Dean Smith: "Villa footballers have won the top trophy before, the European Cup in 1982. I’m not saying I’m going to lead the team to that, but that has to be the aim, to plan, over the next five or six years, to try to be challenging in Europe." You've got to admire ambition and he's right to set high goals but there is a time and place to say these things; publicly saying you aim to challenge in Europe with Villa is probably setting yourself up to fail tbh though
Five to Six years, FIVE TO SIX YEARS, Five to six years!!??? Getting into Europe might be a more reasonable ambition in that time frame, probably by winning the League Cup. Considering they survived by the skin of their teeth last season, personally I think staying in the league in that time frame is the most likely aim for Villa in the next 5 to 6 years.
I agree . I admire his ambition too and like you I think he'd have been better making a more realistic goal public. No way Villa will be anywhere near European places for the foreseeable. I doubt those words would motivate a squad either, they'll think he's mad
I don't think aiming to get into Europe is unrealistic, Sheff Utd for example gave it a bloody good go last season. It's challenging in Europe that's crazy
Spurs managing to scrap a 2-1 with to some Bulgarian team thanks to a penalty and 2 red cards. Were 1-0 down until then
I think it is for Villa. What on earth is he basing that objective on? I haven't checked but how close have they come in the past decade? Your goals need to be achievable otherwise they are just wishes.
Wilder didn't state publicly that his aim was to get into Europe. Lots of players and managers when signing for a new club say they've come to win trophies, you sort of expect it now. Not many say their objective is Europe right out of the gate. The last one I remember was Martinez at Everton. Say it and you're setting yourself up big time.
it's not really just realism that a clubs aim may take longer , if it happens at all , than you as manager get .
I never said he did and I actually said Dean Smith shouldn't have made his comments public. Challenging for a European place is admirable ambition, saying you'll challenge for European titles is insane.
Martinez wasn’t the one to mention that publicly, it was Kenwright. As he told the press that Martinez had told him he’d get us into the CL. It was hardly a massive stretch anyway given we’d just finished 6th under Moyes. In fairness to Martinez, he very nearly achieved it in his first season when we finished 5th with 72 points, which was a total that would have seen us in the top 4 most other seasons.
He was fundamentally flawed. He put his ‘filosofee’ before any form of pragmatism and results! First season we still had the defensive drilling of the Moyes era and with his more attacking style, it worked well. Second season his complete lack of defensive drills and organisation brought his chickens home to roost. I remember Osman revealing that we didn’t even practise defending set pieces as Martinez apparently didn’t see the point and guess what happened? We were truly grim at times during that season and he should have been sacked after the humiliation away at Hull on New Years Day. Which was one of the most disorganised and abject performances I’d witnessed in years. You could tell from the players body language and complete lack of talking that he’d lost the dressing room that night.
Has he done wonders for Belgium or were they just lucky to have an amazing crop of players all coming through at the same time?
Definitely the latter imo, their squad is incredibly talented and those players are getting the vast majority of their drilling and training elsewhere. He’ll show his true colours when he comes back into the club game again.
He reminded me of Rodgers. Both had similar styles, at times could get teams playing really well, but neither manager had a clue defensively.
