Dean Smith - Confirmed

[N'ZMAV]

I'll like any manager that wins more than they lose.

[eamonn]

Fickle as feck, Dolly knew what he was on about.

[hilts_coolerking]

I didn't want Dean in the first place but thought he did a great job getting us up.  This season though has been dreadful.  Yesterday's result and performance was very good but it would be fickle of me to change my mind about him after one game.

[N'ZMAV]

Smith was the man to take us into this season. It's clear after almost a whole season he's out of his depth. Shame.

[PeterWithe]

He would have sound credentials to be the man to get us back up. If we stay up, is he the man to consolidate and get us a nice safe mid table finish next year? I'd have more doubts about the latter than the former.

[RamboandBruno]

don’t think he’s learned much to be honest
if he had it his way yesterday we would have gone with Hause and Taylor in the back 4

it was providence that changed two of those players and gave us a better balance and more of an attacking threat in a backs to the wall do or die game

and why is Guilbert still sitting on the bench

as far as I’m concerned he’s actually looked more and more confused and out of his depth the longer the season has gone on rather than leaning anything

I lost confidence in his ability quite a while ago and yesterday only confirmed he hasn’t got much of a clue really
nice man though he is and Villa man to boot we need better

Taylor did nothing wrong before getting injured yesterday and played reasonably well at Liverpool also. I understand Targett gives more of an attacking threat and played well when he came on yesterday, but Smiths also been slated on here for continuing to play Targett at times. Again Hause is one of the few players who has been pretty steady in every game through the whole of the restart, so I don’t really get the ‘Smith got lucky’ rhetoric.

[themossman]

Smith was the man to take us into this season. It's clear after almost a whole season he's out of his depth. Shame.

Some managers are right for a specific job. Dare I say it, Sherwood gave us some fun times and delayed the inevitable, but the complicated business of buying players and the attritional demands of a whole season were too much for his poor little brain.

Dean coming in was perfect. A villa man, employed the flat track bully approach we’d been crying out for in the championship, promotion was a genuinely great achievement from where he started.

But I don’t think he’s enjoyed the premier league. Grinding out a point a game, all that pressure, never that far from a fixture where you might get done 6-0. It’s a totally different job to the one he took on.

[brontebilly]

Admittedly against a very mediocre Palace side, we got lucky with the Hause injury (no slur on Hause here).
We also seemed to profit from both Hourihane and Grealish being deployed further up the pitch. Was this Smith responding to the opposition or him stumbling across a winning strategy?
When we win so many free kicks, why have we not found a way to play Hourihane more regularly, since he seems head and shoulders above anyone else in delivering the ball into dangerous places?
Nakamba looked better when he came into a winning team yesterday .... playing on the front foot seems to suit everyone!

I put these up as examples of either Smith getting tactically sharper (eventually) or a series of serendipitous events that conspired to make us look good!

Would the real Dean Smith please stand up?!

Hourihane was absolutely shocking v Chelsea, including from set pieces, so was deservedly dropped. Nakamba has been decidedly average all season. I don't think there are many valid hard luck stories on why certain players have been in and out of the team. Id give Smith a bit of a pass on that generally. Countless players have played themselves out of the team.

But Smith has never put in place a solid structure in the team, never made consistently good in- game tactical adjustments or subs, very rare cases of individual players actually improving as the season has gone on and obviously needs to take a degree of responsibility for the recruitment shambles. All reasons why he should be no longer in the job, not to mind ruling him out for retaining the job past the next few games.

All from Purslow down need to go, and the entire strength and conditioning (or sport science) function needs to be ripped up and started again.

[ChicagoLion]

Good points Bronte, no consensus on the second best player of the season (although Luiz post lockdown form has it).
How much is this about not playing the same team after a bad result poor performance?
Agree, players getting back in and playing Themselves out of the team has been common this season.
There have been some abject individual and team performances.
Interesting to know why.

[Taylor]

The way I see it is people make it sound so easy, just sack everyone and start again, the same thing we‘ve been doing since MON left. It’s never worked. Just maybe a bit of continuity is what we need. I understand that Smith has been poor this season and on the face of it hasn’t learnt the lessons, but the premier league is an unforgiving place  to learn. I think the biggest lesson he will have learnt is that the players just aren’t good enough, how on earth do you put that right in less than a season.

Anyway, I don’t believe the owners will sack him if we go down, and certainly won’t if we stay up.

[RamboandBruno]

The way I see it is people make it sound so easy, just sack everyone and start again, the same thing we‘ve been doing since MON left. It’s never worked. Just maybe a bit of continuity is what we need. I understand that Smith has been poor this season and on the face of it hasn’t learnt the lessons, but the premier league is an unforgiving place  to learn. I think the biggest lesson he will have learnt is that the players just aren’t good enough, how on earth do you put that right in less than a season.

Anyway, I don’t believe the owners will sack him if we go down, and certainly won’t if we stay up.

Agree with this. I’ve been a defender if you like of smith most of the season, largely because of what you say. Post lockdown and in the lowest moments, post wolves and Man U in particular, I’ve thought enoughs enough. However, it’s a massive if, but if we stay up, I would of thought that is the objective prior to the season achieved and I think they will stick with him.
If that is the case, it’s then finding the balance between building on the players we can guess will improve, Luiz, Konsa maybe, Targett maybe, and those who have shown there probably not going to be good enough, Trez I’d say, el Ghazi, maybe nakamba, poss hourihane.

