Dean Smith - Confirmed

[ChicagoLion]

I just cannot get my head around billionaire owners sticking with him for so long when it’s obvious we are going down. How did they make their fortunes?

If you hire a CEO you entrust them with executive responsibility for the organisation.
Billionaires know that you have to allow the CEO to run the business, they can not spend all of their time hiring and firing CEOs, if they did they would not be billionaires.

[colin69]

I just cannot get my head around billionaire owners sticking with him for so long when it’s obvious we are going down. How did they make their fortunes?

If you hire a CEO you entrust them with executive responsibility for the organisation.
Billionaires know that you have to allow the CEO to run the business, they can not spend all of their time hiring and firing CEOs, if they did they would not be billionaires.

Fair comment. So my my next question is how the hell is Purslow still on a job when he’s failed so miserably?

I’m sure these guys have sacked enough people in their time to realise they are going to lose a hell of a lot of money.

[AsTallAsLions]

I just cannot get my head around billionaire owners sticking with him for so long when it’s obvious we are going down. How did they make their fortunes?

Plenty on here still thought he was going to keep us up as recently as a few weeks ago. Baffling as it may seem, it's possible our owners were operating under the same illusion.

[PaulWinch again]

He’s got to go. It’s not just being relegated, it’s being relegated in such a meek way. If we’d played with quality this season and fought hard then I could see him staying even if we were relegated. But we haven’t, by and large we’ve been utter dross. It’s been particularly pathetic post-lockdown.

[john2710]

I'm convinced Purslow saw the results against Leicester in the Cup as the sign the players / manager could pull it off.

When he should have been looking at the games at Watford, Southampton & Bournmouth as the indication of where things were heading.

Smith was gone if we'd lost to Chelsea before the lockdown. The club obviously thought we could reset & start again.

Going into a season with a frontline of Wesley, Davies, Trez & El Ghazi was criminal.

[Chris Smith]

Trying to run a recruitment process when the country is in lockdown and the owners are on different continents would make the logistics of almost impossible so I can understand why the held off.

[VinnieChase84]

He’s got to go. It’s not just being relegated, it’s being relegated in such a meek way. If we’d played with quality this season and fought hard then I could see him staying even if we were relegated. But we haven’t, by and large we’ve been utter dross. It’s been particularly pathetic post-lockdown.

I’m expecting he goes inside 48 hours of the West Ham game. However, we can mathematically go down next Thursday night and it wouldn’t surprise me if he went Friday

[paul_e]

I suspect they just thought trying to get a new manager settled and his ideas passed on to the squad during the lockdown was going to be too difficult. Keeping him looks like a mistake now but I'm not convinced it was the wrong decision even with how badly we were playing before the lockdown.

[CT Villan]

Not sacking him in the last few games could be for a number of reasons...It will cost less compo once officially relegated and the preferred replacement is still employed at Burnley (or wherever) and wants to finish the season with them (which is a good thing).

[Risso]

We’re as good as relegated. Of course it was the wrong decision.

[Ger Regan]

He’s got to go. It’s not just being relegated, it’s being relegated in such a meek way. If we’d played with quality this season and fought hard then I could see him staying even if we were relegated. But we haven’t, by and large we’ve been utter dross. It’s been particularly pathetic post-lockdown.

I’m expecting he goes inside 48 hours of the West Ham game. However, we can mathematically go down next Thursday night and it wouldn’t surprise me if he went Friday

They absolutely should once is confirmed. It'll be a very short pre-season so we'll need to hit the ground running.

[colin69]

Trying to run a recruitment process when the country is in lockdown and the owners are on different continents would make the logistics of almost impossible so I can understand why the held off.

I can’t.

[paul_e]

We’re as good as relegated. Of course it was the wrong decision.

Not really, who would've taken the job during the lockdown and how well would the change work without proper training? If there was someone lined up ready to come in just before the lockdown then fair enough but if they didn't have that then I just don't think you can say for sure that a change would've been 100% the right call.

[Villan82]

Trying to run a recruitment process when the country is in lockdown and the owners are on different continents would make the logistics of almost impossible so I can understand why the held off.

Have they heard of ZOOM?

Football isn't exactly your run of the mill business, if you want a survival specialist you pick up the phone and get Big Sam.

[AsTallAsLions]

We’re as good as relegated. Of course it was the wrong decision.

Not really, who would've taken the job during the lockdown and how well would the change work without proper training? If there was someone lined up ready to come in just before the lockdown then fair enough but if they didn't have that then I just don't think you can say for sure that a change would've been 100% the right call.

So the smart thing to do would have been to have friendly conversations with a number of targets before the season restarted and have one or two interested parties potentially willing to take over at short notice if Dean failed to pick up a win in his first 2-3 games. The promise of a £1m survival bonus would have been ample sweetener for the likes of Allardyce.

We've played 6 now and it's too late to affect anything ourselves at this point. I think it's a disgrace and it's total mismanagement from the top down, given the massive hole it's going to blow in Club finances.