Dean Smith - reflection & appreciation

[Duncan Shaw]

I worry this has ripped the recently-rediscovered heart out of the club.

Me too

[Beard82]

I worry this has ripped the recently-rediscovered heart out of the club.

Me too

I think it all depends on who they apoint next

[ROBBO]

The manager or head coach is the easy target when things go wrong, I would be looking at others in managerial positions and whether they are performing up to expectations.

[ChicagoLion]

The manager or head coach is the easy target when things go wrong, I would be looking at others in managerial positions and whether they are performing up to expectations.

Well you cant sack all the players.

[ROBBO]

Never said anything about players.

[darren woolley]

Thanks Deano for everything.

[rooboy316]

Genuinely saddened to see him go. In a cutthroat, commercialised industry, there was something really special about having a Villa supporting captain and coach leading us to potential glory. Now both are gone, albeit in very different circumstances.

The romantic in me wishes they’d at least given him till Xmas, and then any new coach could use the next transfer window if necessary.

[amfy]

Genuinely saddened to see him go. In a cutthroat, commercialised industry, there was something really special about having a Villa supporting captain and coach leading us to potential glory. Now both are gone, albeit in very different circumstances.

The romantic in me wishes they’d at least given him till Xmas, and then any new coach could use the next transfer window if necessary.

Lots of talk of needing this international break to bed a new manager in, yet no sign of one in place yet. So maybe we could have waited a bit longer?

[Risso]

Genuinely saddened to see him go. In a cutthroat, commercialised industry, there was something really special about having a Villa supporting captain and coach leading us to potential glory. Now both are gone, albeit in very different circumstances.

The romantic in me wishes they’d at least given him till Xmas, and then any new coach could use the next transfer window if necessary.

Lots of talk of needing this international break to bed a new manager in, yet no sign of one in place yet. So maybe we could have waited a bit longer?

What difference would that have made?

[amfy]

I know I started it but rather than having that debate on this thread & have nipped over to the new manager thread to respond.

[Pat Mustard]

I worry this has ripped the recently-rediscovered heart out of the club.

Me too

I agree - in the space of a few months we seem to have gone from having a real sense of club and fans pulling together and having a different approach to most of the Premier League, to basically acting like the very worst kind of Premier League 'I want it all now' club.

The astronomical hike in ticket prices for certain matches, the club's attitude over fans handing season tickets to friends, these are all small things when taken individually but they all add up - I worry that there are certain people in the club's hierarchy who think we are a lot further ahead in the cycle than we actually are.  Having lost the captain and manager who embodied a lot of our hopes, the club need to be really careful now because a lot of that goodwill could quickly disappear, as will the waiting list for season tickets if this doesn't go right.

[chrisw1]

Very good piece by Gregg Evans in the Athletic.  I criticise his lack of tactical game analysis etc, but he does do this type of stuff very well

 Dean Smith made it fun to support Aston Villa again

When the picture of Dean Smith hugging Jack Grealish stood beautifully outside Villa Park this summer, every Aston Villa supporter could resonate with their expression of delight.

Here were two lifelong Villa fans, turned manager and captain respectively of their club, smiling with genuine satisfaction on that famous promotion-winning day at Wembley in May 2019. The warmth could be felt by all of those who passed by.

But in August, out went Grealish to Manchester City for £100 million and, within hours, that image welcoming spectators to the stadium was removed from the exterior of its North Stand.

A part of the club’s soul disappeared when Grealish closed the door for the final time to pursue his Champions League ambitions in Manchester, but with manager Smith still flying the claret and blue flag, a unique link remained. Until now.

As of Sunday, Smith and Villa are no more.

That wonderful and almost unheard-of connection in modern football has been extinguished for good.

The fairytale of a Villa supporter leading his club through thick and thin is now over.

In years to come, Villa fans will look back on his 37 months in charge and smile. It’s been a ride from start to finish and, whatever happens next, Smith will go down as one of the most respected and well-liked Villa managers ever.

Because he made it fun to support the club again.

To think there were doubts when he first arrived.

