Dean Smith - Confirmed

[curiousorange]

My only hope for next season right now is that there is a points total or cut-off game where the coaching staff accept they are in this league come August, and that's when we see some experiments or ruthless decisions taken. Because there's no hint of a reboot or rebuild at the moment. All I see is a shit football team with an overpromoted management team.

[themossman]

Problem with this (his apparent inability to find a way to win) is that in reality teams rarely wipe the slate clean over the summer.

As we’ve seen very clearly a losing mentality gets into the bones of a team and is hard to get rid of.

[rob_bridge]

Problem with this (his apparent inability to find a way to win) is that in reality teams rarely wipe the slate clean over the summer.

As we’ve seen very clearly a losing mentality gets into the bones of a team and is hard to get rid of.

We have had it for nearly 10 years.

[goldenjimi]

If I were the owners I would be getting David Wagner's phone number. He's starting to look out of his depth and won't last the season if this continues.

[curiousorange]

There are so many pie in the sky assumptions fans seem to be making. One major one is that we'll sell an entire squad, bring another one in under the FFP wire, which will play amazing football after six weeks of training together, just because we don't have a dinosaur in charge.

[ChicagoLion]

The squad is not fit for purpose and it is going to take more than a Jan transfer window to sort this out.
I still feel that at some point we have to back a management team to address this, I can not come up with available players from the squad to dramatically change the performances.
So for now I think we have to stick with this Management team.

[oldham_villa]

I think there are two problems at Villa.

1. Its a big club is in the sense that there are a lot of people working there. In my own professional career I've seen superstars from small companies come into a big organisation and fail mainly because they just aren't used to having to continually talk to so many people, explain what they're doing and have their ideas discussed by people.

The same is true in reverse. I've seen superstars from big companies come into small companies and strugggle for the opposite reason. Management is not always that straight forward. Of course many people can turn it on wherever they are but thats not everybody - our problem is we're not identifying the right managers and that's problem number 2

2. In the wider sense Villa is dysfunctional and we've forgotten how to do football. Overseas management always causes issues no matter what structure is left in place. Every successful business I've worked in over the last 30 years whether FTSE 100 or one man band would have the owner/CEO or whatever walking around identifying problems. Just because Villa employ lots of people it doens't mean they're the right people. Often people are more concerned with keeping their job rather than doing well at it. The vacuum caused by an overseas owner lets people off the hook.

This isn't me saying that Smith won't do well (although the players are starting to look like they don't know what they're supposed to be doing) but I think we should stop thinking about fu** another season in the Championship but more what's going to change to get us out of the Championship? So far we've lurched from one thing to another and in all that time we haven't brought many of our youngsters through as a regular have we? I just don't think we have a plan.

I get the impression the management at Villa think like a lot of people -  look how big the ground is, we won the European Cup once, why would a team like Brentford/Hudderfield/Norwich etc even be able to compete with us?

Fantastic post

[Nev]

It was a risk appointing Smith, I prefer clubs to take a chance on up and coming coaches but they can be found out when stepping up to a bigger club with bigger ambitions. It looks increasingly likely here, I was gobsmacked that he did nothing to try and change formation after such poor performances. Perhaps he doesn't know how to....

[brian green]

I hope I am wrong but I can't  see Smith being radical enough in the summer.  The reality is that we need ten good players to come in over the three month break.  That's as good as one decent transfer deal a week.  I cannot see it happening.  I fear there will be more of the Kalinic/Hause/Mings/Carroll/Guilbert fannying about with loans and shirt fillers and not the top to bottom rebuild we are crying out for.  As others have said this feels like the relegation season all over again.

[curiousorange]

We have to stick by one, agreed. But there is not a single hint that Smith should be that one. Not for me, anyway.

[TopDeck113]

One of the things Dean needs to do, perhaps at the end of the season to avoid any more negativity, is to consider the logic of bringing in the novice Terry to do his coaching work experience.  For all his ability as a player, his influence on our defensive set up would appear to be zero.  Our goals against record is woeful.

[passport1]

We've reached a point where this management team cannot win a game, any game. At the very least you would expect some wins. This is unacceptable.

[mike]

I’m stunned at how bad our results are. I get that the squad isn’t great but he is incapable of getting any more out of them than Bruce did, who was absolutely fucking useless and rightly called out for it. I’m not one for sacking people early on, but we took way too long to accept that Lambert wasn’t the answer and we need to be very careful we don’t do the same again.

[Ads]

If I were the owners I would be getting David Wagner's phone number. He's starting to look out of his depth and won't last the season if this continues.

How did Wagnar do in his first season. He took over when they were 19th. Have a guess where they finished.

He's too loyal to the system that these players can't work to and even now with the lack of central options, Whelan and Hourihane shouldn't be anywhere near the side.

[curiousorange]

I never thought I'd say this, but set the team up for a 1-0 smash and grab, stop the rot and get some fucking pride back into the place.