Dean Smith - Confirmed

[villadelph]

He's piss poor.  A lower league non-entity who should have stayed at Brentford, which looks like it was his level.  This season has been a disaster almost from the first match to the last.

I agree.

It was wishful thinking to think he would succeed. He sold us a bill of goods.. front-foot football, young and hungry players, connecting with the supporters.. blah blah blah.

We have stunk since summer and NOTHING has improved. Defense has been awful with no improvement, we can't manufacture a real goal, getting 2 goals is a miracle, his 4-3-3 is a joke with the players we've got and he's as stubborn as a donkey.

We bought the entire team and we've got nothing out of a single one of em.

[Risso]

A bit dramatic that mate!

He's crap, and has proved it all season.  We're as abject as we were under Lambert, and Smith is playing under the glorious new owners, not somebody who'd chucked the towel in years ago like Lerner.

[themossman]

He appears to have learned absolutely nothing this season, which is the worrying thing when it comes to whether we keep him around after inevitable relegation.

[villadelph]

He appears to have learned absolutely nothing this season, which is the worrying thing when it comes to whether we keep him around after inevitable relegation.

He's the smartest guy in the room.

The 4-3-3 has been an absolute nightmare.. we've sit back and get stuck with a 6-3-1. That's not the attacking football we were promised.

He stuck with Wesley, the most uninspiring and ineffective centre forward I've ever seen, for FAR too long.

He learns nothing from defeat and presses on forcing a square peg into a round hole.

[PaulWinch again]

I wouldn’t write off Wesley he’s been playing in this team.

[villadelph]

I wouldn’t write off Wesley he’s been playing in this team.

He can't trap a ball.. our record signing.

[PaulWinch again]

He played for 6 months, and has just played his best before getting crocked. I’m sure others had written off Douglas too.

[villadelph]

He played for 6 months, and has just played his best before getting crocked. I’m sure others had written off Douglas too.

I know its not his thread.. but what do you see in Wesley?

He can't take on defenders or dribble very well, he isn't a ticky tacky build up player, KD is a better hold-up forward, he genuinely has a difficult time controlling an incoming pass and we were the last team in the league to score a headed goal.

He cost us a small fortune, respective to our financial state, and he produced absolutely nothing.

He was a non-factor in 95% of the matches he played in.

[brian green]

I lean towards Martin (Risso)'s assessment of Dean Smith but I have a real nagging doubt that he has had his hands tied by the likes of Suso, Pitarch and Purslow.  The transformation of his approach to the game with us to what is used to be with Brentford it is like you are comparing the performances of two different people.  If it is the backroom staff who are fucking up the aquisition of competent players for sane money, it is Smith's fault for not pushing back hard enough.

[pauliewalnuts]

I lean towards Martin (Risso)'s assessment of Dean Smith but I have a real nagging doubt that he has had his hands tied by the likes of Suso, Pitarch and Purslow.  The transformation of his approach to the game with us to what is used to be with Brentford it is like you are comparing the performances of two different people.  If it is the backroom staff who are fucking up the aquisition of competent players for sane money, it is Smith's fault for not pushing back hard enough.

I can think of plenty of games where we burned points directly as a result of poor game management from Smith.

[PaulWinch again]

There’s an element of the tools at his disposal. But the overriding problem is his management of those players. He makes the same mistakes all the time and never appears to learn.

[themossman]

I agree to an extent but wasn’t the issue at Brentford that his lack of adaptability made them a very streaky team?

It’s not a trait that translates well in the premier league where flexibility of thought and game management are so much more important.

He deserves credit of course for doing what we should have already been doing in the championship and big manning teams with attacking football but now I think he’s a one trick pony and peter principle victim. He just looks so bad compared with almost every other manager he’s up against in this league.

[hilts_coolerking]

We all accepted that he had no PL experience to draw on but 31 games later he genuinely doesn't appear to have learned anything.  It's not just that he doesn't know how to solve our problems, it's that he doesn't seem to recognise what some of those problems are.  That he's stuck steadfastly to a tactic that has been proven time after time not to work reflects badly on him, as does the disparity between what we were given to expect about his style and the reality of it.  As others have said, he's massively out of his depth in the PL and his weaknesses have been revealed.  I expect him to be given the poke immediately after the season ends, regardless of where we finish.  To keep him on would be to miss yet another opportunity.

[pauliewalnuts]

I agree to an extent but wasn’t the issue at Brentford that his lack of adaptability made them a very streaky team?

Well, his Villa team is very streaky. A big, ten month long shit streak, to be precise.

[ASHTONVILLA]

Better performance but another chance blown. Smith out.