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Author Topic: Dean Smith - Confirmed  (Read 1522393 times)

Offline ChicagoLion

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Re: Dean Smith - Confirmed
« Reply #5355 on: December 15, 2019, 01:54:44 PM »
On the defence point, I think ¾ of it is OK, ie the central pairing and Guilbert, and Heaton is fine.  But the midfield in front of it is the problem.  There's no settled three, and they provide no protection at all.  The make up of it changes every week, as Smith lurches between a combination of Nakamba, Luiz, McGinn and Hourihane.  McGinn has probably been the worst of the lot in recent games, but is the only guaranteed starter.  In addition, neither El Ghazi or Trezeguet provide any protection down the right.  In short I just don't think the formation is working, but Smith is welded to it like a limpet to a rock.
Agree, the formation is not working and it’s apparent that the players are not suited to it.
I would rather build on the back 4 than try and go to 3 5 2 because this would just bring in even more confusion.
We need to build more protection defensively and get our best players into the game.
4 3 3 is not doing it.

Offline Villafirst

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Re: Dean Smith - Confirmed
« Reply #5356 on: December 15, 2019, 02:47:03 PM »
I find the DS post-match interviews all sounding the same lately. Players making silly mistakes and gIving the ball away cheaply. There doesn't seem to be a Plan B. 4 points from the last 24 is relegation form.

Online Toronto Villa

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Re: Dean Smith - Confirmed
« Reply #5357 on: December 15, 2019, 02:47:56 PM »
I find the DS post-match interviews all sounding the same lately. Players making silly mistakes and gIving the ball away cheaply. There doesn't seem to be a Plan B. 4 points from the last 24 is relegation form.

It’s always, always the players who are at fault and never him.

Offline David_Nab

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Re: Dean Smith - Confirmed
« Reply #5358 on: December 15, 2019, 03:05:20 PM »
You took off Wesley when it was 1-0, what was the thinking?

"I thought he was a lot better today. John Egan and Jack O'Connell, Basham who I know, I thought we got the ball into him and he made it stick. We won second balls off him and he had a couple of chances. There was one at the start of the second half where I thought he was going to lob the goalkeeper with his left foot, he decided to bring it down instead. He had a chance where he's turned and hit it into the side netting. He just got a whack into his lower back just before that and I thought it was the right time to give Jonathan Kodjia an opportunity.

Kodjia is on the bench as we literally have no one else , despite the positive comments from DS on Kodjia he has no faith at all in him at this level.If we have Davis or another striker Wes would not be playing full 90 minutes

Offline Flin5tone

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Re: Dean Smith - Confirmed
« Reply #5359 on: December 15, 2019, 03:07:51 PM »
I find the DS post-match interviews all sounding the same lately. Players making silly mistakes and gIving the ball away cheaply. There doesn't seem to be a Plan B. 4 points from the last 24 is relegation form.

It's all very Paul Lambert

Online Ian.

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Re: Dean Smith - Confirmed
« Reply #5360 on: December 15, 2019, 03:25:15 PM »
At the start of the season most of us wanted above all to stay up, so the benchmark is 17th in the league. If we’d have taken that before this season kicked off the same theory would have come with a run of games without a win few times in a season, with periods with loss of form. So far we are pretty much in and around that position and pretty much how I expected this season to pan out.

Online john e

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Re: Dean Smith - Confirmed
« Reply #5361 on: December 15, 2019, 03:34:08 PM »
At the start of the season most of us wanted above all to stay up, so the benchmark is 17th in the league. If we’d have taken that before this season kicked off the same theory would have come with a run of games without a win few times in a season, with periods with loss of form. So far we are pretty much in and around that position and pretty much how I expected this season to pan out.

yeah we would have accepted 17th but honestly I was hoping for better than that and still am

maybe I’m being unrealistic but I did think we would be playing better than we are

Online Ian.

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Re: Dean Smith - Confirmed
« Reply #5362 on: December 15, 2019, 03:39:29 PM »
At the start of the season most of us wanted above all to stay up, so the benchmark is 17th in the league. If we’d have taken that before this season kicked off the same theory would have come with a run of games without a win few times in a season, with periods with loss of form. So far we are pretty much in and around that position and pretty much how I expected this season to pan out.

yeah we would have accepted 17th but honestly I was hoping for better than that and still am

maybe I’m being unrealistic but I did think we would be playing better than we are
I’m still hopeful we will. We haven’t turned into a bad team overnight so let’s see what the next few matches bring.

