though.

I was afraid at the restart that we'd continue from where we left off, or worse. We haven't. The players are up for it. Unfortunately the goals aren't coming for us. Yet.
 
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