In 90 minutes today we had one shot on target and allowed the away side more of the ball than us. The BBC used the word 'ponderous' when talking about how we are on the ball. I don't mean to write it again, but when others start writing it, it sort of hits home.
And I don't think the manager should be blaming the number of games we have had to play in the last eleven days. Wolves have been playing a lot of games this season and we've used nearly 50% more players than them. You don't hear them complaining, probably because they are happy to play and are winning games.
And there are rumours circulating online that Dean Smith is going to be fired tonight. Again, I don't want to write something so obvious, but that opportunity was at the start of the lockdown, not now. Right now, we've got to hope that Dean Smith can get us out of this mess.
And I've seen references to Brentford in the comments. Dean Smith was a coach at Brentford, not a manager. The players, formation and tactics at Brentford are not controlled by the coach, they're given to him. But I wrote about the numbers the day Dean Smith was appointed manager of Aston Villa. It was a romantic and dare I say it now, naive appointment.
And we can't blame Dean Smith for thinking he could do the job, he was in a place where things were going well for him and he probably thought it was all down to him. He was given the opportunity to earn much more money and in similar circumstances, we'd all have done the same. Jack will do it this summer, but Jack if and in all likelihood it doesn't work out as you would have hoped, you'll be welcome back .. and I just hope we get first refusal in the deal we do with whatever Club pays the most for him.
However, it's very easy to argue that right now, a new manager is less risk than Dean Smith. You could also easily argue, with all the information to hand that even if Dean Smith keeps us up, he's got to go. If the rumours are true, it's not going to be nice that it hasn't worked out, but it might just mean we stay in the Premier League.
The thing is, if it's going to happen, it really does have to happen soon and by soon, I mean someone some where has to be putting a plan together on who they can get for the remaining games, because you're not going to find the right manager now. The manager that replaces Smith on Monday has to be a manager for the rest of this season and everyone has to know this.
It's going to be expensive, but the owners will know this. Hopefully the CEO does too, but I fancy he has to go also after this season also. When will it ever settle down at Aston Villa?