Offline FatSam

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Re: Dean Smith - Confirmed
« Reply #5363 on: December 15, 2019, 04:43:58 PM »
I’m fully behind DS. We already knew from his Brentford days that his teams go through long good then bad runs. I’m wondering whether it’s is a product of being inflexible tactically. His teams get into a groove, either good, in which case he keeps things similar for obvious reasons, or bad, in which case he doesn’t do much to arrest the slump. I’d like to see I’m learn to adapt a bit more.

Online Ian.

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Re: Dean Smith - Confirmed
« Reply #5364 on: December 15, 2019, 04:55:12 PM »
I’m fully behind DS. We already knew from his Brentford days that his teams go through long good then bad runs. I’m wondering whether it’s is a product of being inflexible tactically. His teams get into a groove, either good, in which case he keeps things similar for obvious reasons, or bad, in which case he doesn’t do much to arrest the slump. I’d like to see I’m learn to adapt a bit more.
Or maybe the bad periods are down to a limited squad? We have a pretty good first 11, maybe only 10 as the jury is certainly out on Wes. Past that it certainly showing some of our players are either not quite ready, or up to speed with this league or maybe not good enough.

I’m sure Brentford never had a big squad either.

Online pauliewalnuts

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Re: Dean Smith - Confirmed
« Reply #5365 on: December 15, 2019, 04:59:53 PM »
We have a pretty good first 11, maybe only 10 as the jury is certainly out on Wes.

Pretty good first 10?

Which of are squad are demonstrably good enough for this level? Not potentially, but clearly as demonstrated thus far this season.

Heaton, Mings, Engels, Guilbert, Grealish, McGinn.

That's it in my opinion.

Our options up front - Kodjia, Wesley, Davis - are particularly poor. How many sides would we expect to stay up with those options up front?
« Last Edit: December 15, 2019, 05:02:58 PM by pauliewalnuts »

Online AV82EC

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Re: Dean Smith - Confirmed
« Reply #5366 on: December 15, 2019, 05:06:41 PM »
We have a pretty good first 11, maybe only 10 as the jury is certainly out on Wes.

Pretty good first 10?

Which of are squad are demonstrably good enough for this level? Not potentially, but clearly as demonstrated thus far this season.

Heaton, Mings, Engels, Guilbert, Grealish, McGinn.

That's it in my opinion.

Our options up front - Kodjia, Wesley, Davis - are particularly poor. How many sides would we expect to stay up with those options up front?

Very much agree with this. We’ve got 5 places up for grabs in the team at the moment and no one is really doing much to cement their place other than maybe Targett. Nakamba and Luiz are struggling to adapt and our up front options Wesley, Trez, El Ghazi, Davis, Jota have been woeful.

Online Ian.

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Re: Dean Smith - Confirmed
« Reply #5367 on: December 15, 2019, 05:35:00 PM »
We have a pretty good first 11, maybe only 10 as the jury is certainly out on Wes.

Pretty good first 10?

Which of are squad are demonstrably good enough for this level? Not potentially, but clearly as demonstrated thus far this season.

Heaton, Mings, Engels, Guilbert, Grealish, McGinn.

That's it in my opinion.

Our options up front - Kodjia, Wesley, Davis - are particularly poor. How many sides would we expect to stay up with those options up front?
We’ve had some very good performances with the starting 11 but unfortunately we have not got the results we may have deserved which is why I still have hope. I agree we’re barely good enough to stay up, hopefully just about, but I don’t think is down to Smith’s abilities.

What I’m trying say is before we kicked off this season we hoped to finish above 18th, and if we did just about do that we knew it was going to be a very rough ride before the season started. So what has changed now that is happening?

I do hope we can strengthen in January, we certainly can do with it.

Offline Three Spires Villa

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Re: Dean Smith - Confirmed
« Reply #5368 on: December 15, 2019, 07:31:26 PM »
The football is not great, Dean needs to change things & he doesn’t. We have played well & lost, played badly & lost. I just hope we stop up.

Offline Steve67

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Re: Dean Smith - Confirmed
« Reply #5369 on: December 15, 2019, 09:03:51 PM »
As Paulie has indicated, I don't think Dean has the armoury to change things too much.  The bench isn't great, many players are out of form, Dean is not altering the way we play to fit the match.  Not good signs. We cannot afford to sign the up and comings in January unless the CEO has accepted that we might go down and we put things in place for a quick return.  Begs another question:  how about we yo-yo for a couple of years until we find out feet?

 


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