Dean Smith - Confirmed

[dave shelley]

At least I don't have to take my grandson fishing on the last day of the season this year just to try and ease my nerves.  I avoided all contact with people and radio still fully expecting the worst and not finding out until we got home.  That has to be progress.

[JD]

We’ve improved each season under Smith. How many times have we been able to say that in recent years? If he keeps that up then he’ll deservedly keep his job.

Agree Chris.

How many of our squad are seasoned Premier League players? We have the youngest squad in the Premier League and hopefully next season we will be able to attract and sign better players and bring some of our talented youngsters through.
As long as we improve each season I will be happy.

[PaulWinch again]

I think it’s clear Dean deserves to continue. Ultimately this season has been one of progression, but he does need to stop these long sequences of poor form.

[TelfordVilla]

with a larger, better squad giving him more options for rotation he may be able to avoid periods of poor performance on the pitch.

[Ad@m]

Does that mean we're an incredibly exciting team to support even in a decade of dirge ?

There are lots of words I'd use to describe the Lambert years, but exciting isn't one of them!!!

[Clampy]

I honestly do think it's been a season to look back on and be positive about things. We have arguably the best goalkeeper in the league, Cash has done well for his first season but he has a few things he needs to work on, Targett has improved immensely, Konsa hasn't put a foot wrong and looks an absolute bargain, Watkins has done well for his first season and can only get better and we have some very promising kids coming through. The midfield and wide area's need looking at though and another striker to help out Ollie is needed too. As for Smith, he's progressed year on year and whether he's the man long term is a fair question but I think personally he's earned the right to persevere with.

Or maybe there's a big pile of shit in the room.

[Bobby Boy]

I honestly do think it's been a season to look back on and be positive about things. We have arguably the best goalkeeper in the league, Cash has done well for his first season but he has a few things he needs to work on, Targett has improved immensely, Konsa hasn't put a foot wrong and looks an absolute bargain, Watkins has done well for his first season and can only get better and we have some very promising kids coming through. The midfield and wide area's need looking at though and another striker to help out Ollie is needed too. As for Smith, he's progressed year on year and whether he's the man long term is a fair question but I think personally he's earned the right to persevere with.

Or maybe there's a big pile of shit in the room.

Any talk of removing Dean is way premature but the last 13 games have been alarming. We have picked up some results in that time, sure, but they have been grinding it out performances.

The last time we had any fluency or cohesion was the first half at Burnley and that can't be good enough.

The red lights aren't flashing but the amber ones are...

[eamonn]

with a larger, better squad giving him more options for rotation he may be able to avoid periods of poor performance on the pitch.

Give any manager enough dough and they have a good chance to get it right eventually. Teach Dean to fish and he can feed the whole village around Bodymoor.

[AndyB6]

We were only mathematically safe after beating Arsenal. The last game was that day when we went up five places.
[/quote]

Got it!

[West Derby Villan]

I honestly do think it's been a season to look back on and be positive about things. We have arguably the best goalkeeper in the league, Cash has done well for his first season but he has a few things he needs to work on, Targett has improved immensely, Konsa hasn't put a foot wrong and looks an absolute bargain, Watkins has done well for his first season and can only get better and we have some very promising kids coming through. The midfield and wide area's need looking at though and another striker to help out Ollie is needed too. As for Smith, he's progressed year on year and whether he's the man long term is a fair question but I think personally he's earned the right to persevere with.

Or maybe there's a big pile of shit in the room.

Yep, that’s the way I see it

[Nunkin1965]

I honestly do think it's been a season to look back on and be positive about things. We have arguably the best goalkeeper in the league, Cash has done well for his first season but he has a few things he needs to work on, Targett has improved immensely, Konsa hasn't put a foot wrong and looks an absolute bargain, Watkins has done well for his first season and can only get better and we have some very promising kids coming through. The midfield and wide area's need looking at though and another striker to help out Ollie is needed too. As for Smith, he's progressed year on year and whether he's the man long term is a fair question but I think personally he's earned the right to persevere with.

Or maybe there's a big pile of shit in the room.

Yep, that’s the way I see it

I'm in complete agreement with this.
I can see overall progress being made and we will be in a healthy position to push on next season.
I agree about Dean Smith. He's making progress and deserves time to develop the project.
With a summer of strong recruitment we can establish ourselves as a top half/ pushing for European football team and at the moment Deano holds the reins.
He's aware of the owners targets and if he slips below them he'll be replaced but that's not happening in the near future thats for sure.

[ez]

A worrying thing for me is just how bad our midfield is without Jack and that's with three additions this season.

[Monty]

I don't know if Smith has hit his ceiling yet, but that's mainly because he's improved us, very obviously, every year. Any discussion about his future, despite this awful run, is way premature IMO.

[SoccerHQ]

I think it’s clear Dean deserves to continue. Ultimately this season has been one of progression, but he does need to stop these long sequences of poor form.

You'll always get poor sequences of form even in good seasons. Those years we finished 6th under MON we had that ridiculous bad run after Moscow pretty much up to the final game so that must've been even worse than what we're on now and in 09/10 we also won 3 in 10 between Feb-April 2010 which cost us top 4 that year (mitigation due to us being in both cups at the time).

What we learnt back then is you need far less consistant form to finish 6th than 4th and same is just about true this season so while we're a far way off that currently shows in long run we need a manager who dosen't just go 1 win in 10 at a key period of the season.

Hopefully DS will learn but it feels a bit like Gregory and O'Neill in how we manage the squad and drop off just as others below us start to get stronger. Can only hope he gets better at that as we sign more players and improve the squad and first 11 unlike those two.

[Risso]

I don't know if Smith has hit his ceiling yet, but that's mainly because he's improved us, very obviously, every year. Any discussion about his future, despite this awful run, is way premature IMO.

I think a lot depends on the next 6 games. Fail to win any and an awful run becomes a downright abysmal run.