[ChicagoLion]

I get the continuity and he is learning argument.
But how long is it going to take him to learn?
What are our expectations?
If we are happy with an average manage, then expect an average team achieving average results. Sadly I have seen nothing to suggest that Smith is likely to be much above average. This season he has not even achieved that.

[simboy]

I get the continuity and he is learning argument.
But how long is it going to take him to learn?
What are our expectations?
If we are happy with an average manage, then expect an average team achieving average results. Sadly I have seen nothing to suggest that Smith is likely to be much above average. This season he has not even achieved that.

And that's the problem. We start again. New manager, new backroom staff, new squad, new training and tactics, new ethos, new everything. The turn around next season will be particularly quick from relegation [if it happens] to starting  again. Is it ten managers in the last ten years? It just doesn't work. 

 We will not attract a "marque" manager [Poch or Benitez mentioned is pure fantasy]. So we either get lucky [a Nuno] or, far more likely, we get another donkey, [and have we had some real donkeys] dispense with buying young and instead get journeymen and has beens to get us out of the division [Jedenek, Whelan, Terry, etc.] who are too old, or were never good enough, to cut it in the Premiership, and the whole cycle begins again. 

Personally, in the unusual circumstances of a Covid world, i would give him until Christmas whichever division we are in. Put a plan in place, look at what the club as a strategy wants to do. I have far more faith in the owners than I had in any of the last three or four, perhaps I am being naive, but what they have shown at other sporting franchises they own is a plan.

However, I do understand that the awful recent performances don't give support to the argument.

[Steve67]

The way I see it is people make it sound so easy, just sack everyone and start again, the same thing we‘ve been doing since MON left. It’s never worked. Just maybe a bit of continuity is what we need. I understand that Smith has been poor this season and on the face of it hasn’t learnt the lessons, but the premier league is an unforgiving place  to learn. I think the biggest lesson he will have learnt is that the players just aren’t good enough, how on earth do you put that right in less than a season.

Anyway, I don’t believe the owners will sack him if we go down, and certainly won’t if we stay up.

Agree with this. I’ve been a defender if you like of smith most of the season, largely because of what you say. Post lockdown and in the lowest moments, post wolves and Man U in particular, I’ve thought enoughs enough. However, it’s a massive if, but if we stay up, I would of thought that is the objective prior to the season achieved and I think they will stick with him.
If that is the case, it’s then finding the balance between building on the players we can guess will improve, Luiz, Konsa maybe, Targett maybe, and those who have shown there probably not going to be good enough, Trez I’d say, el Ghazi, maybe nakamba, poss hourihane.

Would any other Manager have been able to get more out of these players?  Would any other manager been able to snatch a draw from the jaws of defeat because he outwitted the opposition Manager?  Could Dean have done anything different from what we have seen of them this season?  These are questions that we will never know the answer to as we can only speculate.  However, bumming around at the bottom of the table and dropping back in to the Championship is wholly unacceptable for the football club.  Someone has to take responsibility, if it happens.  Also, all businesses, all football clubs, should attempt to improve.  Therefore, a review at the end of the season will be undertaken by the owners and CEO and they will make decisions at that point.  I am sure that, if they think there is a better manager/coach out there than Dean Smith, they will make the changes.  My own personal view is that Dean has not been capable enough at this level and, even if it is unforgiving, i would not want to come back up with a rookie, if, that happens.

[RamboandBruno]

The way I see it is people make it sound so easy, just sack everyone and start again, the same thing we‘ve been doing since MON left. It’s never worked. Just maybe a bit of continuity is what we need. I understand that Smith has been poor this season and on the face of it hasn’t learnt the lessons, but the premier league is an unforgiving place  to learn. I think the biggest lesson he will have learnt is that the players just aren’t good enough, how on earth do you put that right in less than a season.

Anyway, I don’t believe the owners will sack him if we go down, and certainly won’t if we stay up.

Agree with this. I’ve been a defender if you like of smith most of the season, largely because of what you say. Post lockdown and in the lowest moments, post wolves and Man U in particular, I’ve thought enoughs enough. However, it’s a massive if, but if we stay up, I would of thought that is the objective prior to the season achieved and I think they will stick with him.
If that is the case, it’s then finding the balance between building on the players we can guess will improve, Luiz, Konsa maybe, Targett maybe, and those who have shown there probably not going to be good enough, Trez I’d say, el Ghazi, maybe nakamba, poss hourihane.

Would any other Manager have been able to get more out of these players?  Would any other manager been able to snatch a draw from the jaws of defeat because he outwitted the opposition Manager?  Could Dean have done anything different from what we have seen of them this season?  These are questions that we will never know the answer to as we can only speculate.  However, bumming around at the bottom of the table and dropping back in to the Championship is wholly unacceptable for the football club.  Someone has to take responsibility, if it happens.  Also, all businesses, all football clubs, should attempt to improve.  Therefore, a review at the end of the season will be undertaken by the owners and CEO and they will make decisions at that point.  I am sure that, if they think there is a better manager/coach out there than Dean Smith, they will make the changes.  My own personal view is that Dean has not been capable enough at this level and, even if it is unforgiving, i would not want to come back up with a rookie, if, that happens.

I understand what your saying and agree with many aspects of it. I just think if their objective at the start of the season was to at least stay up and we achieve that target, then I’m not sure they will let him go. Granted, if by late October we look like it’s going to a similar season with similar mistakes being made, then the bullet may be fired.
Think it all becomes irrelevant if we lose to Everton in Thursday and think he probably will go if we’re relegated.