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Author Topic: Anyone starting to get worried?  (Read 219838 times)

Offline brontebilly

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Re: Anyone starting to get worried?
« Reply #555 on: November 11, 2019, 02:56:38 PM »
Our midfield is not good enough to play 4-3-3. Yesterday he should have played 4-2-3-1, or 4-1-4-1, offer some protection, Dean in my humble opinion is to rigid to one system, without Jack we often look poor

Looks to me as if we were playing 4231 with Luiz and Nakamba sitting?

Offline Villafirst

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Re: Anyone starting to get worried?
« Reply #556 on: November 11, 2019, 02:56:57 PM »
My worry is the lack of fight and intensity, there is simply no excuse for that. Perhaps what happened in the last few minutes against Liverpool has dented confidence in the players?
However, a less talented and expensive squad at Sheffield United seem to stand up to the pressure and look like they'll survive in May.

Offline Luke8

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Re: Anyone starting to get worried?
« Reply #557 on: November 11, 2019, 03:26:30 PM »
However, a less talented and expensive squad at Sheffield United seem to stand up to the pressure and look like they'll survive in May.

Much like Wolves yesterday, Sheffield United have a very good manager who has had pretty much the same group of players for 2-3 seasons and coach them very well to play the way that he wants them to.

Dean has only had 12 games with the majority of players that played yesterday. I’ve got faith that he will work it out as you can see for at least periods of pretty much all our games that when we are good we are a match for most teams. We do need to more more difficult to play against though when we are not at the top of our game. Think that is Smith’s biggest test at the moment.

Online ChicagoLion

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Re: Anyone starting to get worried?
« Reply #558 on: November 11, 2019, 03:37:15 PM »
Our midfield is not good enough to play 4-3-3. Yesterday he should have played 4-2-3-1, or 4-1-4-1, offer some protection, Dean in my humble opinion is to rigid to one system, without Jack we often look poor

Looks to me as if we were playing 4231 with Luiz and Nakamba sitting?
I think it’s 4 3 3 with SJM roaming a bit from the right.

Offline QuintonVilla

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Re: Anyone starting to get worried?
« Reply #559 on: November 11, 2019, 05:43:51 PM »
I'm not questioning Smith and even if we go down he should stay, but his in game management hasn't been great this season. His subs are strange and poor most of the time and he doesn't seem to react very quickly to what's happening on the pitch. Yesterday in the first half you could see very early on that something wasn't working and we couldn't keep the ball but we didn't change anything and just plodded on until half time.

Then we had one sub left and he brings Lansbury on who didn't touch the ball. When you need a goal why would you not bring Kodjia on who is frustrating but can create something out of nothing at times or Hourihane who would have been a threat with any set piece around the box late on.

I also don't think we practice set pieces in training because ours are dreadful when Hourihane doesn't play. So many short corners or piss poor balls into the box.

Offline Three Spires Villa

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Re: Anyone starting to get worried?
« Reply #560 on: November 11, 2019, 06:02:02 PM »
Our midfield is not good enough to play 4-3-3. Yesterday he should have played 4-2-3-1, or 4-1-4-1, offer some protection, Dean in my humble opinion is to rigid to one system, without Jack we often look poor

Looks to me as if we were playing 4231 with Luiz and Nakamba sitting?

From the Steve Bull stand it looked 4-3-3, maybe I’m wrong, then again at times I didn’t really know what I was looking at!!

Offline pauliewalnuts

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Re: Anyone starting to get worried?
« Reply #561 on: November 11, 2019, 07:37:16 PM »
I am a little worried, I think with Dean Smith being ‘one of our own’ there brings some blindness, the 433 hasn’t worked, it didn’t really last season until greaish was fit & it papered over the cracks & it’s not working now at all, the wingers are championship standard, it leaves us open & the midfield lightweight & Wes isolated, all these problems we’ve been saying since last year! I don’t think Smith is learning, I don’t think we have played that well apart from about 2 games, yes, he needs time, from the Newcastle game till Xmas will be a crucial period for Dean smith.

