Dean Smith - Confirmed

[CT Villan]

This might be a long shot but with the recent ESL debacle it may convince our owners to splash the cash this summer to ensure we have a place at the table for ESL v2.0.

Dean has rightly earned the chance to try and move us forward over the remaining games this season and the start of the next at a minimum.

[Scott Nielsen]

Jack won't stay if it's baby steps. We need leaps.

I fear you are right and the investment that requires may not be inline with our growth philosophy. We believe we need 3-4 top players to come in. But Everton, West Ham et al will go for it as well so I worry it'll take a lot more than we think to genuinly push for top 6 next season. The second half of this season has been a brutal awakening.

[ez]

Jack won't stay if it's baby steps. We need leaps.

This. It's possible he's got an escape clause in that new contract of his.

[Clampy]

Jack won't stay if it's baby steps. We need leaps.

I fear you are right and the investment that requires may not be inline with our growth philosophy. We believe we need 3-4 top players to come in. But Everton, West Ham et al will go for it as well so I worry it'll take a lot more than we think to genuinly push for top 6 next season. The second half of this season has been a brutal awakening.

I wasn't talking about still making baby steps in 3-4 years time but where we are right now, I don't see a problem with having the likes of Elmo and Taylor on the bench but the end of this season will probably be the right time to move them and maybe a few others on.

[RamboandBruno]

That's been his biggest failing for me this season, his inability to use the squad effectively, and the utterly ridiculous "I've never had to take a player off for exhaustion" bollocks. Perhaps we'd still have Grealish available if he took a slightly less medieval approach to fitness.

Completely agree. He’s refused to change system and stubbornly stuck to the same way of playing. When it works it looks great. But when it doesn’t you simply have to know to implement something else. We have relied of late very unfairly in a defence which has been nothing short of superb all season to keep it down to one goal or clean sheets. And we’ve started to see the cracks in in it with mistakes from Cash, Emi and Mings as they get pushed deeper and deeper. We have to get back to playing on the front foot. But as the weeks have gone by we keep the ball less and less thinking we are still the counter attacking team with Grealish. Without him we have to play a different way and he still persists with a system that assumes he’s still playing.

I think this is a really good summary of what’s been happening over the last couple of months. However, there is one gap in the analysis, and that is who comes in?
I, like a lot of others have been going on about Davis coming in alongside Ollie to change things up, but I’ll admit, it’s grasping at straws a bit. Maybe one of the kids, instead of Traore/El Ghazi? The point is, Smith has spent a lot of money, but it’s relatively small fry to a lot of the teams we’re looking at above us, if you consider their spending when we were languishing in the championship. Despite our spend, we haven’t got the depth at the moment.
People can point to Leeds, but it’s a different set of circumstances. Despite being 3 years in the championship we weren’t really expected to go up when we did because of our start that year under Bruce. We had to pile on loads of players, a few of whom have come good, but lots (Jota, Drinkwater, Samatta, Nakamba, Trez, Engels) simply weren’t/aren’t good enough. Smith needs to show a bit more flexibility but honestly I think we need to just ride it out now till the end of the season, hopefully get another 3 wins starting with tonight, to give us a respectable plus 50 points haul, then ship a few out-El Ghazi, Engels, Nakamba, Barkley, and ship a new CM, wide player and forward in, in the summer.

[SoccerHQ]

Doesn’t our recent drop off in form reflect our historical problems with squad depth?

Without going into a season by season analysis, my recollections over the last 12-15 years are that even when we have had a half decent side it only goes as far as the starting XI.

As soon as loss of form, injuries and suspensions kick in, as they inevitably do, our lack of depth in numbers and quality kills us. All we end up doing is rearranging the deck chairs.

I think this season is no different

Yeah we still seem to be stuck in 80s mentality constantly a bit with regards that, the old winning the league with 13/14 players which is near impossible in modern football.

As Risso pointed out above, DS giving the big 'un at xmas about none of his players ever getting tired dosen't look so good at the moment as fresher teams buzz around us.

We will improve the squad and first 11 of course over the next year but the manager must be interested in actually signing players who can take the place of those currently seen as first choices in our 11 and really push the competition level and motivation up a notch as that's constantly been our downfall over the years, just signing up players who come to make up the numbers and quickly lose motivation on big pay packets.

Not so much on here but elsewhere there seems to be odd mentality we shouldn't sign another decent striker as it might upset Ollie and ruin his England prospects. He's had an excellent debut season but let's not go OTT, you have that mentality when forward is scoring 25-30 goals in a season as likes of Kane and Vardy do, not 12-15.

4 points is all we've taken from being behind in games so it will remain a huge issue for us until we have some decent game changers to come on. You don't finish top 6 with that bad a record.

I can't agree with the bold bit given there's not a single player in the league who currently has 25 goals this season and there's every chance that no one will hit that mark at all this season. You talk about people being stuck in an 80s mentality at the top of your post but the line I highlighted is as out-of-date as anything gets in football. Centre forwards who score fuckloads of goals are dying out in the game, Kane, Lewandowski and Haaland are exceptional strikers but after those 3 it becomes a lot harder to find out and out 9s at the top of the scoring charts.

In England the next 3 after Kane are Salah, Fernandes and Son. In Italy and Spain Ronaldo and Messi top the charts as wide forwards, in France you have Mbappe, Depay, Volland and Ben Yedder who all play wide and deep as often as they play as an out and out centre forward. Germany is the only major league where traditional 9s are still bossing the top scorers list and they have 2 of the 3 best 9s in world football in the league.

