Dean Smith - Confirmed

[colin69]

Agree with john e and Mr U.  Where we are now is becoming a Groundhog Eric Black Day.  Now is the time to start to prepare for August.  The starting team for the first game of next season must have NO clapped out old journeymen players running down their careers on big wages, or prima donnas who think they are too good for us or players being shoehorned into positions for which they are not suited or players in the team because they cost a lot of money or players who play to the crowd and have songs sung about them or players carrying injuries or players who claim to be carrying injuries or players with dysfunctional character defects of any kind.  Get a squad of young, keen  fit, healthy, sober, sane, athletic, ambitious players who can play as a team and get it together for the START of the season  not Christmas, not Easter not the season after next.

Yes,yes,yes......100%

[Ads]

Bunn

Richards
Elmo
Hutton
Elphick
Taylor

Landsbury
BB
Hourihane
Adomah
Whelan
Jedinak

Hogan
Kodjia


All players that I would like gone in the summer. How much money spent in fees and wages in the past 3 years (Hutton and Richards fees or sign up cost apart). How much have they contributed this season. How many would you actually want anywhere near your squad?

This is the problem. Old, slow, past their usefulness, generally poor and on monumental wages.

[VinnieChase84]

Bunn

Richards
Elmo
Hutton
Elphick
Taylor

Landsbury
BB
Hourihane
Adomah
Whelan
Jedinak

Hogan
Kodjia


All players that I would like gone in the summer. How much money spent in fees and wages in the past 3 years (Hutton and Richards fees or sign up cost apart). How much have they contributed this season. How many would you actually want anywhere near your squad?

This is the problem. Old, slow, past their usefulness, generally poor and on monumental wages.

All of those will leave

[hilts_coolerking]

All of those will leave

I'd like all of those gone too but I just can't see 14 players leaving and 14 new ones coming in.  That's an astronomical amount of work to do.

[Lastfootstamper]

All of those will leave

I'd like all of those gone too but I just can't see 14 players leaving and 14 new ones coming in.  That's an astronomical amount of work to do.

Until it's done, we won't improve.

[Clark W Griswold]

I'd agree on most but I'm definitely unsure regarding Richards, I think he's still got a big part to play.

[pooligan]

After Smith coming out with "At least we are always guaranteed to score" remark we have failed to score at the mighty Wigan,Reading and Brentford .So much for attacking football .If we continue playing like we have since December i am more worried about those below us rather than above

[paul_e]

We do have a better left back in the U23s, but he's on loan at Port Vale.

Hause isn't a great left back but he at least looked capable of defending that side of the pitch, he was up against their best player (in my opinion) and did a decent job of stopping Watkins from creating anything. Hutton was a much bigger problem as he kept leaving far too much space for Benrahma.

In midfield we're just too slow and don't show for the ball enough, Whelan finds a spot and stands it, Hourihane finds an opponent and stands behind them so our players look up and have McGinn or Hoof as their options and the former often has a couple of players with him.

[Ketzster]

What happens if you give Smith the beginning of next season, and he loses say two players to injury? We know what happens now if that happens and you can’t afford for it to happen again. Smith has shown he is totally incapable of managing it. Surely if any other manager had been in the position where the team was playing like we have, certainly since Preston away, and certainly since the absolute disgrace at Wigan, they’d have changed the formation and tried something different? That’s why I don’t think Dean Smith is up to the job. He never uses substitutions to change formation, like the appalling triple substitution at Wigan, and it makes me think he is too inflexible to be a success. He literally has one way of playing and if it doesn’t work you’ve had it. If you were a player and you know it’s not working, you’d probably be thinking why does he keep persisting with this. For this reason  it wouldn’t surprise me in the slightest if he’s ‘lost the dressing room’. For all the stick the players get, Smith needs to take a fair amount too for the decisions he’s made. Not once has he tried 4-4-2 with Davis for example so the ball might stay up front longer etc. It doesn’t matter who we’ve played, home or away, against better teams or struggling, he sets us up the same. And the better managers don’t do that.

When we were getting battered in the relegation season at least we were playing Man Utd, Liverpool etc. Dean Smith has overseen us getting battered by Wigan, Hull for the first half at home, Swansea in the cup, Sheffield Utd at home for 82 mins. They were new low level showings and that’s in amongst the other dross that’s been served up in the other 9 or so games since the Albion

Yes some players need to go, or they will be out of contract in the summer, but the first thing I would do is change the manager

You would change the manager after less than 4 months?

When Smith has his own players, losing 2 (only Grealish has changed anything) will not matter.

Losing Grealish is a massive loss to any Championship side.  It is noteworthy that last season, the team's performances only picked up once Grealish returned from injury.  It is not an exclusive problem to just Smith, Bruce was exactly the same.

Yes I would. He has got to show something and for two and a half months, generally against poor opposition, he’s shown that he doesn’t have it. You can’t just say it will be better when he’s got his own players. Good managers adapt, and he isn’t. And like I say, what if he gets his own players in the summer and two of them get injured? He’s shown he can’t cope with that happening. Yes players get injured but performances shouldn’t drop to the levels they did at Wigan for example. What’s the point of writing off another season by giving him until October? Villa always do that, we are reactive rather than proactive and it’s always too late. It’s only worth giving a manager time if you’ve got the right person, and in my opinion DS isn’t the right person.

And the transfer window was appalling. Kalinic is worse than Nyland, Hause is appalling. He played centre back at Wigan for half an hour and it was the same as last night so it makes no difference whether he’s centre back or left back, and Tom Carroll at Reading wasn’t much better. So in reality we signed one player in January. Judging by the first three mentioned I wouldn’t want to see Smith build a side of his own players.

