Dean Smith - Confirmed

[SoccerHQ]

McGinn and Luiz can mix it at times I think.

Look at SJM just mugging Kovacic and nearly scoring late in the first half on Sunday.

When we had Barry and Petrov you certainly wouldn't say either were dirty players at all but both were very streetwise, knew when to put their foot in and give away fouls and also win fouls to break up play and slow games down. Also great at quickly sweeping the ball over to Young so he could get on a one v one against a full back.

Think that's something we need to get a bit better at, releasing Jack and hopefully a new wide player more quickly next season.

[Toronto Villa]

Streetwise is a good way of putting it Soccer. One of things I despise about Man City is one of the things that makes them successful. It’s what they do when they don’t have possession. It’s a tactic Pep employed as a player, used at Barcelona and Bayern. When the opponent has the ball if you cannot get it a little foul disrupts the opponents flow. They rarely are enough to get you bookings and the responsibilities are shared across all 10 outfield players. But not only do they know how to keep the ball and are deadly with it, but when they don’t have it they have the cunning to stop you from playing. Theirs success is a combination of a lot of things done very well. Watch them do it on Saturday vs Chelsea.

[SoccerHQ]

Streetwise is a good way of putting it Soccer. One of things I despise about Man City is one of the things that makes them successful. It’s what they do when they don’t have possession. It’s a tactic Pep employed as a player, used at Barcelona and Bayern. When the opponent has the ball if you cannot get it a little foul disrupts the opponents flow. They rarely are enough to get you bookings and the responsibilities are shared across all 10 outfield players. But not only do they know how to keep the ball and are deadly with it, but when they don’t have it they have the cunning to stop you from playing. Theirs success is a combination of a lot of things done very well. Watch them do it on Saturday vs Chelsea.

Yep Luiz is actually reasonably decent at it aswell (certainly the best in our team of knowing when to trip a player on halfway line when move is just developing) so you can tell he's spent time on training pitch with Guardiola at some point.

[paul_e]

We earned the right to be better defensively by buying a top keeper, an upgrade at RB and improving the ability of Konsa, Mings and Targett through coaching and their own dedication. We immediately improved up front by buying a striker who has almost everything. I expect we will see improvements in other areas too, on the wing and midfield, but the fastest way to gets there is just getting better now.

Get in players who already do what we need them to do and we don’t need a defined enforcer. For me that’s a limited footballer. I would sooner we just got players who enjoy having the football and technically don’t give it away easily. The best way to overcome teams in or around us and certainly below us is by not allowing them to have the football. We won’t be able to be that to the very top teams but we have already shown we can more than compete. We have nothing at all to fear.

and still you insist on a player with strength being automatically a poor player, you're clearly ignoring the players I named as options to do the job I want. How about watching players like Berge, Locatelli and Koopmeiners before you carry on. You use the term enforcer and you're pretty clearly imagining a useless lump who makes a tackle and then plays a a 5m pass and sees it as job done, if that was all I was after then Nakamba has shown he can do the job. I'm talking about £40-50m players who probably belong in the champions league.

Its the same job Rodri does for Man City which has allowed Gundogan to be one of the best midfielders in the league, we need that sort of player so our other midfielders can be freed up to dictate games in the same way. That's what I mean by earning the right to play our way because we don't have that softness through midfield that has appeared in our games too many times this year.

That our keeper and defence have been exceptional (as a unit) doesn't change the fact that sometimes teams found it too easy to cut through us unless we defended deep and let them play in front of us. We were 7th worst in the league for shots conceded per game and a big part of that was because our defence was exposed on the counter too easily.

Being streetwise/shit-housing in midfield with 'smart' fouls is part of it but there's so much more we can do than that.

[Toronto Villa]

Paul where have said an enforcer is a poor player? That’s twice now you’ve found a way to misinterpret what I’ve said. I said a defined enforcer is a limited footballer. Which is true. In much the same way a defined winger has limitations or a player who is exclusively right footed being generally limited in the roles they can play well. What I absolutely will contest is the need for a “nasty bugger”. It’s not 1975 anymore.

[Baldy]

Streetwise is a good way of putting it Soccer. One of things I despise about Man City is one of the things that makes them successful. It’s what they do when they don’t have possession. It’s a tactic Pep employed as a player, used at Barcelona and Bayern. When the opponent has the ball if you cannot get it a little foul disrupts the opponents flow. They rarely are enough to get you bookings and the responsibilities are shared across all 10 outfield players. But not only do they know how to keep the ball and are deadly with it, but when they don’t have it they have the cunning to stop you from playing. Theirs success is a combination of a lot of things done very well. Watch them do it on Saturday vs Chelsea.

