Johan Lange - appointed

[SoccerHQ]

Guess Luiz-Sanson-McGinn may be the plan for tough home and away games v top 6. Wouldn't think it's wise at all just to play two in there. No good having four attackers on the pitch if you can't win the ball high enough and feed it through to them.

[Mister E]

All of Luiz's good form has come as a lone pivot. I'm not saying he's not had bad games there, but he struggles higher up or next to McGinn IMO.

In Brazil they call in the steering wheel I think.
On form, he's a very good defensive midfielder.

He's a good midfielder but I don't think you could accurately describe him as a DM due to how weak his tackling is.

He gets caught out of position too much, having to track back; it's how he picks up most of his yellow cards. And, maybe that's the flaw in Smith's putative thinking that I speculated on above.

[Mister E]

Guess Luiz-Sanson-McGinn may be the plan for tough home and away games v top 6. Wouldn't think it's wise at all just to play two in there. No good having four attackers on the pitch if you can't win the ball high enough and feed it through to them.

I agree that - when all are fit and available - we will probably play a 4-3-3 with the players you mention in the middle.

[OCD]

Which means one of Ings, Watkins, Bailey and Buendia dropping out.

[Dante Lavelli]

Which means one of Ings, Watkins, Bailey and Buendia dropping out.

I don’t have a problem with that.  They’d all be very involved, only missing out once every four games on a simple rotation basis.
Having El Ghazi/Trez and Traore looks a bit bloated though.

[OCD]

I'm more intrigued as to who drops out in that scenario.

[Dante Lavelli]

I'm more intrigued as to who drops out in that scenario.

I’d rotate it so…

Watkins—Ings—Buendia

Bailey—Watkins—Buendia

Watkins—Ings—-Bailey

Bailey—Ings—Buendia

Fate will force our hand more often than not with injuries etc. 

[Scott Nielsen]

It doesn't matter how you dress it up, we only have one defensive midfielder in the squad, Marvelous Nakamba. Any other option is players out of position.

We go again..

Smith obviously doesn't agree with you and sees Luiz as the DM he wants to build around. He'll be judged on that this season I think.

I'm genuinely confused now (unless we're saying The Athletic is just plain wrong, of course). But it seems Smith *did* want another DM/holding midfielder but didn't get one because we were only willing to pay for a 'bargain'.

"Smith was determined to improve his holding midfield options, but the numbers ultimately did not stack up"

"Only if a real bargain became available would Aston Villa satisfy Smith"

"When that move fell through — Villa bid in the region of £25 million for Ward-Prowse but were swiftly knocked back — other options were still considered. However, there were whispers as early as the first week of the month that once Axel Tuanzebe had joined Leon Bailey, Danny Ings, Emiliano Buendia and Ashley Young in joining the club, Villa were done if Ward-Prowse could not be signed."

I'm only raising this because I believe it's important in how Smith may be judged. If he wasn't backed in the transfer market, we cannot blame him for the hole in midfield. So I'd have a lot more sympathy for him if, god forbid, the season develops poorly.

[ozzjim]

Trouble is that is from Greg Evans. Who has made a living from making utter bull shit about Villa up.

[paul_e]

It doesn't matter how you dress it up, we only have one defensive midfielder in the squad, Marvelous Nakamba. Any other option is players out of position.

We go again..

Smith obviously doesn't agree with you and sees Luiz as the DM he wants to build around. He'll be judged on that this season I think.

I'm genuinely confused now (unless we're saying The Athletic is just plain wrong, of course). But it seems Smith *did* want another DM/holding midfielder but didn't get one because we were only willing to pay for a 'bargain'.

"Smith was determined to improve his holding midfield options, but the numbers ultimately did not stack up"

"Only if a real bargain became available would Aston Villa satisfy Smith"

"When that move fell through — Villa bid in the region of £25 million for Ward-Prowse but were swiftly knocked back — other options were still considered. However, there were whispers as early as the first week of the month that once Axel Tuanzebe had joined Leon Bailey, Danny Ings, Emiliano Buendia and Ashley Young in joining the club, Villa were done if Ward-Prowse could not be signed."

I'm only raising this because I believe it's important in how Smith may be judged. If he wasn't backed in the transfer market, we cannot blame him for the hole in midfield. So I'd have a lot more sympathy for him if, god forbid, the season develops poorly.

That's from a guy who doesn't know how to spell Greg, which is important context.

I suspect the real situation is that Smith had a couple of options he wanted that we didn't get through the door and between the group all the alternatives were either overpriced or Smith didn't want them so as a group they decided to wait until January/next summer instead of a panic buy.

[Scott Nielsen]

From this I gather we don't hold Greg(g) in high regard.

If it's a group decision it makes it easier for me anyway as I don't like to play favorites. If we are not top 4 by Christmas I will demand everybody's resignation. The tea-lady's too.

[Edvard Remberg]

From this I gather we don't hold Greg(g) in high regard.

If it's a group decision it makes it easier for me anyway as I don't like to play favorites. If we are not top 4 by Christmas I will demand everybody's resignation. The tea-lady's too.

He wasn't that "brilliant" writing for Birmingham Mail

[ASHTONVILLA]

Seen it reported somewhere that Smith wanted a DM but Lange strongly leaned towards him giving Sanson a chance this season.

If this is true then think we need to cut Dean a little more slack regards the disjointed squad. Interesting seeing bits and bats leak out though, it is almost as if the press are being briefed from multiple sources as to who is to blame if it doesn't go well.

Think we will be like a better Southampton this season. They play the kind of formation we seem to be aiming for, and seem to get dicked by 5+ goals a couple of times a season, whilst also handing out the odd thrashing. The tend to finish mid table. We have far better attacking options and defenders, but arguably a far worse set of central midfield options. Given we were strongly linked with both JWP and Romeu and both would have improved our options.

[SoccerHQ]

Which means one of Ings, Watkins, Bailey and Buendia dropping out.

Up to DS to prove he can cope with that o.k. That's the test of a top manager after all. Tuchel and Guardiola have about 8-9 players in final third to keep happy and they manage o.k.

[Monty]

Trouble is that is from Greg Evans. Who has made a living from making utter bull shit about Villa up.

Really? I'm not saying he's perfect or anything but this seems like a stretch.