And no I wasn’t a massive Bruce fan. I wanted him gone after Barnsley at home in early 2017

[garyshawsknee]

Going back to a great point Brassneck made, it does seem very similar to when Sir Brian took over from BFR. After an initial good start the team started to struggle and hit a wall as he was left with an aging squad who didn't fit in with the system he wanted to play, after a massive clear out in the summer, the squad was re-born and was unrecognisable from the previous regime.  This needs to happen in the summer and surely will, DS can only then be judged once his own signings have settled in. Now our season is over, its a shame we let some of the youth go out as they could have got some minutes in the meaningless fixtures that remain. 

[Clark W Griswold]

Going back to a great point Brassneck made, it does seem very similar to when Sir Brian took over from BFR. After an initial good start the team started to struggle and hit a wall as he was left with an aging squad who didn't fit in with the system he wanted to play, after a massive clear out in the summer, the squad was re-born and was unrecognisable from the previous regime.  This needs to happen in the summer and surely will, DS can only then be judged once his own signings have settled in. Now our season is over, its a shame we let some of the youth go out as they could have got some minutes in the meaningless fixtures that remain.

Ok, and maybe Grealish will be the returning Yorke but who's going to be the Southgate, Savo and Draper?

[garyshawsknee]

Going back to a great point Brassneck made, it does seem very similar to when Sir Brian took over from BFR. After an initial good start the team started to struggle and hit a wall as he was left with an aging squad who didn't fit in with the system he wanted to play, after a massive clear out in the summer, the squad was re-born and was unrecognisable from the previous regime.  This needs to happen in the summer and surely will, DS can only then be judged once his own signings have settled in. Now our season is over, its a shame we let some of the youth go out as they could have got some minutes in the meaningless fixtures that remain.

Ok, and maybe Grealish will be the returning Yorke but who's going to be the Southgate, Savo and Draper?

Not sure, Mings could be Southgate, there must be a Draper out there in the lower leagues and a Savo abroad. I guess our DoF is on the case, bloody hope he is.

[Clark W Griswold]

Yeah I was just reminiscing with that. You do know that we wouldn't have Man Utd to beat 3-1 on the opening day though, I think they have enough points in the bag this season.

Seriously though, you would hope that they are all working damn hard to find equivalent type signings for next season that can hit the ground running. Other clubs seem to be able to do it but our success rate in the transfer market post O Neill is pretty shocking really, hence the position we find ourselves in.

[garyshawsknee]

You're right Clark, our recent success rate in the transfer market must be at a low not seen since the mid 80s !!

[paul_e]

What happens if you give Smith the beginning of next season, and he loses say two players to injury? We know what happens now if that happens and you can’t afford for it to happen again. Smith has shown he is totally incapable of managing it. Surely if any other manager had been in the position where the team was playing like we have, certainly since Preston away, and certainly since the absolute disgrace at Wigan, they’d have changed the formation and tried something different? That’s why I don’t think Dean Smith is up to the job. He never uses substitutions to change formation, like the appalling triple substitution at Wigan, and it makes me think he is too inflexible to be a success. He literally has one way of playing and if it doesn’t work you’ve had it. If you were a player and you know it’s not working, you’d probably be thinking why does he keep persisting with this. For this reason  it wouldn’t surprise me in the slightest if he’s ‘lost the dressing room’. For all the stick the players get, Smith needs to take a fair amount too for the decisions he’s made. Not once has he tried 4-4-2 with Davis for example so the ball might stay up front longer etc. It doesn’t matter who we’ve played, home or away, against better teams or struggling, he sets us up the same. And the better managers don’t do that.

When we were getting battered in the relegation season at least we were playing Man Utd, Liverpool etc. Dean Smith has overseen us getting battered by Wigan, Hull for the first half at home, Swansea in the cup, Sheffield Utd at home for 82 mins. They were new low level showings and that’s in amongst the other dross that’s been served up in the other 9 or so games since the Albion

Yes some players need to go, or they will be out of contract in the summer, but the first thing I would do is change the manager

You would change the manager after less than 4 months?

When Smith has his own players, losing 2 (only Grealish has changed anything) will not matter.

Losing Grealish is a massive loss to any Championship side.  It is noteworthy that last season, the team's performances only picked up once Grealish returned from injury.  It is not an exclusive problem to just Smith, Bruce was exactly the same.

Yes I would. He has got to show something and for two and a half months, generally against poor opposition, he’s shown that he doesn’t have it. You can’t just say it will be better when he’s got his own players. Good managers adapt, and he isn’t. And like I say, what if he gets his own players in the summer and two of them get injured? He’s shown he can’t cope with that happening. Yes players get injured but performances shouldn’t drop to the levels they did at Wigan for example. What’s the point of writing off another season by giving him until October? Villa always do that, we are reactive rather than proactive and it’s always too late. It’s only worth giving a manager time if you’ve got the right person, and in my opinion DS isn’t the right person.

And the transfer window was appalling. Kalinic is worse than Nyland, Hause is appalling. He played centre back at Wigan for half an hour and it was the same as last night so it makes no difference whether he’s centre back or left back, and Tom Carroll at Reading wasn’t much better. So in reality we signed one player in January. Judging by the first three mentioned I wouldn’t want to see Smith build a side of his own players.

And no I wasn’t a massive Bruce fan. I wanted him gone after Barnsley at home in early 2017

Sorry, the bold bit is awful logic. The current squad has about 4-5 players who can make us work as a Smith team. Losing 2 of them is big blow. If he signs players, works with others in training and gets us to the point where we have 15 players he's happy with (which is plausible over the summer) then losing 2 of them is much less of a blow to the overall team so the impact won't be so profound.


A month or 2 back I suggested that the job that Smith inherited was very similar to the one Bruce did, but with fewer defenders and slightly better attackers I stand by that. If Bruce was afforded a 2nd season then Smith deserves the same.