Dean Smith - Confirmed

[ChicagoLion]

You can change a game keeping the same formation, invert the wingers, keep them higher and wider than we do, be braver pushing defenders into MF when in possession. All of which is easier than changing formation in a game

But we don’t do any of that.

Yes we do. Wingers swapped sides in Wolves, Sheffield and Leeds games, if we did tonight I didn’t notice.

they swapped sides at times ,so what ?

You said we don’t do it.

why dont you read your post above 

[N'ZMAV]

Why not do something different for a change? Surely all good leaders do this when things aren’t going well?

We have been poor for 8 or so games. The three wingers have consistently been inconsistent and are out of form. Spurs are playing badly and have been turned over in the week. Their CH’s are either out of form, average or both. Therefore why not play Davis up front with Ollie and probably Bertie and go long? Our three midfielders don’t have the ability to break Spurs down by passing through them. But no we do the same thing that hasn’t worked before and are surprised by the conclusion. Poor, poor tactics and lack of flexibility. Some players are undroppable and it shows.

Perhaps he doesn't trust the players.  Which is very daming considering they were bought on his watch

blame Suso

[aj2k77]

I'm concerned about Smith at the moment.
He has a good team, but that's it - should he be getting more out of the fringe players? or are they fringe players for a reason?

but one thing is for sure - you can't get far with 1 star player, a decent defence and a striker who get's some, but not loads of goals but hardly any help.

The owners are really going to have to pump in another £250mil at some point - we need another 10 better players, that may seem a lot of players - but we're starting to see that the likes of Luiz, McGinnand Traore are only really that useful when on top form - which, isn't often enough.

10 players? That's a bit extreme dont you think for a midtable side?

Left back to replace Taylor in the squad.
Centre Mid who is mobile and physical to replace Luiz in the side.
Wide Right to replace Traore in the side.
Wide Left so we can move Grealish inside.
Striker to replace Davis in the squad.

The weak links of Luiz, Traore and Trez/El Ghazi moved down to squad players and you'd see a huge difference in this side.

[Bobby Boy]

Dean has done a fine job for us without question but his tactical rigidity and like-for-like substitutions seem to show a lack of imagination and tactical nous that you need to be a really top manager.

If you look at Leicester Brendan Rodgers is constantly tweaking styles and formations to get the best out of his teams. They have been without a number of their star players for chunks of this season and have scarcely missed a beat.

Seeing the line up and formation yesterday was dispiriting. Even without Grealish or particularly without Grealish we need a bit of tactical imagination that we seem to be lacking.

[ChicagoLion]

I'm concerned about Smith at the moment.
He has a good team, but that's it - should he be getting more out of the fringe players? or are they fringe players for a reason?

but one thing is for sure - you can't get far with 1 star player, a decent defence and a striker who get's some, but not loads of goals but hardly any help.

The owners are really going to have to pump in another £250mil at some point - we need another 10 better players, that may seem a lot of players - but we're starting to see that the likes of Luiz, McGinnand Traore are only really that useful when on top form - which, isn't often enough.

10 players? That's a bit extreme dont you think for a midtable side?

Left back to replace Taylor in the squad.
Centre Mid who is mobile and physical to replace Luiz in the side.
Wide Right to replace Traore in the side.
Wide Left so we can move Grealish inside.
Striker to replace Davis in the squad.

The weak links of Luiz, Traore and Trez/El Ghazi moved down to squad players and you'd see a huge difference in this side.

I think thats about it, Luiz has shown that he can be good enough.
Bringing in 5 top players in one window is a big ask, so you have to hope that we have a couple coming through and get at least 2 first team players in the summer.

[West Derby Villan]

Our best player (one of the very best anywhere) is out. The player signed to help make a difference is out of form after his injury.

With those two in and firing, we're a completely different team. Our movement, ball retention and creativity are wanting at the moment and it puts pressure on others.

We're not on the best run but it's not about the quality of the manager, it's about the quality of the players we (don't) have.

Traore has gone off the boil. Trez works hard and whilst it works when there is creativity elsewhere in the side, it makes us look weaker when there isn't. AEG just isn't consistent enough yet.

Fully agree, every team has a dip during the season and should not be totally unexpected in this particularly strange season.

[N'ZMAV]

I'm concerned about Smith at the moment.
He has a good team, but that's it - should he be getting more out of the fringe players? or are they fringe players for a reason?

but one thing is for sure - you can't get far with 1 star player, a decent defence and a striker who get's some, but not loads of goals but hardly any help.

The owners are really going to have to pump in another £250mil at some point - we need another 10 better players, that may seem a lot of players - but we're starting to see that the likes of Luiz, McGinnand Traore are only really that useful when on top form - which, isn't often enough.

10 players? That's a bit extreme dont you think for a midtable side?

Left back to replace Taylor in the squad.
Centre Mid who is mobile and physical to replace Luiz in the side.
Wide Right to replace Traore in the side.
Wide Left so we can move Grealish inside.
Striker to replace Davis in the squad.

The weak links of Luiz, Traore and Trez/El Ghazi moved down to squad players and you'd see a huge difference in this side.

that's 5 additions before we've really got rid of some more of the garbage.

