Dean Smith - Confirmed

[hilts_coolerking]

4-2-2-2 is the way to go. Four at the back with wing backs bombing forwards (probably means Gilbo or Elmo in for Ezri Pound), two from SJM, Dougvaldo and Marvelous in the middle, Jack playing all over the place, El Ghazi alternating wings (we have loads of subs so no harm him running himself into the ground), and two up front.

Sounds like utter chaos.  I like it.

[Footy-Vill]

I do wonder if Dean Smith is just too intelligent for these players. Maybe he has to be simplifying how his team plays , the messages he's giving the players probably too much for them to understand.

Smith himself gets it and likes to think in approach to football.
How many of the villa players have tactical acumen?

Dam frustrating all round

[ASHTONVILLA]

I do wonder if Dean Smith is just too intelligent for these players. Maybe he has to be simplifying how his team plays , the messages he's giving the players probably too much for them to understand.

Smith himself gets it and likes to think in approach to football.
How many of the villa players have tactical acumen?

Dam frustrating all round

More likely the other way round!  Smith has zero tactical acumen as evidenced by his tactical inflexibility and appalling use of substitutes. Some of the players must be miffed off with it by now.

[Footy-Vill]

I think we'll find Dean Smith is trying to stick to his footballing beliefs and tactics. Rather than swap everyone around and confuse players.
It's the players who have to get on board not Smith chopping and changing to any rash degree.

Yes a certain flexibility is needed. But a defined system and set up is important then the players must play and perform in the system set out by Dean

One such flexible move is to tactically deploy Grealish centrally. Smith I think will try that again. I would be surprised if he hasn't seen that .

[ASHTONVILLA]

I think we'll find Dean Smith is trying to stick to his footballing beliefs and tactics. Rather than swap everyone around and confuse players.
It's the players who have to get on board not Smith chopping and changing to any rash degree.

Yes a certain flexibility is needed. But a defined system and set up is important then the players must play and perform in the system set out by Dean

Unless his football beliefs are to have no possession and camp in our own half punting the odd long ball up to an isolated forward then I see no evidence of this. The football he has served up this season has been garbage and every bit as rubbish as Lambert and Bruce. I wanted Smith as manager but even last season it was apparent he was not good enough, and just relied on having Grealish bail him out. It hasn't worked and he needs to go.

[PaulWinch again]

Dean’s biggest failing appears to be his inability to arrest a slide. That’s in a sequence of games and also within a match.

[Footy-Vill]

I think we'll find Dean Smith is trying to stick to his footballing beliefs and tactics. Rather than swap everyone around and confuse players.
It's the players who have to get on board not Smith chopping and changing to any rash degree.

Yes a certain flexibility is needed. But a defined system and set up is important then the players must play and perform in the system set out by Dean

Unless his football beliefs are to have no possession and camp in our own half punting the odd long ball up to an isolated forward then I see no evidence of this. The football he has served up this season has been garbage and every bit as rubbish as Lambert and Bruce. I wanted Smith as manager but even last season it was apparent he was not good enough, and just relied on having Grealish bail him out. It hasn't worked and he needs to go.

Ok I get you see it very differently.  Still think it's the players ability rather than simply Dean smiths.  We've all heard the way he talks about football and Villa so he doesn't lack any tactical know how or passion . But get how others can see it.

So is there a provisio that if Villa stay up Dean Smith continues?

Have to give him that surely?

[DB]

If we stay up, he needs to be improved upon, just like a lot of the players, which leads me to get rid of Suso first of all.

[PaulWinch again]

We're harder to play against now, I had that feeling before the pause in the season against Southampton and Leicester. I felt we'd become a little too easy to play against.

"Our defensive organisation has improved. Chelsea had to work very hard yesterday to get that victory, we hung in there and we had chances."

Unfortunately Dean you’re ignoring the fact that we’ve sacrificed any semblance of attacking threat.

[PaulWinch again]

Well I’d dispute that we had any great defensive plan in yesterday’s game. We just shoved everyone behind the ball and it wasn’t that hard for Chelsea. No more so than it would be if they were playing a League 1 or 2 side.

[Risso]

Chelsea had 74% possession and 19 shots.  How on earth is that "harder to play against"?  The usual self-delusion and dishonesty that has affected all of our recent managers once the rot sets in.

[PaulWinch again]

Chelsea had 74% possession and 19 shots.  How on earth is that "harder to play against"?  The usual self-delusion and dishonesty that has affected all of our recent managers once the rot sets in.

Yep. There is a different to playing defensively and completely surrendering. The key point for the former is having some control, which we had absolutely zero of yesterday. We just kept hoofing it back to them for wave and wave of attack.

[Mister E]

Can't wait for Newacstle match as that's a different playing field and occasion.

With their pace, I can see the Jawdies embarrassing us, to be honest.

[hilts_coolerking]

Smith can point to Jack getting fouled a lot (and he's right) but I watched the highlights on MOTD last night and most of our best chances, including our goal, Hause's header over the bar, and Jota's shot, all came from free kicks given for fouls on him.

[SoccerHQ]

Watching some interviews this morning with Dean stating that we played well.

The mind boggles.

It's clear in the last few games the narrative has changed and we've changed our mindset to be conservative and harder to break down. I'd hardly say it's an odd thing for a manager deep in a relegation battle to do.

However lucky we were we still kept a clean sheet on Wednesday and didn't concede for an hour yesterday. The problem however is as soon as we concede one we completely fold, was same at Leicester where we kept it tight for 40 minutes but were 3-0 down by 70th minute.

Still too slow to react when other teams change their shape or formation as Chelsea did when they put on Barkley and Pulisic and we did nothing to counter it until we were 2-1 down.