Villa chief executive Christian Purslow decided Steve Bruce’s position had become untenable after supporters hounded the club’s then-manager out of Villa Park on a night in early October 2018 — where a cabbage somehow smuggled into the ground was also launched in Bruce’s direction by a frustrated fan before the kick-off of what turned out to be his final game in charge.

Purslow considered appointing Arsenal hero Thierry Henry, but the Frenchman chose to take his first steps in management in France’s Ligue 1 with Monaco. Fortunately. What might have happened to Villa had Smith, then of their fellow Championship side Brentford, not been selected is not worth thinking about.

The start was a breeze. There was no need for the new boss to do any research around the history of the club who’d just hired him. In fact, it was Smith giving the lessons to the younger generation at his official unveiling.

His father, Ron, had been a Villa Park steward who used to direct the club’s then-owner Doug Ellis to his seat, so there were plenty of tales from years gone by. Smith could also recite the names of Villa’s European Cup final-winning side of 1982 without any hesitation. He was friends with club legends including Gordon Cowans and Pat Heard and, with so much experience and knowledge of what it would take to please his fellow Villa supporters, he made just a handful of promises: that he would bring some excitement back to the place, and would give those fans a team they could be proud of.

He was true to his word.

Admittedly, there was pressure from the off. Smith had some testing moments in his previous jobs at Walsall and Brentford, but nothing could prepare him for the pressure cooker at his beloved Villa.

Part of the remit would be to have John Terry — a Chelsea and England playing great but a managerial novice, having retired days before following a final season at Villa in 2017-18 — alongside him as an assistant. Smith embraced this, rather than seeing it as a challenge to his leadership.

The pair already knew each other from mutual football links and, as it turned out, quickly hit it off. Smith laughed when his “apprentice” arrived on the first day with a pencil case and a notepad, but used Terry perfectly for individual one-to-one sessions with players, and of course, for advice during high-pressure moments.

Terry rarely ever stepped out of his lane, admitting in one interview that he “knew his role” at the club.

From day one Smith made it all about the group, though. He set about changing the culture of a club who had circled the Premier League relegation drain for four years (finishing 15th twice, 16th and 17th) before finally going down in last place in 2016 and were now in the bottom half of the second tier, and he did it in a calm and measured way.

There would be no club captain under Smith, but instead a leadership group that included every player. Veteran defender James Chester kept the armband he’d inherited from Terry initially, but Grealish later took it on. Often that big call is overlooked when picking out some of Smith’s later faults.

The players were then always told their two-week rota for upcoming matches, training and off-days four weeks in advance. A happy camp would be a successful camp, Smith knew.

There was little interest in Villa outside their home city of Birmingham back then, but those who still turned up to the stadium in their numbers got behind the team.

In the early days, just two regular reporters covered their games and press conferences: myself — then at the Birmingham Mail — and Matt Maher of the local Express & Star.

We were both at Villa Park for a 4-2 derby win over Birmingham City six weeks into Smith’s reign, the crazy 5-5 draw with Nottingham Forest three days later and that exhilarating 3-0 win away at Middlesbrough the following weekend when Villa played some of the most exciting football for years. Supporters finally felt connected to the club again with Smith, one of their own, at the helm.

We also watched the 3-0 defeat at Wigan Athletic, the 2-2 away to Hull City and a 2-0 defeat at home against local rivals West Bromwich Albion in the January and February, where Smith came under huge pressure, only to be given a richly rewarded stay of execution.

That his position was discussed at board level less than four months into the job shows how well he did to turn things around thereafter.

Hopes of winning promotion had been as good as written off by that point. Smith had begun preparations to bring his troops back early the following summer, even going as far as outlining a pre-season schedule ahead of another Championship campaign.

But things changed the following week, after the owners decided to stick by their man.

Smith also showed a different side to his “nice guy” image by ripping into the players in a way many never thought was possible when they trailed 1-0 at half-time away to Stoke City in the final week of February.

“It was some message,” then-Villa midfielder Glenn Whelan says. The game ended 1-1, and was later seen as a huge turning point in their season.