[brontebilly]

Our best player (one of the very best anywhere) is out. The player signed to help make a difference is out of form after his injury.

With those two in and firing, we're a completely different team. Our movement, ball retention and creativity are wanting at the moment and it puts pressure on others.

We're not on the best run but it's not about the quality of the manager, it's about the quality of the players we (don't) have.

Traore has gone off the boil. Trez works hard and whilst it works when there is creativity elsewhere in the side, it makes us look weaker when there isn't. AEG just isn't consistent enough yet.

Fully agree, every team has a dip during the season and should not be totally unexpected in this particularly strange season.

This isn't a dip though. We are playing some of the most turgid football seen since the days of Alex McLeish. Smith seems clueless as to what to do when Grealish is unavailable, that's going back to the day he joined the club not any recent development. In recent games, we have had Trez in the Grealish sized hole on our left flank with predictable results. Surely yesterday was the ideal day for tearing up the tactical script against a very vulnerable Spurs team. Not the same 433 rubbish with two horribly out of form wingers.

[eamonn]

10 new top players is not going to happen so stop being selfish.

[Clampy]

It needs to be a steady job, adding players here and there when they become available. It was never going to happen overnight, especially after surving relegation by a whisker. It'll take time but I personally think this season, despite the bumps in the road which were inevitable, has been really promising. It's how we kick on next season which will be the test.

[Drummond]

Our best player (one of the very best anywhere) is out. The player signed to help make a difference is out of form after his injury.

With those two in and firing, we're a completely different team. Our movement, ball retention and creativity are wanting at the moment and it puts pressure on others.

We're not on the best run but it's not about the quality of the manager, it's about the quality of the players we (don't) have.

Traore has gone off the boil. Trez works hard and whilst it works when there is creativity elsewhere in the side, it makes us look weaker when there isn't. AEG just isn't consistent enough yet.

Fully agree, every team has a dip during the season and should not be totally unexpected in this particularly strange season.

This isn't a dip though. We are playing some of the most turgid football seen since the days of Alex McLeish. Smith seems clueless as to what to do when Grealish is unavailable, that's going back to the day he joined the club not any recent development. In recent games, we have had Trez in the Grealish sized hole on our left flank with predictable results. Surely yesterday was the ideal day for tearing up the tactical script against a very vulnerable Spurs team. Not the same 433 rubbish with two horribly out of form wingers.

Any team suffers when a world-class player isn't available, unless they have other world-class players to replace them; that's not the fault of the manager it's just a plain and simple fact.

Yes, you can make adjustments to cope, but in reality that again comes down to the quality of the other players available to you. Barkley would have been seen as someone to add quality, and he did for a while. Other than that, we're short in that area and will no doubt be looking for additional resources.

And tearing up the tactical script and going for what? If you change it massively, you'll end up confusing the issue.

Long and short of it is that we're still improving. We're inconsistent but we are way better than we were. We will come back into form again, we'll improve again too.

So far Smith got us promoted a year early. Then he kept us up. This season we're safe with a dozen games to go and the very definition of a mid-table team. Next season we should be aiming for top 8, though that means overhauling a bunch of teams who have spent considerably more than we have, and had plenty of time to build.

[N'ZMAV]

10 new top players is not going to happen so stop being selfish.

[N'ZMAV]

Football is totally selfish - we all want our own team to have the best players and to win every game.

[fredm]

Dean has done a fine job for us without question but his tactical rigidity and like-for-like substitutions seem to show a lack of imagination and tactical nous that you need to be a really top manager.

If you look at Leicester Brendan Rodgers is constantly tweaking styles and formations to get the best out of his teams. They have been without a number of their star players for chunks of this season and have scarcely missed a beat.

Seeing the line up and formation yesterday was dispiriting. Even without Grealish or particularly without Grealish we need a bit of tactical imagination that we seem to be lacking.

Nail and head here.  Look at the injuries Leicester have had this season (were without Barnes and Maddison yesterday) yet Rodgers has changed the shape/formation when different players have come in and they play as if it is no different every week. I would say that our squad is not that far off Leicesters for quality so it just needs more tactical awareness both on and off the pitch.  A couple of top class additions this summer and we would be level in quality with them.

[LeeB]

Dean has done a fine job for us without question but his tactical rigidity and like-for-like substitutions seem to show a lack of imagination and tactical nous that you need to be a really top manager.

If you look at Leicester Brendan Rodgers is constantly tweaking styles and formations to get the best out of his teams. They have been without a number of their star players for chunks of this season and have scarcely missed a beat.

Seeing the line up and formation yesterday was dispiriting. Even without Grealish or particularly without Grealish we need a bit of tactical imagination that we seem to be lacking.

Nail and head here.  Look at the injuries Leicester have had this season (were without Barnes and Maddison yesterday) yet Rodgers has changed the shape/formation when different players have come in and they play as if it is no different every week. I would say that our squad is not that far off Leicesters for quality so it just needs more tactical awareness both on and off the pitch.  A couple of top class additions this summer and we would be level in quality with them.

I would say our squad is miles off Leicester's in terms of quality, which is no surprise given what each club has been doing for the last 5 years.