Dean Smith - Confirmed

[Risso]

Nakamba had a shocker.  After a couple of games when he looked back to something like his earlier form, he was abysmal today.

[aj2k77]

He's definitely not the man to take us to the next step should we stay up.
Too easy to score against, concede territory too easily, play at a poor intensity too often, allow the opposition too many shots. I think he's   below the required standard in both preperation and in game management.

It's nice that he's a boy done good, Villa fan and all that fuzzy shit but too many times we are very poor. We lose so many games and concede so many goals.

If we stay up and the owners mean business then they shouldn't really be keeping him.

[brian green]

Is it just me or are players these days much more prone to massive form swings?  Fancying it or not fancying it  on the day seems to be the new norm.  Nakamba was unrecognizable as the player last Tuesday night.

[aj2k77]

The players are fannies and don't have it in them to grind things out. If the opposition get on top they disappear in to their shells too often.

[Damo70]

How have we fucked it all up? It's not always as good as we'd like but not one poster on here would have turned down being in a cup final and outside the bottom 3 on the 1st Feb if offered it before the season started.

I would agree with that 100%

[brian green]

I would swap that all day long for mid table Premiership security.

[villa `cross the mersey]

Yes but it doesn’t end now. If we put in more performances like today then it won’t be ok when all is said and done. Losing twice to Bournemouth is really poor whichever way you look at it.

This ...... I remember saying to VCTM jnr after the Bournemouth game at Villa Park " if we can't beat the likes of these teams we are gonna struggle " Not rocket science I know but we should be battling these sides for 90+ mins and not just for 45mins ....Smith says we will be judged on how we do against those sides around us ....well today just wasn't good enough - more performances like that and we will deserve to be relegated

[PeterWithesShin]

I would swap that all day long for mid table Premiership security.

Which wasn't the point. We obviously haven't fucked it all up given where we currently are.

End of season may be a different matter mind.

[Damo70]

I think he’s doing ok too. Play off winners always struggle so this was sort of what I expected.

Play off winners dont spend 150m and be consistently shit most of the season. They can at least do a bit better on the road.

They do spend £150m if they need to bring in 16 players. As for play-off winners not being consistently shit most of their first season up, the facts would suggest differently:
2013-4 - QPR promoted through playoffs, finished 20th - relegated
2014-5 - Norwich promoted through playoffs, finished 19th - relegated
2015-6 - Hull promoted through playoffs, finished 18th - relegated
2016-7 - Huddersfield promoted through playoffs, finished 16th & 4 points from relegation zone
2017-8 - Fulham promoted through playoffs, finished 19th - relegated
2018-9 - Us promoted through playoffs, currently 17th & 1 point from relegation zone

If you look at it as we were the lowest team at the start of the season - the statistically worst team to come up from the Championship, the goal is to move up from that to at minimum 17th. We are in the battle for that. Not saying that we've been great, or mistakes haven't been made or even that if we want to push on to midtable and then top 6 Smith is the man, but at the moment we are doing exactly what history suggests a team in our position is likely to do, in fact slightly better.

I think after a disappointing day like today your post puts things into a reasonable perspective and makes perfect sense. Let's not forget as League Cup and promotion winners under Ron Saunders we finished 16th in our first season after promotion in 1976 and in our first season back in the top flight under SGT in 1989 we finished 17th out of twenty, one point ahead of the relegation places.

[brian green]

I did not say it was the point.  I was expressing a point of view.  To whit cup runs come and go, quality is permanent.

[villa `cross the mersey]

I think he’s doing ok too. Play off winners always struggle so this was sort of what I expected.

Play off winners dont spend 150m and be consistently shit most of the season. They can at least do a bit better on the road.

They do spend £150m if they need to bring in 16 players. As for play-off winners not being consistently shit most of their first season up, the facts would suggest differently:
2013-4 - QPR promoted through playoffs, finished 20th - relegated
2014-5 - Norwich promoted through playoffs, finished 19th - relegated
2015-6 - Hull promoted through playoffs, finished 18th - relegated
2016-7 - Huddersfield promoted through playoffs, finished 16th & 4 points from relegation zone
2017-8 - Fulham promoted through playoffs, finished 19th - relegated
2018-9 - Us promoted through playoffs, currently 17th & 1 point from relegation zone

If you look at it as we were the lowest team at the start of the season - the statistically worst team to come up from the Championship, the goal is to move up from that to at minimum 17th. We are in the battle for that. Not saying that we've been great, or mistakes haven't been made or even that if we want to push on to midtable and then top 6 Smith is the man, but at the moment we are doing exactly what history suggests a team in our position is likely to do, in fact slightly better.

I think after a disappointing day like today your post puts things into a reasonable perspective and makes perfect sense. Let's not forget as League Cup and promotion winners under Ron Saunders we finished 16th in our first season after promotion in 1976 and in our first season back in the top flight under SGT in 1989 we finished 17th out of twenty, one point ahead of the relegation places.

No worries then...Premier League Champions 2025 and Champions of Europe 2026 .....easy eh ? Positive thinking , that's what we all need to do

[pauliewalnuts]

The £150m is a red herring.

We had to spend that money, we were starting from a position of barely having enough players to form a team, let alone a squad. We HAD to spend money to get the numbers up.

If anything, we didn't spend enough, we got the numbers up but I don't think we got the quality up enough.

[PaulWinch again]

The £150m is a red herring.

We had to spend that money, we were starting from a position of barely having enough players to form a team, let alone a squad. We HAD to spend money to get the numbers up.

If anything, we didn't spend enough, we got the numbers up but I don't think we got the quality up enough.

I agree and we didn’t even get the numbers up enough, see striking options.

[brian green]

I seem to be hair splitting tonight, for which I apologise but I would think the amount spent is secondary to how well the money has been spent.

[David_Nab]

Is it just me or are players these days much more prone to massive form swings?  Fancying it or not fancying it  on the day seems to be the new norm.  Nakamba was unrecognizable as the player last Tuesday night.

Billing / Lerma bullied the mf and in general we were out numbered in there , this was a game where you need one of the cb's to push further up to help in MF but all 3 were all over the place.