Dean Smith - Confirmed

[Rory]

I love Dean, but unless he becomes our Alex Ferguson (but not a complete twat) it's difficult to escape the thought that his legacy is already established. Regardless of what anybody thinks of the team's performances and the role fortune played, he's the man who got us up, kept us up, and delivered our best season in a decade.

He has delivered on every target he has been set, exceeded expectations in lots of ways, and unless we're at risk of relegation, he has a hell of a lot of credit in the bank, for me. My main worry is that if things start to turn, it may tarnish the legacy of the most significant manager we've had in my lifetime, alongside Saint Brian.

C'mon...SirGraham, Big Ron, even Martin O'fucking Neil have all reached higher than our Dean. Unless you're younger than you write.

I'm too young for Sir Graham's first spell (and, in truth, BFR) but Dean inherited a squad and a club in a worse state than BFR or MON.

He who walks on water was manager when I was old enough to start following us, and after him, I think Dean has achieved more than any of them. Gregory, Taylor II, O'Leary, O'Neill, Houllier, McLeish, Lambert, Sherwood, Garde, Di Matteo, Bruce. It's not an embarrassment of riches!

Really?

Yeah, he inherited a team in the Championship, but it was a team owned by two billionaires who have pumped hundreds of millions into the club. He's got us promoted, kept us up on the last day and got us mid table. Doing so with the advantage of the best player we've had for decades

Not sure how that compares favourably to most of those managers you've listed, and even then, it is a pretty low bar.

I think getting us promoted, staying up and rebuilding our entire squad into one that not only consolidated but strengthened our position, is pretty okay.

Gregory got us to a cup final and lost, Taylor II was just unfortunate, O'Leary did nothing much at all, O'Neill spent a fortune and did okay but achieved nothing, Houllier downgraded all of our expectations. Do we really need to continue beyond that?

I didn't anticipate this amount of opposition, to be honest. Taylor II, O'Leary, Houllier, McLeish, Lambert, Garde, Di Matteo, Bruce - I'd be amazed to hear how any of them matched what Dean has done, investment or no investment.

I can't believe I am about to stick up for DOL, but he had us finish sixth in an environment of absolute penury. MON had us finish sixth three times. Houllier, in what is considered an awful season, had us finish ninth.

I like Dean but christ, if he's our highest achieving manager in almost 20 years then we've fallen even more than I thought we had.

They all inherited a club in the top division, and none of them managed us to promotion. Even if you ignore what he inherited, the difference between 11th and 6th is only five places - hardly enough to justify a sense of disbelief that somebody would favourably compare him to other managers we've had.

[ventnorVillain]

Last season, although we finished 11th, which is technically in the bottom half of the table, we only finished 12 points off a Champions League place, compared to finishing 27 points ahead of the relegation places i.e closer to the top, in terms of points, than the bottom. Had a certain player not missed approximately one third of the season who knows how much higher we would have finished. I don't think we can judge Dean until the new players have had the chance to bed in and he has been able to field a settled team. Sure, if we are still struggling by Christmas then I concede that there might have to be some difficult conversations. I suppose my point is that he is still in credit and deserves a chance to build some momentum. UTV

[Pat Mustard]

I love Dean, but unless he becomes our Alex Ferguson (but not a complete twat) it's difficult to escape the thought that his legacy is already established. Regardless of what anybody thinks of the team's performances and the role fortune played, he's the man who got us up, kept us up, and delivered our best season in a decade.

He has delivered on every target he has been set, exceeded expectations in lots of ways, and unless we're at risk of relegation, he has a hell of a lot of credit in the bank, for me. My main worry is that if things start to turn, it may tarnish the legacy of the most significant manager we've had in my lifetime, alongside Saint Brian.

C'mon...SirGraham, Big Ron, even Martin O'fucking Neil have all reached higher than our Dean. Unless you're younger than you write.

I'm too young for Sir Graham's first spell (and, in truth, BFR) but Dean inherited a squad and a club in a worse state than BFR or MON.

He who walks on water was manager when I was old enough to start following us, and after him, I think Dean has achieved more than any of them. Gregory, Taylor II, O'Leary, O'Neill, Houllier, McLeish, Lambert, Sherwood, Garde, Di Matteo, Bruce. It's not an embarrassment of riches!

Really?

Yeah, he inherited a team in the Championship, but it was a team owned by two billionaires who have pumped hundreds of millions into the club. He's got us promoted, kept us up on the last day and got us mid table. Doing so with the advantage of the best player we've had for decades

Not sure how that compares favourably to most of those managers you've listed, and even then, it is a pretty low bar.

