Dean Smith - Confirmed

[john e]

Every team has players who are not good enough for what the manager wants
you can carry one or two and get by

but when you have Elmo, Whelan, BB, Houraine, Taylor, Lansbury, Hogan most of them playing regularly you’ve got no chance of retaining the ball or dominating the midfield area without Grealish

btw notice the thing they all have in common

[Ad@m]

Every team has players who are not good enough for what the manager wants
you can carry one or two and get by

but when you have Elmo, Whelan, BB, Houraine, Taylor, Lansbury, Hogan most of them playing regularly you’ve got no chance of retaining the ball or dominating the midfield area without Grealish

btw notice the thing they all have in common

Come off it john e - only Hourihane and Elmo are regulars in that lot. Whelan's only in the team because Grealish is injured and the others are squad players.

There isn't half some melodramatic shit on here since yesterday's result. We've just lost our first game in two months, despite going through what everyone considers to be about as tough a run as we could have, with a new manager, using someone else's imbalanced squad.

And the loss was against top of the league who looked a class apart from every other team we've seen at Villa Park.

We're seriously short of perspective at the moment. Bruce was quite rightly panned for saying that a loss induced hysteria amongst the fans - the reaction of the last 18 hours isn't exactly disproving that.

[SheffieldVillain]

Every team has players who are not good enough for what the manager wants
you can carry one or two and get by

but when you have Elmo, Whelan, BB, Houraine, Taylor, Lansbury, Hogan most of them playing regularly you’ve got no chance of retaining the ball or dominating the midfield area without Grealish

btw notice the thing they all have in common

Come off it john e - only Hourihane and Elmo are regulars in that lot. Whelan's only in the team because Grealish is injured and the others are squad players.

There isn't half some melodramatic shit on here since yesterday's result. We've just lost our first game in two months, despite going through what everyone considers to be about as tough a run as we could have, with a new manager, using someone else's imbalanced squad.

And the loss was against top of the league who looked a class apart from every other team we've seen at Villa Park.

We're seriously short of perspective at the moment. Bruce was quite rightly panned for saying that a loss induced hysteria amongst the fans - the reaction of the last 18 hours isn't exactly disproving that.

Yesterday the midfield, which is what John was talking about, was made up of 2 of 3 of those above plus BB as sub. The sub striker option is Hogan. Is it really 'melodramatic shit' to say we can and should bring in players who will improve on Whelan, Hourihane, BB and Hogan? Or for that matter Taylor and Lansbury. They clearly aren't good enough for what the manager wants. (I've given AEH a pass for the moment as I don't think the RB spot is a priority).

[mr underhill]

Elmo's awful at right back and gave away three points! Bree would be better in there.We actually need both a LB and a RB.

[Ads]

Elphick will probably start for us against QPR so you'll hope Bree may go to right back.

[Ad@m]

Elmo's awful at right back and gave away three points! Bree would be better in there.We actually need both a LB and a RB.

Indeed. He cost us two points against Stoke as well.

Hopefully Bruce will get the Wednesday gig and will come in to take him off our hands.

[Ads]

Bruce is doing it the wrong way at Wednesday. They're already FFP embargoed.

[villa `cross the mersey]

I see Smith has had a bit of criticism for picking up on the Leeds players/fans celebrations after their winner - I would be interested to ask him what his reaction was at Hillsborough when BFR's team came from 0-2 down to win 3-2
In all my years supporting Villa that was one of the most memorable away days - if Smith really is a big fan he would surely recall that day

[Clampy]

Elmo has rarely let us down since he's been here so I'm not going to get on his back too much. I don't think the defence as a whole covered themselves in too much glory against Leeds.

[Richard]

One thing I'm sure Smith will do is change the age dynamic of the team - 6 players yesterday aged 29 or over is about 3 too many. And it shows in the closing stages of games.

[ChicagoLion]

Elmo has rarely let us down since he's been here so I'm not going to get on his back too much. I don't think the defence as a whole covered themselves in too much glory against Leeds.

I agree he has been a steady if not spectacular player.
Just a little concerned that he has hit that point of noticible decline
It happens to all players over 30 at some point, see Hutton and Whelan.

[Risso]

Elmo has rarely let us down since he's been here so I'm not going to get on his back too much. I don't think the defence as a whole covered themselves in too much glory against Leeds.

I agree he has been a steady if not spectacular player.
Just a little concerned that he has hit that point of noticible decline
It happens to all players over 30 at some point, see Hutton and Whelan.

The defence is just all wrong, as we all know.  All of our decent teams in recentish years have been built on a good defence, and that really must be Smith's priority in January.

[VinnieChase84]

Ball playing centre halves and a bit of pace in the full back roles would make us a force

[AndyB6]

We need to do some serious work on our defensive shape.
Other teams seem to be able to thread the ball from their central defenders / deep lying midfielder straight up the middle of the pitch to their central striker when playing us.
Our wingers / wide midfielders do very little to protect the full backs.
Yesterday in the second half Hutton got so narrow he was virtually playing as a third centre back?
Even two simple banks of four when we are not in possession would offer more 'protection' than what we are currently doing.
We are a soft touch.

[stuart445]

How come all you lot can whinge like fuck, yet when I'm miffed it's like Rourkes Drift in the defence of the subject.

Yes Smith is one of us, so in using local, straight to the point language what we are done used to in these parts, its fair to say Smith has been shite the past two games.

Strange isn't it, also whenever Grealish has a bad game the fans go mad at him etc.. But with Hogan those fans will roll out a list of excuses.

The excuses since he got here have been the system was wrong he needs Dean Smiths system to get the best out of him, well he has Dean Smiths system and he's putting in the exact same performances as he was under Bruce.