Mr TV, I have often thought the same. Man City are masters at it. The average height of their midfield/forwards is 4 foot 6 but their turnover rate is massive.

Also, apart from the odd exception, they are very smart at 'playing' the referee. Show respect, probably no bad language and just enough 'in the ear' to avoid a booking. Referees are human afterall. Wouldn't surprise me if Man City have a dossier on every ref in the league and how best  to 'play' them.

Super Mr McGinn needs to learn from this or attend an Anger Management Course. I am convinced some of his bookings are because of his attitude, snarl, stare and curses towards the referee. If McGinn gives anyone in the world an angry look, they would get their card out!! He loses 20% of his effectiveness after a booking and Villa can't afford that.

Luiz hasn't mastered the art of a little niggle yet. A lot of his bookings are for 'soft' fouls (often around our penalty area) but not 'soft' enough. He doesn't need to stop an an opponent, just gently put him off his stride.

Deano should arrange for John Terry to give 'streetwise' lessons at Villa Park. 

[Allan C]

Who is Chelsea’s nasty bugger who can mix it? You could argue they have Kante who is just a rich man’s version of Nakamba. Who was Barcelona’s nasty bugger in midfield when they had Iniesta and Xavi? Man U don’t have one now really.

What we need is better footballers who can keep control of the ball and win it back quickly and fairly. I wouldn’t call John McGinn a nasty bugger (stupid that he has the most bookings) but he chases down the play better than anyone else we have. What we have to better at is keeping the ball, chasing it down and winning it when we don’t have it and moving it quickly to the players who can cause damage.

One of the best example of that? That not so colossus of a man Gareth Barry...He was quick in small spaces, could win the ball back but critically was brilliant at moving it quickly to the likes of Ashley Young who then got it in space to attack the full back. We need more of that.

Busquets was a key player in that Barca side because he did all the grunt work to allow Xavi and Iniesta to dominate, Chelsea have Kovacic and Kante, Man U fans mostly think they've struggled because Fred and McTominay haven't been good enough in front of the back 4.

Also it's you and John that decided I mean a brute who can barely kick a ball when I've said a number of times now i want a Vieira style player who can fight his corner against teams like Burnley but also has the game to be a part in us playing good football. I also think McGinn and Luiz (and probably Sanson as well) will be better with someone like that behind them and it would be great to have that player in there with Ramsey and Chuk. Berge and Locatelli are the 2 I've mentioned as, in my opinion, gettable and good enough. I like Koopmeiners as well but I think he might have Champions League offers.

Calling a player a “big nasty bugger” doesn’t exactly conjure anything other than what’s on the tin. Viera style players come around once in a blue moon.

I agree with you TV  We need three players of similar proven quality to Grealish that’ll go straight into the first team and an upgrade on the deeper squad (hopefully from the youth team).

If we had three other players of Grealish's quality, it's winning the league title we would be aiming for!

We need a presence in midfield, Luiz had a disappointing season really. More experience and bite needed in there. Push McGinn further up nearer Grealish and Watkins. Teams will do well to try playing through us then.

Agree with that. Barkley should of been the start of the rebuild but it failed. Three players of that experience and quality to compliment Grealish will make us genuine contenders for top four IMO

[dave.woodhall]

Manchester United under Ferguson were masters of intimidation by numbers. Irwin would have a couple of goes at the ref, then Ince, Hughes, Cantona and so on. None of them would carry on long enough to get booked but it added up to ninety minutes of non-stop pressure.

[cdbearsfan]

They would carry on long enough to get booked, but wouldn't get booked anyway because they're Man U. Wayne Rooney would be mouthing off at the referee for at least half an hour in any one game and never even get spoken to.

[dave shelley]

What sums up Manure and their attitude to referee's under Ferguson is the iconic (loosely termed) photograph of them surrounding referee Andy D'Urso en masse when he had the temerity to give/not give a decision that they didn't agree with.  I thought the blood vessels in Keane's neck would burst.  I genuinely believe that from that moment on, D'Urso's career went steadily down hill.

[LeeB]

Manchester United under Ferguson were masters of intimidation by numbers. Irwin would have a couple of goes at the ref, then Ince, Hughes, Cantona and so on. None of them would carry on long enough to get booked but it added up to ninety minutes of non-stop pressure.