On that basis I don't think we should be looking for direct competition or a replacement for Watkins and certainly not as a priority. What we need to find is a player who pushes to start at centre forward, right wing, 10, attacking midfield and maybe even left wing, someone who gives us the ability to change shape during games not just by switching wings but because all 3/4 attacking players are capable of moving into each others space and overloading areas of the pitch. Earlierin the season we were doing that and forcing defenders to make decisions to mark a run or attack the ball, when we stopped doing that is when the bad run started, I want more players that can fit that plan so we can rotate and still do the same thing.

Ah right I got it a bit wrong as someone on radio mentioned Salah had scored 26 already this season so didn't assume a few of them were in the cup competitions.

Son actually has 20 for the season now.

Probably unfair to judge this season given we had so few cup games for different reasons and aren't in europe but going forward we do need probably 3 players in the squad capable of hitting double figures in all competitions.

None of the midfielders or wide attackers are capable aside from Jack if we put him on penalties.

I find it hard to think we'll sign a wide player capable of that this summer tbh, just can't see us going and paying 30-40m for someone with that sort of scoring record and even then the fear is they'll just morph into N'zogbia overnight and be massive waste of money.

I think in the short run getting a Wood type striker in squad would make sense as they just replace Davis and then hopefully DS trusts them far more to actually put them on after 65 minutes and give them starts here and there and so that type should chip in as the season goes on in league and cup.

Chris Wood hat trick as I type. We'd need to improve our corners big time with sort of striker though as ours are woeful.

[danno]

Doesn’t our recent drop off in form reflect our historical problems with squad depth?

Without going into a season by season analysis, my recollections over the last 12-15 years are that even when we have had a half decent side it only goes as far as the starting XI.

As soon as loss of form, injuries and suspensions kick in, as they inevitably do, our lack of depth in numbers and quality kills us. All we end up doing is rearranging the deck chairs.

I think this season is no different

Nail on head.

Injury at right back - Elmo
Injury at left back - Neil Taylor
Injury at Centre forward - Keinan Davis
Injury at centre back - Kourtney Hause
Injury at Left wing - El Ghazi

They've all contributed and some more positively than others (Hause, Anwar) but they are all without being harsh, a step down in quality.

But second season in just after escaping relegation by the skin of our teeth, are you surprised? It needs to be baby steps. Besides, the likes of Elmo might be good to have around the dressing room.

I was trying to make the point that many other teams chasing top six places have better squad options than us. I wasn't lookng to be critical.

[Clampy]

Doesn’t our recent drop off in form reflect our historical problems with squad depth?

Without going into a season by season analysis, my recollections over the last 12-15 years are that even when we have had a half decent side it only goes as far as the starting XI.

As soon as loss of form, injuries and suspensions kick in, as they inevitably do, our lack of depth in numbers and quality kills us. All we end up doing is rearranging the deck chairs.

I think this season is no different

Nail on head.

Injury at right back - Elmo
Injury at left back - Neil Taylor
Injury at Centre forward - Keinan Davis
Injury at centre back - Kourtney Hause
Injury at Left wing - El Ghazi

They've all contributed and some more positively than others (Hause, Anwar) but they are all without being harsh, a step down in quality.

But second season in just after escaping relegation by the skin of our teeth, are you surprised? It needs to be baby steps. Besides, the likes of Elmo might be good to have around the dressing room.

I was trying to make the point that many other teams chasing top six places have better squad options than us. I wasn't lookng to be critical.

But most of those are established  Premier League sides. This is only our second season back up so we need to build up to having better squad options. That will come next season hopefully.

[Toronto Villa]

He deserved the plaudits at the start of the season. But as soon as teams started figuring out our strengths even with Jack playing and obviously without him Dean Smith literally could not adapt. He’s being found out at this level in a very public way. It’s not good to watch.

[Three Spires Villa]

He deserved the plaudits at the start of the season. But as soon as teams started figuring out our strengths even with Jack playing and obviously without him Dean Smith literally could not adapt. He’s being found out at this level in a very public way. It’s not good to watch.

I have to agree with this

[Aldridge Villa]

The vultures are starting to scent blood Dean. Your reluctance to start Davis against either Liverpool or Albion quite baffling.

[SoccerHQ]

We need real quality to sign in next two windows while Jack remains at the club. It's as simple as that.

No idea what FFP allows for us currently but I'd like a bit more imagination than just looking at who got MOTM for Brentford at the weekend.

Sooner or later we'll need to sign a player you instantly watch and think "yep he'll help get us into the top 6 again before too long." Carew six months into Lerner reign is good example of this.

[Billy Walker]

He deserved the plaudits at the start of the season. But as soon as teams started figuring out our strengths even with Jack playing and obviously without him Dean Smith literally could not adapt. He’s being found out at this level in a very public way. It’s not good to watch.

I have to agree with this

Year on year improvement suggests (to me, at least ) that we are a work in progress and methodically assembling a squad.  If we finish somewhere between 8th and 11th this season it will be a job well done by Deano and the coaching staff. 

Next year will be the big one for Deano, I feel.  Over the summer we will be rid of the remaining Championship-level players in the squad, and hopefully we will bring in the extra quality required to support Ollie and the spine of the team.

[LukeJames]

Didnt know were to put this but fuck me our corners/Set pieces are beyond shit. With Grealish out and us struggling to get points and performances without him, this would be a good opportunity to improve this side of our game. I've got zero confidence in anything happening when we have a corne.

[Ketzster]

We need what is best for Aston Villa, not what is best for Dean Smith. Unfortunately I don’t think having Dean Smith as manager is what is best for the club. Obviously, because he’s a fan, automatically there’s a connection there. But ultimately he is still being paid handsomely for doing the job and should be judged by the same criteria as any other manager. I think any other manager after the last few months would be under far more pressure by now. These long spells of poor form can’t continue. It can’t be Smith when it’s going well and the players when it’s going badly