Dean Smith - Confirmed

[West Derby Villan]

Yeah great post Rudy

[OCD]

The mentality reflects on the ambitions of the owners. Doug Ellis was comfortable with where we were and that came through to the players. Now we have ambitious owners with the resources to back it up. We may have had one but not both, at least not for long.

On the point about a bigger backroom staff, other clubs have been adopting the model of having 3 assistant coaches too so that would suggest that's where the modern game is going. Adding Shakespeare also means he's added Premier League experience to the coaching team, which hadn't had it before last season. Although last year's experience will have added there too.

[JD]

Great post RCF.

[rooboy316]

For so long there has been an air of inevitability against the top 6. We went into the games with a backs to the wall attitude, sat deep and waited. Sometimes we’d grind out a draw. Very rarely we’d sneak a flukey goal on the break. There was never any intention or design to try and win these games.

Now we might get thumped occasionally on an off day, because of the approach, but it fills me with joy and hope knowing we approach every game on the front foot, and there’s always the desire to getting something out of these games.

[SamTheMouse]

I think Shakespeare might turn out to be our most important piece of recruitment for years.

[Hookeysmith]

In addition to the great post by RCF i think the change in age profile across the squad has made a huge difference.

No longer are we a refuge for the aging, has been, journeymen for a final payday. No team is going to get the likes of an aging Lescott, Downing, Lansbury, Richards et al to bust a gut - their careers are almost over and they have made their money.

Now we have young, athletic, ambitious and hungry team.

Other than the hounding on text by Jack to Barkley to join Smith stated he would get him the England place back

Now we have
Mings
Konsa
Cash
Targett
Luiz
McGinn
Trez
Watkins

all of which have big international ambitions and see us as a platform to realise them. The turnaround has been nothing short of a miracle

[Toronto Villa]

We have finally got young and hungry right

[Mister E]

Well, and don't forget we've massively upgraded the managerial staff at the Academy; presumably to keep the various jobs well defined and no one being overstretched in terms of accountability.

[Steve67]

Great posts, great debate, great to be a Villa fan

[robbo1874]

one of my biggest moans and disappointments over the last few years is that no matter how well we were playing we always found it very difficult to take points of the top 6 teams, give or take the odd one or two down the ages

i felt it was confidence, we didn't believe we could win so we didn't, lost before it started
how many times even last season did we throw away leads and turn into sponge puddings, Liverpool, Arsenal, Spurs, Man Utd etc
the worse things about those performances is that we struggled to retain the ball, giving it away far to easily and looking scared to compete

that's the best thing about this season so far for me, Liverpool, Leicester, Arsenal all put to the sword with great commanding performances
it's years since we had a team with the confidence to do that probably going back to MON's time, and even then it was more smash and grab

absolutely delighted to have hopefully put those times behind us

I totally agree John.  The other thing is, we rarely scored when we were well on top in games, so that we when had our very usual "bad half" we always ended up chucking points away.

Whinge Brothers going out of business...happy days.

good point about giving the ball away. It drove me mad last season. So many errors.

[fredm]

And the good thing about the "new" attitude is that it will show the young lads coming through the academy that that is the level they must be striving for.  They will see that just having a bit of natural ability is no longer good enough to earn a place in the first team squad, it will be the effort and commitment that goes with it that will get them there and then they have to maintain/improve it to retain their place.

[Dick Edwards]

We have finally got young and hungry right

This!

[jcsutv]

It always annoyed me how we kick off games with a pass back to Mings, only for him to hoof it to the right wing, giving up possession. As we watched on Sunday, my 12 yr old said “they have done it again Dad.“ 30 seconds later the ball was in the back of the Arsenal net and we both said, “oh maybe it works!”.  Well done Deano.

[mr underhill]

only it didn't.

[dave.woodhall]

only it didn't.

Happy little soul, aren't you?