Strachan was talking about this on the radio last week, Ferguson used to say "If they've got five around the referee, I want six"

[paul_e]

Streetwise is a good way of putting it Soccer. One of things I despise about Man City is one of the things that makes them successful. It’s what they do when they don’t have possession. It’s a tactic Pep employed as a player, used at Barcelona and Bayern. When the opponent has the ball if you cannot get it a little foul disrupts the opponents flow. They rarely are enough to get you bookings and the responsibilities are shared across all 10 outfield players. But not only do they know how to keep the ball and are deadly with it, but when they don’t have it they have the cunning to stop you from playing. Theirs success is a combination of a lot of things done very well. Watch them do it on Saturday vs Chelsea.

Mr TV, I have often thought the same. Man City are masters at it. The average height of their midfield/forwards is 4 foot 6 but their turnover rate is massive.

Also, apart from the odd exception, they are very smart at 'playing' the referee. Show respect, probably no bad language and just enough 'in the ear' to avoid a booking. Referees are human afterall. Wouldn't surprise me if Man City have a dossier on every ref in the league and how best  to 'play' them.

Super Mr McGinn needs to learn from this or attend an Anger Management Course. I am convinced some of his bookings are because of his attitude, snarl, stare and curses towards the referee. If McGinn gives anyone in the world an angry look, they would get their card out!! He loses 20% of his effectiveness after a booking and Villa can't afford that.

Luiz hasn't mastered the art of a little niggle yet. A lot of his bookings are for 'soft' fouls (often around our penalty area) but not 'soft' enough. He doesn't need to stop an an opponent, just gently put him off his stride.

Deano should arrange for John Terry to give 'streetwise' lessons at Villa Park. 

Rodri is 6'3 and fantastic in the air, he's a big part of how they pin teams into the final third.

[chrisw1]

Off at a tangent but listening to an Athletic podcast recently the corrospondent reckons Wolves owners take note of social media and forums etc.  He felt that the small but very vocal minority of fans calling for Nuno out may have played a part.  He wondered if the owners may have felt they had read it wrong when they saw the outpouring of love for Nuno at the last game.

It sounds crazy that it could be the case that a few know nothing morons could have an influence on the future of a multi million pound business.  I'm sure there's far more to it than this, but even so I guess it's be careful what you wish for.

Hopefully Mendes is losing interest, they'll now fall down the plug hole where they belong and we'll never have to listen to their mind the gap nonsence again.  And if they did play a part, cheers to the mad few idiots calling for his head.

[dave.woodhall]

Any business owner taking notice of social media deserves all they get.

[Baldy]

Streetwise is a good way of putting it Soccer. One of things I despise about Man City is one of the things that makes them successful. It’s what they do when they don’t have possession. It’s a tactic Pep employed as a player, used at Barcelona and Bayern. When the opponent has the ball if you cannot get it a little foul disrupts the opponents flow. They rarely are enough to get you bookings and the responsibilities are shared across all 10 outfield players. But not only do they know how to keep the ball and are deadly with it, but when they don’t have it they have the cunning to stop you from playing. Theirs success is a combination of a lot of things done very well. Watch them do it on Saturday vs Chelsea.

Mr TV, I have often thought the same. Man City are masters at it. The average height of their midfield/forwards is 4 foot 6 but their turnover rate is massive.

Also, apart from the odd exception, they are very smart at 'playing' the referee. Show respect, probably no bad language and just enough 'in the ear' to avoid a booking. Referees are human afterall. Wouldn't surprise me if Man City have a dossier on every ref in the league and how best  to 'play' them.

Super Mr McGinn needs to learn from this or attend an Anger Management Course. I am convinced some of his bookings are because of his attitude, snarl, stare and curses towards the referee. If McGinn gives anyone in the world an angry look, they would get their card out!! He loses 20% of his effectiveness after a booking and Villa can't afford that.

Luiz hasn't mastered the art of a little niggle yet. A lot of his bookings are for 'soft' fouls (often around our penalty area) but not 'soft' enough. He doesn't need to stop an an opponent, just gently put him off his stride.

Deano should arrange for John Terry to give 'streetwise' lessons at Villa Park. 

Rodri is 6'3 and fantastic in the air, he's a big part of how they pin teams into the final third.

Point taken. He is a fairly recent addition. Often their forward/midfield press included Sterling, Aguero. Da Dilva, Gundohan, Foden, Jesus etc. No wonder they play the ball along the ground.