Dean Smith - Confirmed

[Toronto Villa]

The Downing money felt much better

[chrisw1]

Lots of people make rash judgements about players early in their tenure, some are proved right and others wrong.  I don't think somebody being wrong about a player a few seasons ago is necessarily a reasonable barometer about whether their overall opinion on football is valid.  I remember thinking Stephen Ireland and Nzogbia would be good players for us and they are two of our worst buys in living memory.

But to maintain a stance that Benteke was anything other than fantastic for us is only ever going to prompt ridicule.  He was one of the most complete and formidable strikers I've seen in claret and blue and I absolutely loved him. 

[Ad@m]

Lots of people make rash judgements about players early in their tenure, some are proved right and others wrong.  I don't think somebody being wrong about a player a few seasons ago is necessarily a reasonable barometer about whether their overall opinion on football is valid.  I remember thinking Stephen Ireland and Nzogbia would be good players for us and they are two of our worst buys in living memory.

But to maintain a stance that Benteke was anything other than fantastic for us is only ever going to prompt ridicule.  He was one of the most complete and formidable strikers I've seen in claret and blue and I absolutely loved him. 

I get reminded annually by Facebook of a post I put about Harry Redknapp needing to spend lots of money if he thought Harry Kane was the answer to Spurs' attacking future...

[villa `cross the mersey]

The Downing money felt much better

good call TV - I'd forgotten that little shit

[Nunkin1965]

The thing is Stuart is that you were on Benteke's back from game one and you didn't really give him a chance to get to grips with the league. He turned out to be some of the best £7m we've ever spent and we made a massive profit on him. Whats happened since is a pity but he was fucking immense for us.

I had concerns about Benteke at the start and what has happened since he left us shows that my concerns weren't that wide of the mark. As Scott Hogan has proved any player can have a spell where they score loads but when it comes to sustaining that form it don't happen.

Your concerns made us £25m profit.

plus it was fun taking the money off the Red Scouse

It would be interesting how he fared in the Championship though even if we had his best days with us.

[stuart445]

The difference between Benteke and Hogan was that Benteke was terrifying PL defences, whereas Hogan was scoring goals at Championship level.  Spurs thought Benteke was worth £20m, Liverpool and Crystal Palace paid more.  So a fan on H&V knows more than 3 PL managers.  I have an extendable aluminium ladder if said fan wants to borrow it, as the hole looks to be getting deeper.

OK then replace Scott Hogan with Stephen Ireland. As i said any player can have a short spell of good form.  Benteke has played for 8 clubs,  his goal tally has got into double figures for 4 of those clubs.

[stuart445]

Lots of people make rash judgements about players early in their tenure, some are proved right and others wrong.  I don't think somebody being wrong about a player a few seasons ago is necessarily a reasonable barometer about whether their overall opinion on football is valid.  I remember thinking Stephen Ireland and Nzogbia would be good players for us and they are two of our worst buys in living memory.

But to maintain a stance that Benteke was anything other than fantastic for us is only ever going to prompt ridicule. He was one of the most complete and formidable strikers I've seen in claret and blue and I absolutely loved him.

whilst i don't deny Benteke did very well for us,  I'd say John Carew was a far more formidable striker than Benteke.

[LeeB]

People would think a lot more of you if you just admitted you made a huge error.

[Des Little]

I'll give you this, Stu - you like to keep a debate going don't you?  When are you back at work?

[Nunkin1965]

Benteke was at times simply awesome for us.
I used to sit there and think “This Guy is simply unplayable”
Proud he played for us.

[old man villa fan]

The difference between Benteke and Hogan was that Benteke was terrifying PL defences, whereas Hogan was scoring goals at Championship level.  Spurs thought Benteke was worth £20m, Liverpool and Crystal Palace paid more.  So a fan on H&V knows more than 3 PL managers.  I have an extendable aluminium ladder if said fan wants to borrow it, as the hole looks to be getting deeper.

OK then replace Scott Hogan with Stephen Ireland. As i said any player can have a short spell of good form.  Benteke has played for 8 clubs,  his goal tally has got into double figures for 4 of those clubs.

Ireland v Benteke, now you are getting ridiculous.  I've got an extension for that ladder, by the way.

Being serious, Benteke needs to be played in the right set up to be effective. Liverpool was the wrong move for him.

[Toronto Villa]

The Downing money felt much better

good call TV - I'd forgotten that little shit

Getting 21m for that penis was wonderful business

[mr underhill]

Let's put it this way - in the pantheon of modern Villa greats, it would be unthinkable not to include Benteke.

[stuart445]

The difference between Benteke and Hogan was that Benteke was terrifying PL defences, whereas Hogan was scoring goals at Championship level.  Spurs thought Benteke was worth £20m, Liverpool and Crystal Palace paid more.  So a fan on H&V knows more than 3 PL managers.  I have an extendable aluminium ladder if said fan wants to borrow it, as the hole looks to be getting deeper.

OK then replace Scott Hogan with Stephen Ireland. As i said any player can have a short spell of good form.  Benteke has played for 8 clubs,  his goal tally has got into double figures for 4 of those clubs.

Ireland v Benteke, now you are getting ridiculous.  I've got an extension for that ladder, by the way.

Being serious, Benteke needs to be played in the right set up to be effective. Liverpool was the wrong move for him.

If you read what I said any player can have a brief run of good form like Hogan and Stephen Ireland but you can't call Benteke a complete striker because other than his time with us he's either been a failure or bang average.

[paul_e]

Stuart, just to clarify, I raised Benteke to show you what the response on here is like when someone is genuinely foolish and also to show that judging someone earely in the career at the club isn't unique to people who don't like Bruce.

The club now is, seemingly, run more how I thought we should've been when Xia arrived and if we'd done things the right way back then there wouldn't have been this myth that there was something fundamentally wrong at the club that Bruce was the perfect answer to. Bruce was seen as a the perfect answer because we were still asking the wrong questions and by doing so we went to the brink of administration. If the only bar you set for judging someone is that they were better than RDM (who is the only other manager to work under that board) then yes Bruce looks decent especially when RDM was given almost no time with his 'final' squad but getting a bounce and then finishing the rebuilding job by papering over the cracks is all Bruce really did which is why he was sacked as soon as we had competent management above him who'd had a chance to see what he had done.

To go full circle, I trust Smith to do a better job of addressing the underlying issues, I trust Purslow to be more demanding of it and I trust Pitarch more to find the right players for Smith to use to do it. Smith has come in and has only said 1 thing critical of Bruce which was to point out a couple of weeks ago that his only fit central defender was playing for Hull, Bruce spent a year moaning about what he found when he arrived.

Bruce arrived at a team in 20th with 11 points from 12 games (I'm not counting the Wolves game as his)
Smith arrived at a team in 18th with 13 points from 12 games

Both arrived at teams with a midfield that was a mess but only one arrived to a squad with just 2 centre halves and 1 left left back. Hence Bruce has left us almost exactly where he found us having failed at his only target twice.


As for comparing 6months of form from Hogan and Ireland to 3 years of form from Benteke that's some fine straw clutching.