When Smith made Grealish captain on his return from a three-month injury lay-off days later, it worked wonders. Villa, who began March in 13th place, rattled off 10 wins in a row on the way to promotion.

Smith could do no wrong back then.

From signing Tyrone Mings and Kortney Hause on January loans, to recalling goalkeeper Jed Steer at mid-season from Charlton Athletic, to deploying two wingers with the free-scoring Chelsea loanee Tammy Abraham.

That Villa side had a perfect balance: strength, pace and experience at the back, legs, creativity and exuberance in midfield, and genuine quality in attack. The 4-3-3 worked like a dream in the Championship. Two roaming No 8s in Grealish and John McGinn pulled opponents to pieces and Abraham added the finishing touches.

Back-to-back away wins at Sheffield Wednesday (3-1) and Rotherham United (2-1) in early April will long live in the memory of those who attended.

The play-off final too, a year and a day on from the pain of a 1-0 loss to Fulham in the same fixture.

Smith experienced it all on that famous day at Wembley. Nerves, pride, excitement, delight, relief. There were even some tears at the end, after Derby County had been beaten 2-1. A bond had been built. The connection between the supporters and the staff was now tighter than ever before.

Fans joined a season-ticket waiting list, desperate to see Smith’s troops in action in the Premier League after three years away — and to be able to chant the manager’s name.

After securing promotion, the squad’s older, more experienced players were let go. Mile Jedinak’s last contribution was to score a penalty in the play-off semi-final shootout at West Brom. Out too went Whelan, Albert Adomah and Tommy Elphick. Villa were entering a new era.

Smith didn’t have full say on which players would come in as their replacements, instead working to his brief of joining up with Purslow and then-sporting director Jesus Garcia Pitarch — known as Suso — to select targets.

Respectfully, he got on with his job, which at the start of 2019-20 was to pull together a young group of players and work out a way to keep them in the top flight. By the skin of their teeth, Villa did that, thanks to a final-game draw away to West Ham United.

Suso moved on at the end of the season and, like Purslow, the Spaniard now classes Smith as a friend rather than just a former colleague.

Indeed, it’s hard to find anyone with a bad word to say about the fella, and there’s a reason why Grealish describes him as the “greatest of all time”.

Perhaps the most impressive period of Smith’s Villa reign came before that survival was secured.

It’s no exaggeration to say that, again, his job was on the line in March last year.

Following a 2-0 defeat away to Southampton — ironically where he’d eventually have his final game in charge 20 months later — in the late February, Smith reacted to a story about an alleged bust-up with Terry by swearing, for the one and only time, in a press conference.

“It’s bullshit!” he shouted.

No doubt he felt many other remarks, suggestions or questions deserved a similar response, but that was never in his style. He was polite and well-mannered all the way through his dealings with the media, but this particular reply signalled just how much he was feeling the heat.

Villa then lost the Carabao Cup final to Manchester City and were thrashed 4-0 at Leicester City in the next two matches, making it two wins in 11 overall and five straight defeats, four of them in the Premier League.

Sources say Smith would have lost his job if Villa had been heavily beaten at home by Chelsea the following weekend, but that game did not happen on its original date as the escalating COVID-19 pandemic put football on the shelf for the next three months.

Strangely, he appeared to be in his element when he was under pressure.

Smith used the lockdown period to strengthen the inner circle at Villa.

He instructed each of his players to provide solutions to the problems that had taken place earlier in the season during lengthy and, at times, intense video-call sessions. He held appraisals over Zoom with every player. He showed the players clips of how Liverpool and Manchester City “defended from the front” and encouraged every player to become a better team-mate.

When football returned in mid-June, sending Villa on a frantic 10-game, six-week sprint to the finish line, they became hard to beat.

A barbeque at the nearby Belfry Hotel, where the players would stay overnight in a move designed to make them stronger as a group, also had an inspiring effect. Smith told his players to eat and drink what they liked for the evening. Support staff came out of their shells and mixed in with the players. The COVID-19 enforced “bubble” already had helped create a siege mentality and not a single player was ready to let it burst.