We could have been owned by Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk and The Queen at the time he took over, it wouldn't have mattered because we were in the bottom half of the Championship and couldn't sign anyone, with a squad that was nowhere near the level required to play in the Premier League.  We had key players only here on loan, and were staring down the barrel of FFP sanctions had we stayed in the Championship.  And, lest we forget, that so-called best player for decades had hardly covered himself in glory in that lower league - he certainly didn't look anything like a £100 million player for most of the time we were down there.

I can't believe this is even a debate for this season.  For reasons we are all aware it has taken us until our third season in the Premier League to get to a point where we can say we are at a level playing field with most of the other teams in here.  The first season back was never going to be anything other than a struggle due to the circumstances in which we came up.  We stayed up and got to a cup final.  Last year we played some of the best football I've seen us play in 25 years at times, and but for an injury to you know who could well have ended up in Europe with a squad that was still pretty threadbare in key positions.  We have now finally got to a point where we have some strength in depth, albeit with some settling in time required for key new signings.  The idea of sacking Smith shouldn't even be on the table, he has more than earned his chance to get a proper run at things this year.

[chrisw1]

Smith's failure last season was being unable to get us out of the rut of poor results when Jack was injured.  It was an opportunity to really kick on missed in my view and killed any small chance we may have had of keeping Jack (in my opinion).   He does have a tendancy to be a streaky manager and we've had long poor runs before.  He needs to prove he has learnt and can sort this out in future.

We have a more balanced squad now with some incredibly exciting attacking players.  I like Smith, I like his football philosophy and think his achievements so far for Villa have been mostly very good.  He has a quality PL squad now and this season will be a litmus test for him.  Hopefully we'll beat Everton, but if we don't he needs to prove he can find some answers before this becomes one of them 'orrible runs and the season gets away from him.

I hope he does and I hope he's still here in a couple of years managing a a top 6 team.

[pauliewalnuts]

I love Dean, but unless he becomes our Alex Ferguson (but not a complete twat) it's difficult to escape the thought that his legacy is already established. Regardless of what anybody thinks of the team's performances and the role fortune played, he's the man who got us up, kept us up, and delivered our best season in a decade.

He has delivered on every target he has been set, exceeded expectations in lots of ways, and unless we're at risk of relegation, he has a hell of a lot of credit in the bank, for me. My main worry is that if things start to turn, it may tarnish the legacy of the most significant manager we've had in my lifetime, alongside Saint Brian.

C'mon...SirGraham, Big Ron, even Martin O'fucking Neil have all reached higher than our Dean. Unless you're younger than you write.

I'm too young for Sir Graham's first spell (and, in truth, BFR) but Dean inherited a squad and a club in a worse state than BFR or MON.

He who walks on water was manager when I was old enough to start following us, and after him, I think Dean has achieved more than any of them. Gregory, Taylor II, O'Leary, O'Neill, Houllier, McLeish, Lambert, Sherwood, Garde, Di Matteo, Bruce. It's not an embarrassment of riches!

Really?

Yeah, he inherited a team in the Championship, but it was a team owned by two billionaires who have pumped hundreds of millions into the club. He's got us promoted, kept us up on the last day and got us mid table. Doing so with the advantage of the best player we've had for decades

Not sure how that compares favourably to most of those managers you've listed, and even then, it is a pretty low bar.

We could have been owned by Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk and The Queen at the time he took over, it wouldn't have mattered because we were in the bottom half of the Championship and couldn't sign anyone, with a squad that was nowhere near the level required to play in the Premier League.  We had key players only here on loan, and were staring down the barrel of FFP sanctions had we stayed in the Championship.  And, lest we forget, that so-called best player for decades had hardly covered himself in glory in that lower league - he certainly didn't look anything like a £100 million player for most of the time we were down there.

I can't believe this is even a debate for this season.  For reasons we are all aware it has taken us until our third season in the Premier League to get to a point where we can say we are at a level playing field with most of the other teams in here.  The first season back was never going to be anything other than a struggle due to the circumstances in which we came up.  We stayed up and got to a cup final.  Last year we played some of the best football I've seen us play in 25 years at times, and but for an injury to you know who could well have ended up in Europe with a squad that was still pretty threadbare in key positions.  We have now finally got to a point where we have some strength in depth, albeit with some settling in time required for key new signings.  The idea of sacking Smith shouldn't even be on the table, he has more than earned his chance to get a proper run at things this year.

Who is talking about sacking him?

And what shouldn't be up for debate? Him being the best manager in the last 25 years is the debate. It's totally possible to believe he's not but also think he's done a good job

[paul_e]

I'm not sure but  think he's got a good shout as the best in that time if you look at it beyond where people finished in the league.

