Dean Smith - Confirmed

[Risso]

Tuchel is a (brilliant) manager of 22 world class, financially-doped, players, whose priority is the league and the Champion's League. Dean Smith is the head coach of a club that's policy is to recruit the best young players in the country and develop them into first-team players, or to sell them on at a profit. They're both doing excellent jobs.

We've spend a not inconsiderable amount of money ourselves. I know we had to, but still, we have.

[chrisw1]

I'm with John.

We don't have the fixture congestion of clubs in Europe and playing Sat-Wed-Sat is hardly a huge ask, particulalrly with the recent and forthcoming international breaks.

I get that they want to give players minutes and playing the likes of Buendia and Traore made sense.  But at the time I was really pissed off when I heard the team news, I just felt we could have gone stronger.  I can't help thinking that people STILL bang on about Moscow but accept a seeming uneccessarily weakened team in a domestic trophy when we haven't won a pot for 25 years.  I would have started Watkins or Ings, but not having a stronger bench at the very least seemed like madness to me.

As it happens the lads did brilliantly and I absolutely loved the game and Archers goal, so to an extent Smith was proved right.  But if we'd played a stronger team we MAY have had an opportunity to give more minutes to squad players in the next round, particularly if we'd got a kinder draw.

On the plus side, we now seem to have genuine young back up in Archer, Bidace and Chuck (who I thought had his best game in a first team shirt), so the future looks promising.

[Sexual Ealing]

Given that we lost 3-0 to them last week, playing Ings and Watkins, I'm not sure why there's such certainty that they'd have got us over the line.

[chrisw1]

Given that we lost 3-0 to them last week, playing Ings and Watkins, I'm not sure why there's such certainty that they'd have got us over the line.

There's no certainty and as it happens Archer got us a great goal.  But Chelsea also played a weakened team, so it's not really comparable to the league game.

It doesn't take a huge leap in logic to make the assumption that our best team may have done a little better than a clearly weakened team.  Which line up would you prefer we start on Saturday?

[Lastfootstamper]

Do people not think that had Tuchel got wind of us playing a stronger side he'd have adjusted his own line up accordingly? Tuchel picked a side that he believed was good enough to beat ours. It wasn't.

[john e]

I’m not being overly critical of Dean Smith he was doing what virtually every other manager does,
And as it happens it was a fantastic display
I took three of my kids down and as my eldest said it was one of those gems in Football where you go not expecting an awful lot but the game, the Atmosphere, the performance, even the seats we had and it was my daughters first visit to Stamford Bridge made the whole night quite special and one that we will look back on

The difference for me is i would have prioritised The cup game over Man United at the weekend
But that’s just me I don’t expect many managers especially British managers to think that way
Which is why I was surprised Tuchel did
I’m as gung ho and throw caution to the wind sort of supporter as it’s possible to to find but if I was a Chelsea fan even I would have thought throwing Lukaku on at that stage is a bit risky with all the other priorities Chelsea have

Let’s face it if we get a result against Man United tomorrow with all our top players fresh all the decisions will be justified

[Clampy]

I'm not sure I would have prioritised the Cup game for tomorrow's match but I can see both sides of the argument. I can fully understand fans wanting their best players in and around the match day squad the other night but like someone else said the other day, Smith may well have taken Archer off once we went behind had he had Watkins and Ings on the bench. That goal will have his confidence up even more than it already was.

[Monty]

I can see both sides, but I'd have rather gone for a cup. I don't think we're troubling the top or bottom four of the league this season, so we might as well go for glory where we find it.

[Footy-Vill]

I've seen Smith get the better of Tuchel every time he's come against him.
The modern day great tuchel and one of the best manager in European club football has only the answer of a better squad and resources to call on to have recently beaten Villa twice.
To me Smith had it perfectly in league and cup and also the last match of the season where we beat them. So really Smith doing many things right and was only margins to have lost.

Pep and Man City can't say the same and I feel we're more than on right track with Dean Smith who has shown progression with his coaching and now this squad. He can compete in any match with any manger in this league.

[simboy]

I suppose all the hindsight begs the question whether Smith playing our "strongest" side would have beaten Chavski. Their "B Team" had Kante, two England International full backs, a Spanish team regular midfielder [who's crap but still ...] some kid in goal who cost more than our entire team as well as the rest of the team being full internationals except one of their centre halves.

 Now I appreciate that we are a decent side but if that team had started in the league against us there would have been no enquiry about an understrength team being put out.

I have to say that Chelsea are, for my money, the strongest squad in the league.

We don't know the niggles and knocks our players are carrying. Targett looked to have been injured in the first half on Saturday, others didn't look overly fit.

 

[Monty]

Perfect today. Right up their bollocks from minute one. Took risks, planned for situations, went hard at a gameplan and got the rewards. Famous day for Dean's, and every time we doubt him he seems to come up with the answers. Amazing.

[Clark W Griswold]

Deanos most impressive individual result for me so far. Well done that man.

Or maybe the Liverpool one actually but today’s result considering the rarity of a win there and the fact that the smirking ****** was in the team makes it my personal favourite.

[Ian.]

Smith’s performing wonders for us. Our team is a joy to watch at times. We attack, harass and they work their bollocks off for the cause. He’s making the right substitutions at the right time. Our players just improve (massively) every week under his watch. He’s absolutely Villa through and through which is just the icing in the cake.

[jwarry]

As I said on the post match thread Dean has built a team that fears no-one, and that hasn't happened since probably 1981.  It’s so great to see

[London Villan]

The 3 in midfield seems to be working well. I just hope we can keep all the forwards happy.