Dean Smith - Confirmed

[LeeB]

If you seriously think Leeds and the fucking baggies are going to be a bigger draw for players in the next couple of months than we are then you really need to have a word with yourself.

'kin right.

[Dogtanian]

We need to keep Smith.  He hasn’t been perfect this season, but it’s his first season in the Premier League and I expect him to keep improving.

He didn’t put us in the situation last summer, if anything he has suffered by getting us promoted a year too soon.  We had no choice but to spend on quantity to ensure we had a squad, and the real test will be what we do in this next window.

[Ad@m]

If you seriously think Leeds and the fucking baggies are going to be a bigger draw for players in the next couple of months than we are then you really need to have a word with yourself.

Quite.

Could you imagine whoever the DoF is at the Olbiyun showing a player around the Hawthorns, where you need to be literally stood next to the ground to know it's there, and then saying, "But Slaven Bilic is our manager!" before the player gets in his taxi and drives past Villa Park, where you can see it from miles around.

[Legion]

Bilic is an awful manager that West Ham fans wanted out.

Bielsa is clearly a brilliant but slightly deranged manager that often burns himself out when under serious pressure.

I don't think Smith will get us into the top 4, but he's shown he has enough about him to tactically tighten us up. Him or since random Portuguese fella... I'll keep Smith

Top 14 would do for me next season.

[Toronto Villa]

Bielsa you could argue was saved another embarrassment by the Covid break. If he stretches his team to the limit in the PL then they will struggle at the most critical time; at the end of the season. Leeds won’t suddenly come in and tear up the division. Bielsa is legendary manager many, many years ago. But as we are seeing also to a degree from Ancelotti it means nothing at all if you cannot get your team to play to a high standard in the PL.

[garyfouroaks]

And I doubt if the sort of players we're going to be looking at would think twice about Leeds or the other lot.

And therein lies the rub.

Who are we/should we be, looking at, realistically?

Who will Bilic and Bielsa be looking at?

Smith, Bielsa, Bilic - who has the better contacts? Not for signing the best name players, but the ones who could be the next best name players. How many Argentinian coaches and scouts does Smith know?  How many PL grade players was Bilic unable to sign because of the Porn Bros at West Ham? These are hardly marginal matters.

[pauliewalnuts]

That Benfica manager thing.

I've been extremely critical of Smith this season, and he's looked largely out of his depth over and over, but ultimately, he's kept us up, it would reflect terribly on the club to replace him now.

He at least deserves the chance to start next season, having been supported in the transfer market.

[Risso]

Bilic is an awful manager that West Ham fans wanted out.

He got West Ham to seventh in his first season there, and has now got WBA promoted.  Not sure how that really qualifies him as awful.

[garyfouroaks]

We need to keep Smith.  He hasn’t been perfect this season, but it’s his first season in the Premier League and I expect him to keep improving.

He didn’t put us in the situation last summer, if anything he has suffered by getting us promoted a year too soon.  We had no choice but to spend on quantity to ensure we had a squad, and the real test will be what we do in this next window.

I agree with that last bit.

Would you trust Smith as the best man to exploit this summer's transfer window?

[Gareth]

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.

Managerial appointments are about what is going to happen next, not what has happened before.

I read little into the bizarre mini-season of BCD games.

On the downside, our club has had too many managers in too short a space of time and that has created problems of its own. Against that, I have seen little to suggest that he is a Santos or Dyche.

As for who I would replace him with, that is not my job. There are people who are paid a lot of money to identify those who will "fit" a club's requirements.

As it stands, will Smith outgun Bielsa and Leeds, or the Baggies and Bilic in the transfer market?

Can you give one reason why not? People talk about Bielsa like he's some managerial genius, but it's took him two years to do what Dean Smith did in seven months.

Bielsa will be gone by Christmas, in the Championship he has been fawned over but they will struggle like we have in Prem & as soon as the critics start he’ll flounce off

[dave.woodhall]

And I doubt if the sort of players we're going to be looking at would think twice about Leeds or the other lot.

And therein lies the rub.

Who are we/should we be, looking at, realistically?

Who will Bilic and Bielsa be looking at?

Smith, Bielsa, Bilic - who has the better contacts? Not for signing the best name players, but the ones who could be the next best name players. How many Argentinian coaches and scouts does Smith know?  How many PL grade players was Bilic unable to sign because of the Porn Bros at West Ham? These are hardly marginal matters.

Smith will have exactly the same contacts as the other two - that is to say every agent in the world who believes he has a player good enough for the Premier League. If we want a player we'll be after him, and the fact that his current manager used to know Bielsa twenty years ago isn't going to make a scrap of difference.

[Steve67]

That Benfica manager thing.

I've been extremely critical of Smith this season, and he's looked largely out of his depth over and over, but ultimately, he's kept us up, it would reflect terribly on the club to replace him now.

He at least deserves the chance to start next season, having been supported in the transfer market.

I agree Paulie.  With the way the club is set up, removing Dean Smith if things don't go to plan, should not mean starting all over again and another manager coming in to inherit a load of another managers players because we are following a plan for continuity I believe.  This is the same as the way Brentford are doing it and is one of the reasons that frank has done so well since Dean left them.

[garyfouroaks]

`
Smith will have exactly the same contacts as the other two - that is to say every agent in the world who believes he has a player good enough for the Premier League. If we want a player we'll be after him, and the fact that his current manager used to know Bielsa twenty years ago isn't going to make a scrap of difference.

I totally disagree.

There is a world of difference between an agent ringing up, and someone who you have worked with successfully before, and whose judgement you trust, offering an opinion.

This is not about players twenty years ago, this is about established relationships with scouts, coaches and Presidents now.

[villa `cross the mersey]

Bilic is an awful manager that West Ham fans wanted out.

He got West Ham to seventh in his first season there, and has now got WBA promoted.  Not sure how that really qualifies him as awful.

quite so ...he is a clever guy and an astute manager

[dave.woodhall]

`
Smith will have exactly the same contacts as the other two - that is to say every agent in the world who believes he has a player good enough for the Premier League. If we want a player we'll be after him, and the fact that his current manager used to know Bielsa twenty years ago isn't going to make a scrap of difference.

I totally disagree.

There is a world of difference between an agent ringing up, and someone who you have worked with successfully before, and whose judgement you trust, offering an opinion.

This is not about players twenty years ago, this is about established relationships with scouts, coaches and Presidents now.

It's actually about money and the opportunity to progress, and I know which club out of the three wins that argument.