Little overall did a better job but 25 years means you have to take out the cup win and just go on his last season and a bit.

After that every manager had problems:

Gregory - boring football and left us with a squad that was a mess.
Taylor - inherited said mess and didn't have the time to fix it.
DOL - was a wanker
MoN - got handed a golden ticket but hit a brick wall at 6th and then left us with a mess
Houllier - took completely the wrong approach to fixing the mess in first half of the season
McLeish - worst manager we'd ever had up to that point
Lambert - started badly, stumbled on to a decent formula for half a season and then fell to pieces - lasted at least a year longer han he deserved to
Sherwood - replaced McLeish as the worst ever left us with a squad so badly fractured that we were doomed
Garde - Wrong man, wrong time and got fucked over by everyone at the club
RDM - kid in a sweetshop in the summer and forgot that he needed to actually form all the signings into a team
Bruce - been done to death but I'm not a fan, underachieved in his 2nd season and left us with a unbalanced joke of a squad despite having plenty of money and quality to work with.

A few of them had higher highs than Smith has managed but he's not had any lows so far and, importantly, if he left this year I think he'd be leaving a squad that his replacement wouldn't need to do loads to fix, something none of the managers above ever really did. There are things about Smith that I find really frustrating but his squad building and player development has been superb and he deserves massive credit for that.

[N'ZMAV]

I quite liked Gregory - but looking back he under achieved with some of the players he had.

[eamonn]

Gregory talked a good game but post his 1998 honeymoon period, too often we didn't play a good game.

[john e]

I'm not sure but  think he's got a good shout as the best in that time if you look at it beyond where people finished in the league.

Little overall did a better job but 25 years means you have to take out the cup win and just go on his last season and a bit.

After that every manager had problems:

Gregory - boring football and left us with a squad that was a mess.
Taylor - inherited said mess and didn't have the time to fix it.
DOL - was a wanker
MoN - got handed a golden ticket but hit a brick wall at 6th and then left us with a mess
Houllier - took completely the wrong approach to fixing the mess in first half of the season
McLeish - worst manager we'd ever had up to that point
Lambert - started badly, stumbled on to a decent formula for half a season and then fell to pieces - lasted at least a year longer han he deserved to
Sherwood - replaced McLeish as the worst ever left us with a squad so badly fractured that we were doomed
Garde - Wrong man, wrong time and got fucked over by everyone at the club
RDM - kid in a sweetshop in the summer and forgot that he needed to actually form all the signings into a team
Bruce - been done to death but I'm not a fan, underachieved in his 2nd season and left us with a unbalanced joke of a squad despite having plenty of money and quality to work with.

A few of them had higher highs than Smith has managed but he's not had any lows so far and, importantly, if he left this year I think he'd be leaving a squad that his replacement wouldn't need to do loads to fix, something none of the managers above ever really did. There are things about Smith that I find really frustrating but his squad building and player development has been superb and he deserves massive credit for that.

A proper list of failure is that
Villa fans must have broke a lot of mirrors walked under a load of ladders passed on the same staircase to many times and seen plenty of single magpies to have deserved a back catalogue of dross like that, not withstanding a few highs
 

[Rigadon]

Good post paul_e.  I can't help imagining Leonard Cohen singing that to a sad-lament musical backing. 

Fuck me we've put up with a lot a shite haven't we.

[N'ZMAV]

Good post paul_e.  I can't help imagining Leonard Cohen singing that to a sad-lament musical backing. 

Fuck me we've put up with a lot a shite haven't we.

I have no doubt there's more to come at some point. We're Aston Villa - we do things the hard way.

[ez]

Judging by the performance at Chelsea I reckon this is the season we go for it. No holding back against the top sides anymore. Hopefully we are ready to do that.

[Sexual Ealing]

Good balanced piece here by Paul Doyle on our squad here:
https://www.theguardian.com/football/2021/sep/17/no-excuses-for-aston-villa-as-they-aim-to-get-post-grealish-era-truly-started

[Three Spires Villa]

Judging by the performance at Chelsea I reckon this is the season we go for it. No holding back against the top sides anymore. Hopefully we are ready to do that.

Judging by the performance at Chelsea I reckon this is the season we go for it. No holding back against the top sides anymore. Hopefully we are ready to do that.

But get beat by Watford and pretty poor v Newcastle. It is far to early to say what will happen this season. Yes we did play well at Chelsea i agree with that.

[Risso]

Good balanced piece here by Paul Doyle on our squad here:
https://www.theguardian.com/football/2021/sep/17/no-excuses-for-aston-villa-as-they-aim-to-get-post-grealish-era-truly-started

"No excuses". Not sure he's met many Villa fans!