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Author Topic: Dean Smith - Confirmed  (Read 1522535 times)

Offline TonyD

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Re: Dean Smith - Confirmed
« Reply #6195 on: January 14, 2020, 08:01:01 PM »
Smith is clearly a competent manager; the question is at what level.  Smith had proved himself in the league below so he earned a crack.  A proper chancer, like Sherwood, had no significant history in management and plainly didn't know what he was doing.

Smith may have discovered his limit this season but he certainly isn't a chancer.
The “what level” doesn’t wash with me.  Whether you manage a pub team or a championship team or a PL team  - there are basics that you need to to.  Smith has mostly failed to do the basics this season  - otherwise we wouldn’t be in this mess. 

Online Sexual Ealing

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Re: Dean Smith - Confirmed
« Reply #6196 on: January 14, 2020, 08:04:58 PM »
Smith is clearly a competent manager; the question is at what level.  Smith had proved himself in the league below so he earned a crack.  A proper chancer, like Sherwood, had no significant history in management and plainly didn't know what he was doing.

Smith may have discovered his limit this season but he certainly isn't a chancer.
The “what level” doesn’t wash with me.  Whether you manage a pub team or a championship team or a PL team  - there are basics that you need to to.  Smith has mostly failed to do the basics this season  - otherwise we wouldn’t be in this mess. 

If the concept of differing levels of competition doesn't wash with you I dread to think of the state of your flannel.

Offline old man villa fan

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Re: Dean Smith - Confirmed
« Reply #6197 on: January 14, 2020, 11:38:36 PM »
Smith is clearly a competent manager; the question is at what level.  Smith had proved himself in the league below so he earned a crack.  A proper chancer, like Sherwood, had no significant history in management and plainly didn't know what he was doing.

Smith may have discovered his limit this season but he certainly isn't a chancer.
The “what level” doesn’t wash with me.  Whether you manage a pub team or a championship team or a PL team  - there are basics that you need to to.  Smith has mostly failed to do the basics this season  - otherwise we wouldn’t be in this mess. 

Top managers have failed with good players but it doesn't make them bad managers or not able to manage at the top level. For a manager to move up like Smith has done over the last 15 months with a constantly changing team and hold it together consistently would take some doing. 

Online villabear

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Re: Dean Smith - Confirmed
« Reply #6198 on: January 18, 2020, 06:45:25 AM »
Guardian piece about Dean which doesn’t really tell us much but uses the word catastrophise.



Dean Smith aiming to end Aston Villa’s tendency to ‘catastrophise’
Aston Villa manager hopes experienced signings Danny Drinkwater and Pepe Reina can stiffen struggling team
Paul Doyle

Psychologists say one common symptom of anxiety is a tendency to catastrophise, meaning to expect the worst outcome in every situation. Dean Smith used the same word this week, not for the first time, when discussing the ailments Aston Villa must remedy if they are to clamber out of the Premier League’s relegation zone. Villa’s next three matches, starting with Brighton on Saturday, are against teams also fighting to avoid the drop. Smith’s men cannot afford to approach those games with a sense of impending doom.
Villa have played very well at times. But too often fear has appeared to render them timid and sloppy. “We can catastrophise goals too quickly,” said Smith in December, after the home defeat by Southampton. Last weekend they started promisingly against Manchester City but unravelled so badly after Riyad Mahrez scored in the 18th minute that they were 4-0 down by half-time, on course for a 6-1 defeat. Smith says his team must learn to remain confident no matter what.

“When you concede a goal, you don’t catastrophise it. [Against City] we backed off and did not engage [after falling behind] … That’s just not good enough, it was naivety on our part and we’ve spoken about that at length.”

Opta statistics show that Villa have made more mistakes leading to chances for opponents than any other team in the league this season. Sometimes to dread the worst has been to invite it.
“The players need to stamp it out,” says Smith. “If they’re making individual mistakes, there’s not a lot we can do on the coaching field about it. That comes from confidence sometimes.”
Smith has done more than just talk about the problem. He has taken several steps to try to make his team stronger. For a start, he changed formation, and the switch to a back three yielded encouraging performances and results at Burnley and in the first leg of the Carabao Cup semi-final against Leicester. Then came the relapse against Manchester City.

Merely adjusting the shape would not be enough to make Villa solid and sharp, especially amid an injury crisis. Villa, who awarded Smith a new four-year contract in November, know they must make optimal use of the transfer window if they are to escape trouble.

Their January dealings so far certainly could not be diagnosed as further evidence of catastrophism. On the contrary, the loan hires of Danny Drinkwater and Pepe Reina demonstrate hyper-optimism.
Smith believes those players will inspire with their quality and experience despite their lack of recent playing time. He says criticism of Drinkwater’s debut last weekend was “very harsh” and the midfielder will bring much-needed “bravery and guile”. Smith also expects a big influence from Reina, the former Liverpool goalkeeper who could go straight into the side after joining on loan from Milan, for whom he appeared only once this season.
“He’s got an air about him,” says Smith of Reina. “He knows what he’s about and what he stands for. He certainly won’t accept falls [in performance], that’s for sure. He’s probably what we need in the dressing room at the moment. Our recruitment in the summer was players with potential and [Drinkwater and Reina] can help them fulfil potential by helping them with their experience.”

