Dean Smith - Confirmed

[Legion]

I am a veteran Villa fan who on this forum. I have always been quick to back managers, and slow to call for their sacking.

Dean Smith did a very good job securing Villa promotion last season, he did it with the fifth best team in the Division.

He was totally inexperienced at PL level – that was a big risk.

His signings have been unimpressive. Yet you can never be sure whether they were his, or “The Board’s”, and he had to recruit in numbers. The Championship side would have finished bottom. When you do recruit in numbers chemistry is an unknown.

I think that retaining him is too big a risk, and it would be kinder to all if he left this summer with a promotion and creditable survival campaign on his CV. His reputation enhanced, and untarnished.

Who would you replace him with, though? I say keep him on. He deserves a chance to put right what went wrong this season having, hopefully, learned from his earlier mistakes and repeats/improves on the last four unbeaten games.

[Louzie0]

Nanu nanu, Deano, we go forth & prosper.

[dave.woodhall]

Get rid of someone who's performed two miracles in eighteen months for a club that would then have sacked their last seven managers. There'll be a queue round the block for that job.

[PeterWithesShin]

I'm not sure sacking the last X managers makes much difference, that applies to probably 99% of all clubs world wide.

[colin69]

He deserves to stay, but if we are in or near the relegation zone come Christmas/January time then a serious  re think needs to happen.
I get the feeling though that he will learn from this season and we will be ok.

[Brazilian Villain]

I’d keep him on, he deserves to build on what he started. The recruitment this summer is going to be huge, we need to sign players with a bit of footballing nous. We don’t seems able to close matches down and that has to be fixed. Late goals have killed us too many times.

yeah - he's earned another go next season.

I think we have to give him another go to see if we carry on the post restart form. To do otherwise would be a bit Watford. If the same mistakes are evident come Christmas then consider our options.

[paul_e]

That last line "that one's for the old man"

yep, that was very touching and very telling. Through it all the club has stuck together. Even watching someone like Bjorn Engels in the celebration who has been out injured for a good while. We kept it together.

I still think Engels is a decent player. Probably the only one

Nah, I like him as well, I think it's eaxsy to forget that he's as mcu hof a kid as the rest of the defence and he's the only one that had to adapt to the UK as well.

He was good up to November. I actually thought he played well in the cup final aswell considering it was only two weeks after the Spurs game.

I assume though he's told DS he wants out which is why he hasn't been making the bench lately. If we sign another CB he seems the obvious one to go.

Can people stop quoting that post, 4 beers and half a bottle of red really wasn't helping my typing, turned on auto-correct now.  The official line on Engels is that he's been injured so unless anything more comes out I'm just going to go with that.

If he does want to go then of course we need a replacement but I'd honestly be happy to go into the season with a replacement for Taylor and Reina signed for another season as the only changes.

[gpbarr]

Well no way they fire him now, he deserves to start next year. But there can be no emotion in it - 10 games in if we are not comfortably mid table they will need to jettison him. The game is not a romance, it’s a business

[mr underhill]

news outlets in Portugal claim former Benfica manager Bruno Lage is close to taking the job!!

[PaulWinch again]

Deserves a crack at next season now. Well done Dean, now we need to get better and progress.

[Risso]

news outlets in Portugal claim former Benfica manager Bruno Lage is close to taking the job!!

His name has been mentioned a couple of times, eg when Bruce was sacked. If we'd gone down then he might have been on the radar, but not now I'm sure.

[West Derby Villan]

Get rid of someone who's performed two miracles in eighteen months for a club that would then have sacked their last seven managers. There'll be a queue round the block for that job.

Agree, what he’s achieved in the last 18 months is incredible

[dave.woodhall]

Without getting all I Know Something That You Don't, one day someone will write the story of just how deep we were in it during summer 2018. We'll never know how close we came to today being about celebrating promotion to the Championship.

[Risso]

Without getting all I Know Something That You Don't, one day someone will write the story of just how deep we were in it during summer 2018. We'll never know how close we came to today being about celebrating promotion to the Championship.

It's not exactly a secret that a club scraping around to borrow money from the corporate equivalent of Wonga to pay a tax bill is deep in the brown stuff. 

[Legion]

Thanks, Tony.