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Author Topic: Dean Smith - Confirmed  (Read 1522385 times)

Offline itmustbe_it is!

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Re: Dean Smith - Confirmed
« Reply #6375 on: February 02, 2020, 09:57:23 PM »
Southampton A , Spurs H and Sheff U home are massive.

5 points ?  Zero from Leicester A and Chelsea H

Then Newcastle A is winnable, before we get Wolves, Man U and Liverpool - 1 point from those 3.

Then the run in is not so daunting , we can pick points up last 4 games - Palace and Arsenal H, Everton A, before all to play off at West Ham on the last day.

All conjecture I know, but like breaking it down into chunks of games. Going to be tight but I think we'll be ok.


Online walsall villain

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Re: Dean Smith - Confirmed
« Reply #6376 on: February 02, 2020, 10:02:40 PM »
We need 4 wins....
Can only see us getting 1 from the 6 away games, perhaps Newcastle.
That leaves 3 from the 7 home games. Perhaps Palace, either Wolves or Sheffield then I’m hoping of one from the 4 we never beat (Spurs, Arsenal, Chelsea or United).
I’m not very confident to be honest. It’s been a dramatic 12 months so perhaps it will all be decided on the last day at West Ham?

Offline RamboandBruno

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Re: Dean Smith - Confirmed
« Reply #6377 on: February 02, 2020, 10:06:50 PM »
How anyone can make confident predictions about us getting/not getting any amount of points I don’t know. We are so infuriatingly inconsistent, as the last two performances have shown.

We are absolutely capable of getting seven points from the next five games, yet at the same time equally capable of only managing two or three.

And that’s equally true of most of the teams in the whole of the bottom half.

Predictions....not confident predictions! 😬 think making predictions on points isn’t much different to most of the conversations on various threads discussing our imminent relegation or otherwise

Oh, I get that. And it would be a boring thread/forum if people couldn’t or didn’t discuss that.

Was just making a more broad point about our inconsistency in terms of both results and, more so, our performances really. The Liverpool game apart, looking at them individually, I genuinely believe we can win any of our remaining fixtures, yet I won’t really be surprised at any of the ones we inevitably lose. We are one of several weird teams like that.

Yea thats fair enough and I think your right, in that there aren’t many games I’ve gone to where I’ve thought we’re defo going to lose, Man City home and away apart. Virtually every games been a bit, could go either way....not good for the nerves. We’ll need 3 or 4 more Leicester (in the cup) performances to see us through

Online ROBBO

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Re: Dean Smith - Confirmed
« Reply #6378 on: February 02, 2020, 10:12:36 PM »
You have more confidence than me after the poor effort in a six pointer game.

Offline Luke8

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Re: Dean Smith - Confirmed
« Reply #6379 on: February 02, 2020, 10:26:34 PM »
You have more confidence than me after the poor effort in a six pointer game.

That’s taking one game in isolation though.

We won a ‘six pointer’ literally the game before yesterday.

Offline RamboandBruno

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Re: Dean Smith - Confirmed
« Reply #6380 on: February 03, 2020, 07:03:45 AM »
You have more confidence than me after the poor effort in a six pointer game.

Not particularly confident, hopeful. Also take it as it comes, it was great beating Watford with a good performance and last minute winner, but once the dust had settled the next day we were still 5th bottom, a couple points of it. In the flip side, whilst Bournemouth is one of the ones we’d target to win, we’ve lost and we’re still out of the bottom 3, so it’s a bit shite but not end of the world. There’s twists and turns and nothing’s a done deal, I think West Ham look likely but they could turn round and beat Man City...unlikely. Likewise we could turn round and beat spurs or southampton

Online Demitri_C

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Re: Dean Smith - Confirmed
« Reply #6381 on: February 03, 2020, 09:13:42 AM »
He needs to improve this piss poor away record and make us more competitive against the better sides. These are two major problems under him. Barring ubited we have zero points against any of the top six.

Smith has one of the most woeful records against ten men for us. Lost against arsenal, bournmouth, watford and only managed a draw at home to west ham.  4 games vs ten men and 1 point. Pathetic when yoh think about it.

Offline Risso

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Re: Dean Smith - Confirmed
« Reply #6382 on: February 03, 2020, 10:16:20 AM »
It's really surprised me, in a bad way, just how bad we've been defensively this year.  I think this is mostly down to the lack of cover from our midfield, which tends to get overrun in most matches.

Offline AsTallAsLions

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Re: Dean Smith - Confirmed
« Reply #6383 on: February 03, 2020, 10:27:30 AM »
It's really surprised me, in a bad way, just how bad we've been defensively this year.  I think this is mostly down to the lack of cover from our midfield, which tends to get overrun in most matches.

That's exactly what it is. As poor as they are sometimes at playing it out from the back, I don't think our back 3 are bad defenders. Even Hause who takes some flack here has very good heading stats, Mings is obviously a pretty dominant centre-half and Konsa........ well, jury's out on Konsa tbh.