But Villa minds will not be truly at ease until they can deploy at least one potent striker. Wesley has hardly been a runaway success since arriving in the summer but he has been missed since a season-ending injury earlier this month. Part of Villa’s players’ worries can be attributed, you suspect, to their knowledge that conceding first could be ruinous because they find it so difficult to score.

Similarly, their apparent reluctance to send the ball forward against City – which went against Smith’s declared gameplan and resulted in them regularly being caught overplaying at the back – was likely down to their awareness that they had no one who could hold the ball up front. Anwar El Ghazi has done a fair job filling in but is palpably not a solution.

All of which is why Villa want two new strikers this month, one of whom should have Premier League experience. The other is likely to be the Tanzania international Mbwana Samatta, whom Villa are close to prising from Genk. They will need their business to pay off almost immediately. But at Brighton, pending the availability of new forwards, they will have to cope without a specialist striker, and make sure they do not get spooked if their opponents score first.

Offline ChicagoLion

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Re: Dean Smith - Confirmed
« Reply #6199 on: January 18, 2020, 07:11:48 AM »
Catastrophise , some of the defeats have been traumatic and I am not surprised they have had a phsycological impact.
The problem is that he has played his part in many of them through pisss poor game management.
Now he is trying To deal with the consequences.
« Last Edit: January 18, 2020, 08:39:33 AM by ChicagoLion »

Offline ChicagoLion

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Re: Dean Smith - Confirmed
« Reply #6200 on: January 18, 2020, 07:13:37 AM »
double post
« Last Edit: January 18, 2020, 08:39:11 AM by ChicagoLion »

Offline Ads

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Re: Dean Smith - Confirmed
« Reply #6201 on: January 18, 2020, 07:37:49 AM »
Deano knows Brummies. Or he's been on here and seen the C1 to L5 liquifying.

Online PaulWinch again

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Re: Dean Smith - Confirmed
« Reply #6202 on: January 18, 2020, 11:03:57 AM »
I’m glad he’s aware of this problem. We also need to be better if we get in front. We have a tendency to drop-off and invite pressure too much.

Offline Drummond

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Re: Dean Smith - Confirmed
« Reply #6203 on: January 22, 2020, 09:12:08 AM »
  • Aston Villa have won a Premier League game having been behind at half-time for the first time since September 2013 (3-2 versus Manchester City), ending a run of 51 games without a victory in the competition when trailing at the break
  • Villa have scored two 90th-minute winners in a single Premier League season (Matt Targett v Brighton in October and Tyrone Mings here) for the first time since 1994-95.
  • Villa have scored in nine consecutive home Premier League games for the first time since May 2007-March 2008 (a run of 16).
Nice to have a manager creating good records for once. Some of those stats are appalling.
« Last Edit: January 22, 2020, 10:08:20 AM by Drummond »

Offline AGRIPPA

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Re: Dean Smith - Confirmed
« Reply #6204 on: January 22, 2020, 09:39:17 AM »
Regardless of what he has or hasn’t done right ( or wrong) the bloke is Villa through and through and he will be feeling this.
We as spectators I believe, have no idea how that can feel.
He must be going through purgatory thinking this could be his fault.... can you imagine that..... I would hate it

Offline Jon Crofts

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Re: Dean Smith - Confirmed
« Reply #6205 on: January 23, 2020, 08:49:15 AM »
We are 6th in the form table based on the past 6 games which include the Man City debacle. 4 of those games were without a striker. Maybe, just maybe the corner has been turned and the system Smith wants to play is finally understood. Also in decline is the shots faced numbers. All positive signs atr the moment.

Here's to a scoring debut for Samatta Tuesday night.

Offline Risso

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Re: Dean Smith - Confirmed
« Reply #6206 on: January 23, 2020, 10:59:48 AM »
Beat Bournemouth and I think we can all take a deep breath and relax a little bit.  Not too much, obviously, but that would be huge.

Offline Mellin

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Re: Dean Smith - Confirmed
« Reply #6207 on: January 23, 2020, 11:53:38 AM »
We are 6th in the form table based on the past 6 games which include the Man City debacle. 4 of those games were without a striker. Maybe, just maybe the corner has been turned and the system Smith wants to play is finally understood. Also in decline is the shots faced numbers. All positive signs atr the moment.

Here's to a scoring debut for Samatta Tuesday night.

Watford are fourth despite that loss and would've been second with a win. Puts how big a result it was in to context.

Offline Drummond

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Re: Dean Smith - Confirmed
« Reply #6208 on: January 23, 2020, 11:58:59 AM »
We are 6th in the form table based on the past 6 games which include the Man City debacle. 4 of those games were without a striker. Maybe, just maybe the corner has been turned and the system Smith wants to play is finally understood. Also in decline is the shots faced numbers. All positive signs atr the moment.

Here's to a scoring debut for Samatta Tuesday night.

Watford are fourth despite that loss and would've been second with a win. Puts how big a result it was in to context.

Indeed, a little run would be rather nice!

Offline Jon Crofts

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Re: Dean Smith - Confirmed
« Reply #6209 on: January 23, 2020, 03:08:38 PM »
Beat Bournemouth and I think we can all take a deep breath and relax a little bit.  Not too much, obviously, but that would be huge.

Come on, that's not the Villa way is it.

 


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