Dean Smith - Confirmed

[Clampy]

my unpopular opinion is that I don’t think our recruitment is as bad as many others do

Me either pal.

No, nor do I. Some of them look decent players but horribly lack confidence.

[Rudy Can't Fail]

The remit in summer was to sign players 25 and under

Or to put it another way, 'young and hungry'.  That strategy fucked us before.

Or 'cheap and available'. I think we messed up the midfield (and Wesley to a large extent). If we'd spent another £15M on better midfielders I think we'd be ok but 20/20 hindsight is a wonderful thing.

Kalvin Phillips from Leeds was the player we should have signed.

[Des Little]

See also: Benrahma at Brentford

[Mister E]

my unpopular opinion is that I don’t think our recruitment is as bad as many others do

Me either pal.

No, nor do I. Some of them look decent players but horribly lack confidence.

Agreed.
What this squad has lacked is coaching, game-management and disciplined simple football

[frankmosswasmyuncle]

my unpopular opinion is that I don’t think our recruitment is as bad as many others do

Me either pal.

No, nor do I. Some of them look decent players but horribly lack confidence.

Agreed.
What this squad has lacked is coaching, game-management and disciplined simple football

This.

[edgysatsuma89]

my unpopular opinion is that I don’t think our recruitment is as bad as many others do

Me either pal.

No, nor do I. Some of them look decent players but horribly lack confidence.

Agreed.
What this squad has lacked is coaching, game-management and disciplined simple football

This.

I'm also of the view someone else would get more out of them.

[Luke8]

The remit in summer was to sign players 25 and under

Or to put it another way, 'young and hungry'.  That strategy fucked us before.

Or 'cheap and available'. I think we messed up the midfield (and Wesley to a large extent). If we'd spent another £15M on better midfielders I think we'd be ok but 20/20 hindsight is a wonderful thing.

Kalvin Phillips from Leeds was the player we should have signed.

Would have been a great signing.

However, the problem with both him and Benrahma is that 1) we don’t know if the player wanted to come or club were willing to sell and 2) those two players would have taken up about £50-60 million of our budget and therefore we would have likely started the season with a squad of about 12 players.

[Rudy Can't Fail]

£20m would have closed the deal for Phillips according to reports in West Yorkshire.

[Luke8]

£20m would have closed the deal for Phillips according to reports in West Yorkshire.

I find that very hard to believe.

[chrisw1]

£20m would have closed the deal for Phillips according to reports in West Yorkshire.

I find that very hard to believe.

If that's true I'm absolutely gutted we spunked £20m on Wesley and let him slip through our fingers.

[john e]

my unpopular opinion turned out to be a bit more popular than i was expecting

[Walmley_Villa]

I really want him to succeed but Monday worried me as did Bournemouth away, Watford away, Southampton away. Are they not playing for him, believing in what he is doing? Even a bunch of poor players can fight and battle for results. I just don't see it unfortunately.

Yes, recruitment has been questionable and Suso definitely deserves the bullet if he is the main driver behind it.

[supertom]

My biggest worry is that our last decent Prem results were by the skin of our teeth, and they seem like ages ago now. Likewise, it worries me that our last few games have shown a shocking drop in effort from the players. We've made mistakes, way too many, but there weren't many games up to Nov-Dec where it didn't at least look like we were trying. Now this seems the norm and not the exception. They're not working hard enough. We've seen a distinct difference in the last three League Cup matches to the league games surrounding them. It's not purely tiredness either. Too many raised their game in the cup because it was a cup, with a day out at Wembley in the offing. That old 'every league game now is going to be a cup final' has already been proven bollocks because despite having 8 days to recoup, we were slack against Leicester. Not even registering a decent shot on goal is inexcusable.

If the players can't be bothered, fuck em all off. Get rid of Smith, Terry. Cobble as many of the few grafters we have, pray McGinn is back soon, and then promote 3-4 kids. See if Hutton fancies dusting off his boots. Our league performances are inexcusable. We've seen we can raise our effort levels. Yeah, we can a million miles short on quality against City, but we had the work-rate. Had we matched those levels, and had Nyland in goal and locked Reina in a broom cupboard, we might have picked up a result Monday.

[malckennedy]

Does anyone remember our consistently piss poor performances last season until Grealish returned from injury. These had us sitting nearer relegation than promotion as March 2019 opened and confirmed my initial disappointment with the choice of Smith.

But all Villa fans want our managers to succeed (in spite of what some pundits say) so, like others, I enjoyed the promotion and hoped we’d build on it this year. But if we’re honest, we weren’t really very good for large parts of last season, despite having arguably the best two players in the division in Grealish and McGinn.

[PeterWithesShin]

There is no chance Phillips was leaving Leeds in the summer unless the offer was so stupidly high it was impossible to be turned down. Leeds had no interest in selling hence start the bidding at £30m, Phillips had no interest in leaving. He's their version of Jack, local lad at his club who was always giving it more crack at promotion. If they don't go up this season then he'll be off, same as would have happened with Jack.