But the midfield is the bigger problem for sure - we do not have a box to box type player who can buy us distance and progress when he gets on the ball. We've regressed to having interchangeable anonymous midfielders who do nothing terribly well. A bit like when we had the likes of Westwood, Bacuna and El Ahmadi playing together in midfield. It was very hard to identify what their distinct roles were. Likewise with Luiz and Nakamba, where the prevailing trait seems to be an inability to retain possession or find a teammate with even the simplest of passes. They in turn are exposed by the likes of El Ghazi not doing much work to track back/cover or provide an option for an easy pass when we have the ball. In essence there's a total lack of dynamism across the entire team (with the obvious exception of Grealish who covers a lot of ground), and a real disconnect between the different areas of the pitch.

I've asked a lot of times recently who's coaching our midfield and what sort of drills they're being taken through, because to look at some of our recent performances, you'd be forgiven for assuming there's very little being done there.
« Last Edit: February 03, 2020, 10:29:06 AM by AsTallAsLions »

Online Demitri_C

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Re: Dean Smith - Confirmed
« Reply #6384 on: February 03, 2020, 11:25:50 AM »
It's really surprised me, in a bad way, just how bad we've been defensively this year.  I think this is mostly down to the lack of cover from our midfield, which tends to get overrun in most matches.

Good point mate. I just think luiz and nakamba as cms together doesnt work. I think you can only play one and i think it has ti be nakamba.

Unless he rrverts to two at the back and puts either conor/lansbury/drinkwater with luiz and nakamba

Offline Drummond

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Re: Dean Smith - Confirmed
« Reply #6385 on: February 03, 2020, 11:52:02 AM »
It's really surprised me, in a bad way, just how bad we've been defensively this year.  I think this is mostly down to the lack of cover from our midfield, which tends to get overrun in most matches.

Good point mate. I just think luiz and nakamba as cms together doesnt work. I think you can only play one and i think it has ti be nakamba.

Unless he rrverts to two at the back and puts either conor/lansbury/drinkwater with luiz and nakamba

Didn't work against Leicester did it?

Offline Risso

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Re: Dean Smith - Confirmed
« Reply #6386 on: February 03, 2020, 11:55:34 AM »
It's really surprised me, in a bad way, just how bad we've been defensively this year.  I think this is mostly down to the lack of cover from our midfield, which tends to get overrun in most matches.

Good point mate. I just think luiz and nakamba as cms together doesnt work. I think you can only play one and i think it has ti be nakamba.

Unless he rrverts to two at the back and puts either conor/lansbury/drinkwater with luiz and nakamba

Didn't work against Leicester did it?

The league game against Leicester it certainly didn't! ;)

Offline Drummond

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Re: Dean Smith - Confirmed
« Reply #6387 on: February 03, 2020, 12:06:44 PM »
It's really surprised me, in a bad way, just how bad we've been defensively this year.  I think this is mostly down to the lack of cover from our midfield, which tends to get overrun in most matches.

Good point mate. I just think luiz and nakamba as cms together doesnt work. I think you can only play one and i think it has ti be nakamba.

Unless he rrverts to two at the back and puts either conor/lansbury/drinkwater with luiz and nakamba

Didn't work against Leicester did it?

The league game against Leicester it certainly didn't! ;)

True, in a 4-3-3.... With McGinn, must be his fault. ;)

Offline aj2k77

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Re: Dean Smith - Confirmed
« Reply #6388 on: February 03, 2020, 12:07:04 PM »
It's really surprised me, in a bad way, just how bad we've been defensively this year.  I think this is mostly down to the lack of cover from our midfield, which tends to get overrun in most matches.

Good point mate. I just think luiz and nakamba as cms together doesnt work. I think you can only play one and i think it has ti be nakamba.

Unless he rrverts to two at the back and puts either conor/lansbury/drinkwater with luiz and nakamba

Didn't work against Leicester did it?

Well we've lost more games than anyone else bar Norwich and conceded more goals than anyone else so holding up a cup game as a sign that it works goes in the face of the overwhelming evidence that really it doesn't particularly work, does it?

Offline Drummond

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Re: Dean Smith - Confirmed
« Reply #6389 on: February 03, 2020, 12:10:23 PM »
It's really surprised me, in a bad way, just how bad we've been defensively this year.  I think this is mostly down to the lack of cover from our midfield, which tends to get overrun in most matches.

Good point mate. I just think luiz and nakamba as cms together doesnt work. I think you can only play one and i think it has ti be nakamba.

Unless he rrverts to two at the back and puts either conor/lansbury/drinkwater with luiz and nakamba

Didn't work against Leicester did it?

Well we've lost more games than anyone else bar Norwich and conceded more goals than anyone else so holding up a cup game as a sign that it works goes in the face of the overwhelming evidence that really it doesn't particularly work, does it?

Well bringing up results from matches that they didn't even play together in as a way of proving your point doesn't really hold much water does it?

 


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