TimTort

When he was appointed I agreed with a post on here that expressed concern that we had appointed a novice manager to take the club not just forwards, but upwards. The post was disliked and criticised at the time, but I don’t think it was far wrong.

Spot on. Smith was sacked because he wasn’t seen as someone who could take this club to the next level. If we’d been happy to sit in mid-table for another couple of years, Smith would have been the ideal choice to remain in charge. But those who take the decisions opted to make a change to ensure the step up would happen sooner rather than later. At the moment, Gerrard looks like nothing the right choice. He’s got to turn this around quicker than rapid if his appointment is to be justified. Am I confident he can do that? After that second half, I’m not sure I am.

I don’t want to jump on the bandwagon, but he’s got to be in trouble. This is just so flat.

So frustrating. Gets in some good attacking positions, but disappoints almost every single time.

Well, he knows the Premier League well enough, so you’d hope so. But I do have some fears. He’s cut his managerial teeth in a league where, as I said, at a club like Rangers you’ve won half the games before you turn up. We’ve started several games really poorly and not been able to recover. I really want to see him stamp his mark on the team and I haven’t seen any signs of that so far.

Hate to say it, but coming from a league where you only have to turn up to win half the games, he needs to up his own game… and quickly.

Apologies if this has been discussed earlier in the thread, but I do wonder whether Richard O’Kelly’s departure on the eve of the season might have been related to the fact that Dean was planning to switch the formation? The two of them had been together for a long long time and I wonder whether O’Kelly, who was presumably a key figure in implementing things on the training ground, just didn’t want to work with such a system? Pure speculation,, but possible.

My brother in law is a big Brentford supporter and he said that Smith and O’Kelly worked really closely at Brentford, even sharing a house in the area. They’d had a similar working relationship at Walsall and so assuming that continued here, I can’t for a moment believe that it was Smith who wanted to propose the U23 role.

I’ve said this before, but my brother in law is a Brentford supporter and I saw him this week (first time in months!). We were chatting about Smith and he said that there’s a massive difference at Brentford now in that their Head Coach Thomas Frank has a fantastic eye for detail and changes things quickly when necessary in games, whereas Smith rarely made changes other than the predictable ones. Having said that, he’s got a lot of time for Smith, as have most Brentford supporters, because he kept them ticking over and playing decent football, but he doesn’t believe Smith would have taken them to where they are now because he didn’t address defensive frailties nor did he react quickly enough to change the course of games. Most interestingly, he said that Thomas Frank’s tactical influence, even when he was the assistant coach, was crucial and he’s amazed Smith didn’t take Frank with him to Villa instead of agreeing to have John Terry in that role. Oh, and he also said that Richard O’Kelly is just Smith’s chauffeur!! lol

Of course, I’d love to share some of the stories but I wouldn’t want to cause any work or run the risk he might be disappointed with my offerings! But, your call really... and thanks.

Thanks, appreciate that.

It is very different. Police officers are viewed very differently and treated very differently. And that’s inside and outside the service. Some of the stories I’ve been given are remarkable. Nothing outrageous but the sort of things that would never happen nowadays.

Okay, fair enough.

In these tough times, my wife’s dad has been collecting and putting together some amusing stories about policing in the seventies and eighties. Times were so different back then it’s hard to comprehend. Some are good to post publicly, some might be better in private! But any interest in sharing a few? Or anyone able to contribute any to pass the time? Nothing anti-police, just a few smiles at things that happened.

I do like Dean Smith and I do think he’s the right man at this time, but we also need to be fully aware of what we are likely or not likely to see with his team. Since his defensive issues at Brentford have been pointed out to me, I have looked at their record a bit more closely and I read something very interesting this morning. When he left them they were leaking goals badly and in the next few games after he’d gone they were like a sieve. Scoring yes but conceding bucketfuls. I don’t know if their new manager (I can’t remember his name) took over straightaway or whether they had a caretaker in charge but the article this morning said the new guy has “completely turned around their poor defensive record and they’ve only conceded twice in the last five games in which they’ve been unbeaten.” That’s presumably with the same players that Dean Smith had, so it can be done. All I’m saying is that it might be unrealistic to expect any Dean Smith team to have a watertight defence. But hopefully we’ll see lots of goals at the other end!