Yes. I’ve had huge doubts about Smith since last year and promotion didn’t change that. Grealish came back and pulled us up, before that came some of the worst football I’d ever seen from a Villa side. That 14 game run before Derby when Grealish came back told us more about Smiths capabilities than what came after. He needed to find a way of doing something different during that run and didn’t.

The never changing formation, no matter who you are playing and who you have available didn’t work between December and March, so it certainly wasn’t going to work in the Premier League. Other than Rotherham away when we had no choice because of Mings being sent off, I can’t remember a single minute of a single game under Smith where we have played anything other than 4-3-3. He’s great at getting us a lead, but there’s not much point in that if you don’t change anything once the opposition make a change. I’ve never had such dread as I have under Smith when the opposition make a substitution. I can’t think of any other manager that has never tried a different formation. His game management is very poor. A prime example being leaving Grealish on against Man City when the game was gone. I said to my uncle ‘why is he leaving Grealish on to get injured or sent off?’. Sure enough one of those inevitably happened.

People say Smith will learn. There’s no evidence of it, just like there wasn’t between Leeds at home and Stoke away last season. You can only learn if you are willing to change things, and I don’t count playing Grealish on the left as a real change. Spurs, Arsenal, Liverpool are all games that we might have won had Smith parked the bus with 20 mins to go. Any substitutions are always like for like keeping the 4-3-3 which just won’t work at this level. It didn’t work at Wigan away last season either when he made that triple substitution, so no, he doesn’t learn. People say play 4-2-3-1 which I agree with but under Smith we know that isn’t going to happen.

We’ve beaten a dreadful Everton side on that Friday, a dreadful Norwich side and got extremely lucky against a Brighton side that were running rings around us until Mooy got sent off. If Smith stays I think we are going down. At the moment we are in danger of wasting a great opportunity

The frightening thing about this post is that it is well argued, largely correct and worryingly convincing.

Online Chris Smith

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Re: Anyone starting to get worried?
« Reply #562 on: November 11, 2019, 07:53:58 PM »
When we were circling the plug for a few seasons prior to our relegation I always looked at the goal difference of the other sides around the bottom of the league compared to us and almost invariably those with the smaller gap were the ones that stayed up. This season the least worst are still 12 goals worse than us. Until that changes I remain confident that we’ll be ok.

Offline Risso

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Re: Anyone starting to get worried?
« Reply #563 on: November 11, 2019, 08:22:19 PM »
I am a little worried, I think with Dean Smith being ‘one of our own’ there brings some blindness, the 433 hasn’t worked, it didn’t really last season until greaish was fit & it papered over the cracks & it’s not working now at all, the wingers are championship standard, it leaves us open & the midfield lightweight & Wes isolated, all these problems we’ve been saying since last year! I don’t think Smith is learning, I don’t think we have played that well apart from about 2 games, yes, he needs time, from the Newcastle game till Xmas will be a crucial period for Dean smith.

Yes. I’ve had huge doubts about Smith since last year and promotion didn’t change that. Grealish came back and pulled us up, before that came some of the worst football I’d ever seen from a Villa side. That 14 game run before Derby when Grealish came back told us more about Smiths capabilities than what came after. He needed to find a way of doing something different during that run and didn’t.

The never changing formation, no matter who you are playing and who you have available didn’t work between December and March, so it certainly wasn’t going to work in the Premier League. Other than Rotherham away when we had no choice because of Mings being sent off, I can’t remember a single minute of a single game under Smith where we have played anything other than 4-3-3. He’s great at getting us a lead, but there’s not much point in that if you don’t change anything once the opposition make a change. I’ve never had such dread as I have under Smith when the opposition make a substitution. I can’t think of any other manager that has never tried a different formation. His game management is very poor. A prime example being leaving Grealish on against Man City when the game was gone. I said to my uncle ‘why is he leaving Grealish on to get injured or sent off?’. Sure enough one of those inevitably happened.