Then-Villa midfielder Jota epitomised the togetherness, describing the nerves on the final day of the season at West Ham as unbearable.

“I felt like I was having a heart attack on the sidelines,” Jota says of that 1-1, where Grealish opened the scoring on 85 minutes, only for Andriy Yarmolenko to immediately equalise and set stress levels skyrocketing again. “I was praying a lot because it’s very sad if people lose their job and the supporters are sad. The most important thing is the club.”

And this was from a player who rarely featured.

Ahmed Elmohamady was a senior in that group and a regular starter. He recalls: “What the manager did with us during that period was the difference.”

It was around this time that supporters also sobbed when Smith choked up, having lost dad Ron to COVID-19 shortly after football returned. He was firmly a part of the Villa family by now.

When season three began less than two months later, his side flew out of the traps.

“What’s fucking happening?!” shouted Grealish as reigning champions Liverpool were smashed 7-2 on a bonkers early-October Sunday that also saw Tottenham Hotspur beat Manchester United 6-1 at Old Trafford. That extraordinary victory was the highlight of the Smith era.

Smith had taken his players up into the mountains during that pre-season and set them all a series of basic survival tasks over a two-day period. The team spirit was stronger than ever and reflected by the results and feel-good atmosphere around the club.

Yet by the time 2020 became 2021, Villa’s blistering start had evened itself out, and it was their form throughout this calendar year — 18 defeats from 35 league matches — that got Smith the sack.

It would be bending the truth to say that an overriding proportion of the fanbase had confidence in him halting the slide. Yet there was no question over how many people wanted him to.

“A top coach and an even better guy,” was how midfielder McGinn described him, and that’s why some have compared Sunday’s announcement to a bereavement.

There were tears when the news filtered through, and former Villa players and managers praised the work Smith has done during this difficult period.

“Dean gave Villa the kiss of life when the club was an embarrassment to fans,” John Gregory, who led the club into the new century, said.

One Villa fan, Gemma Clark, tweeted: “Has a manager ever been sacked and yet retained so much admiration and respect from a fan base?”

Probably not.

Employees at the Bodymoor Heath training ground will certainly miss him, so too will the inner circle of other staff and players. Smith had an affable way around people. Wives and girlfriends of players, and in particular their mothers, loved that he would always remember their names and spend time exchanging pleasantries at games.

Many hoped he would ride the storm, but after Friday’s 1-0 defeat at Southampton he knew he was on the brink and fighting for his job.

Instead of walking over to the away supporters at St Mary’s Stadium, he applauded them from where he stood on the final whistle. After his players had all exited the pitch, he did it again. Yet after a fifth loss in a row he got little back from the travelling fans.

Standing in the nation’s dugouts as manager of Aston Villa Football Club what was Smith had always wanted. He gave those from his community and the neighbouring areas moments of unrivalled happiness.

There aren’t many people in this world who could walk into Villa Park on a match day and be offered a pint by every home follower in the place. Smith makes that select list.

Villa supporters loved him so much that they are now raising funds between themselves to create a huge banner for the home game with Brighton when football resumes after this international break. There will be a message of thanks included and pictures of their hero.

As for that image of him and Grealish that used to be so visibly on display, well, that will be added to the corridors of the stadium now. It will sit alongside the iconic moments from the European Cup final win and other great days in club history.

Looking at it in years to come will bring back memories of a time when following Villa filled you with genuine pride and joy.

Regardless of who gets the job next, that feeling will be hard to replicate.

[SoccerHQ]

What a great article.

Confirms what I thought. Squad of players may have lost confidence in him in terms of football decisions but 99% of them have huge respect for him as a person and that's important for a manager in these times.

Interesting that NSWE were seriously considering removing him in Feb 2019. At the time I was of mind to just write off the season and go again in 19/20.

He was probably then on brink of sack at three different points between 2019-20. This time just felt the end of the line. We all wish him well.

[Neil Hawkes]

now that has also made my eyes glisten.

[Sexual Ealing]

That's a great piece by Greg(g) Evans. Tears emerged!