People say Smith will learn. There’s no evidence of it, just like there wasn’t between Leeds at home and Stoke away last season. You can only learn if you are willing to change things, and I don’t count playing Grealish on the left as a real change. Spurs, Arsenal, Liverpool are all games that we might have won had Smith parked the bus with 20 mins to go. Any substitutions are always like for like keeping the 4-3-3 which just won’t work at this level. It didn’t work at Wigan away last season either when he made that triple substitution, so no, he doesn’t learn. People say play 4-2-3-1 which I agree with but under Smith we know that isn’t going to happen.

We’ve beaten a dreadful Everton side on that Friday, a dreadful Norwich side and got extremely lucky against a Brighton side that were running rings around us until Mooy got sent off. If Smith stays I think we are going down. At the moment we are in danger of wasting a great opportunity

The frightening thing about this post is that it is well argued, largely correct and worryingly convincing.

I agree.  There is absolutely no flexibility in what Smith does at all.  It's always the exact same formation, and then his substitutions are always like for like, and more often than not makes matters worse on the pitch.  At our best we play some very good football, but when we come under the cosh we never have any answer to it.  We got away with it in the Championship, but are getting punished regularly in the Premier League in the second half of an awful lot of games.  I expected a little bit more than hoping that there are three worse teams than us.  Still relatively early in the season, but the Newcastle game is looking huge.

Online Sexual Ealing

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Re: Anyone starting to get worried?
« Reply #564 on: November 11, 2019, 08:24:17 PM »
I think we'll batter Newcastle. Steve Bruce gets very confused by teams that play football.

Online Toronto Villa

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Re: Anyone starting to get worried?
« Reply #565 on: November 11, 2019, 08:29:09 PM »
They beat Spurs and Bournemouth who both play football. Both sides beat us playing football. For all his shitness Bruce has got something going at Newcastle even if in the it will all come crashing down. But right now I don't fancy us without Grealish because we are just predictable.

The post by Mr Ketzster is very good

Offline chrisw1

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Re: Anyone starting to get worried?
« Reply #566 on: November 11, 2019, 08:37:29 PM »
It's all very well to say if we'd parked the bus we might have won.  How many times did we slag of Bruce (and previous managers) for doing exactly that?  If you sit deep and invite pressure, more ofyen than not a good team will exploit it.

We do seem to have a soft underbelly, but we have been playing deeper to try to see games out, it's just that Smith likes to keep attacking options open with his subs to keep the oposition thinking.  I'm not saying I don't hink he's made mistakes, but I can often see the logic in what he is trying.
« Last Edit: November 11, 2019, 08:49:04 PM by chrisw1 »

Online Sexual Ealing

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Re: Anyone starting to get worried?
« Reply #567 on: November 11, 2019, 08:39:28 PM »
They beat Spurs and Bournemouth who both play football. Both sides beat us playing football. For all his shitness Bruce has got something going at Newcastle even if in the it will all come crashing down. But right now I don't fancy us without Grealish because we are just predictable.

The post by Mr Ketzster is very good

You're right. I should have said that he gets confused when he plays a Dean Smith side.

Offline Ad@m

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Re: Anyone starting to get worried?
« Reply #568 on: November 11, 2019, 08:48:01 PM »
7 of the starting 11 yesterday were signed in the Summer so Smith's had precisely 12 games to work with them.  On top of that, we were missing our best player, his replacement, one of our centre halves and our goalie.  And then lost the replacement goalie and left back to injury in the first half.

And despite all that we lost by just 1 goal, away from home, to a team who qualified for Europe last year.

I really don't think it's time to get the razor blades out just yet.

I think we'll stuff Newcastle in a fortnight but even if we don't it's not the end of the world.  There's a long way to go in this season.  Anyone who thought we'd be comfortable was dreaming - it was always going to be a struggle but there's some absolutely abysmal teams in this division and we'll be fine.  Remember, it was only a week ago that we were getting plaudits for giving the European champions the scare of their lives.

Offline AVH87

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Re: Anyone starting to get worried?
« Reply #569 on: November 11, 2019, 09:56:48 PM »
Let's be honest, if Jack misses 13 games this season like he did last, we will be down. We won 2 of 13 in the Championship without him, OK so we've improved a bit in a few areas since then, but at this level I think we'd go on a similar run. Hopefully he's back for Newcastle and stays fit.

 


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