Dean Smith

[sne]

1 minute ago, Cjay said:

Good appointment Dean Smith.

The sensible one imo, surprised it wasn't done within a day or two. 

But why force John Terry on him?

No way was that Dean Smith's choice, he may have agreed to it but get the impression its more down to the owners. Kind of weird, Terry looming over his shoulder, and bet if he has a bad start the calls for Terry to takeover will start, just odd imo. 

Perhaps because Smith has no experience of top football, big clubs or handling big players and egos.

A few seasons managing in the Championship and playing in League 1 at Sheff W is world apart from where we are and especially from where we want to be in the upcoming years.

Think Terry can offer him/us a lot.

[bannedfromHandV]

3 minutes ago, blandy said:

Yeah, exactly this. The points dropped already, the unbalanced squad have proper done for us this season. FFP will also have an impact in a few months.

What the club has needed all along is to develop a recognisable, coherent template - exactly what Brentford have (only a Villa version). A way of playing embedded and enjoyable. A long term outlook and an idea of where we're going. Not a short term "we must get promoted now" panic style effort. If you get the other things right the results and success come on their own. Success at any costs is just the wrong approach. The club needs to make more of its youth system and bring through more players playing our way. Lose the desperation and replace it with inspiration and organisation.

I hope he gets time to enable all this to happen. 

All hypothetical obviously but I'm just trying to work this out, the general consensus seems to be that this appointment is a long term plan and that promotion may be a tall order this season.

So let's fast forward 12 months and assume we've not been promoted.

Parachute payments have stopped, FFP is hovering over us with a scythe in hand, we've sold Grealish and anyone else with value and are relying on kids and mediocre loan signings (mediocre as we won't be affording Abraham, Bolasie etc).

What then?

If we don't get promoted this season I think we'll sooner see League 1 than we will the PL and I don't think we'd even make it to the end of this season without people calling for a new Manager again.

 

I'm not saying these are reasons not to have appointed Smith, it would be true of whoever we hired in terms of needing promotion this season, I'm just struggling with this justification that he's going to enable a long term reshaping of the club - my issue with that is that unless he's successful (i.e. promotion), he will not be given the time. Football fans (through the power of anonymity and social media) are far less patient and forgiving now than at any other time.

[Demitri_C]

2 hours ago, turvontour said:

Its just very nice of villa to give the job to an Englishman AGAIN (what’s that, 3 out of the last 4?) and him being a villa fan too is a nice touch. Grealish and Dean Smith applauding the Holte End sounds lovely, it means a lot to them personally I’m sure.

 

I'm greek, I take it then I can count your support when the next management vacancy comes up?

[JAMAICAN-VILLAN]

29 minutes ago, Johnnyp said:

You'll know from his team selection early doors that players like jedinak, Whelan and hutton won't feature in his team going forward. And im glad about that. Needs to be a major shift in our approach to the game. Watched an interview with Smith and o'kelly from a Brentford coaching forum a year back and they say they constantly work with the ball during training because running for runnings sake without the ball is pointless. Refreshing to hear this. Not bringing lads out to Portugal running the bollocks off them for 2 weeks.

You say that but people need to remember he will need to work with what he has got.

Doubt he will be making wholesale changed straight away.

Then again maybe he **** will!

[Demitri_C]

21 minutes ago, Cjay said:

Good appointment Dean Smith.

The sensible one imo, surprised it wasn't done within a day or two. 

But why force John Terry on him?

No way was that Dean Smith's choice, he may have agreed to it but get the impression its more down to the owners. Kind of weird, Terry looming over his shoulder, and bet if he has a bad start the calls for Terry to takeover will start, just odd imo. 

Yep do you know he was forced on him? You don't. They could havw just asked and he said yes that woukd be good as he has such a great relationship in that dressing room 

[Lichfield Dean]

12 hours ago, YLN said:

When I read the headline I was shocked and disappointed. But then to my great relief, I realised it wasn't Dean Saunders. What ever happens, at least it's not Dean Saunders.

Nothing wrong with people called Dean is there?

[A'Villan]

3 minutes ago, Demitri_C said:

I'm greek, I take it then I can count your support when the next management vacancy comes up?

Geia sou, re, Tikanis?

[StewieGriffin]

I wonder which of the U23s will get a chance... Bedeau maybe, given the defence?

Also... no interview yet?

[Made In Aston]

1 minute ago, StewieGriffin said:

Also... no interview yet?

Snith and Terry are meeting the players on Monday so maybe the press conference will be then. 

[chrisvilla4]

Wow just wow. 

Smith wasn't my choice due to the size and expectation of villa and the fans but he knows this better than most (especially having been round with a broom!) 

What more could we want? A fantastic football philosophy and an avid fan to boot! It almost begs for a film to be made (hopefully with a happy ending!) 

Add JT to the mix (who I'm respecting more and more with everything I hear and see about him!) Then this really could be something special. 

 

UTV!

[Stevo985]

2 hours ago, turvontour said:

Its just very nice of villa to give the job to an Englishman AGAIN (what’s that, 3 out of the last 4?) and him being a villa fan too is a nice touch. Grealish and Dean Smith applauding the Holte End sounds lovely, it means a lot to them personally I’m sure.

 

I know we’re not competing with these clubs, but you just look at the likes of Man City, Chelsea etc, who will likely never employ an English manager again, and presumably still only have English players because they have to fulfil a quota. Barkley, Delph, Drinkwater etc.

What a **** bizarre post

[blandy]

27 minutes ago, bannedfromHandV said:

...So let's fast forward 12 months and assume we've not been promoted.

Parachute payments have stopped, FFP is hovering over us with a scythe in hand, we've sold Grealish and anyone else with value and are relying on kids and mediocre loan signings (mediocre as we won't be affording Abraham, Bolasie etc).

What then?

If we don't get promoted this season I think we'll sooner see League 1 than we will the PL and I don't think we'd even make it to the end of this season without people calling for a new Manager again.

I'm not saying these are reasons not to have appointed Smith, it would be true of whoever we hired in terms of needing promotion this season, I'm just struggling with this justification that he's going to enable a long term reshaping of the club - my issue with that is that unless he's successful (i.e. promotion), he will not be given the time. Football fans (through the power of anonymity and social media) are far less patient and forgiving now than at any other time.

If that were to happen - no promotion this season (and I think that's the likely outcome) then there's only one option. As you say we'd have severe financial constraints (again. That we've so far ignored them this season is a major worry, but that's another story). SO with financial constraints, the ONLY option is to do what the teams already operating on small budgets do - build and develop. Whether it's a Brentford version, a Burton Albion version, Rotherham...whoever. We've now got a manager who works that way. We've got a youth system (not affected by FFP). So whatever level of achievement we get this season, the way forward is and always should have been to rebuild the club on a sustainable, stable, sound coaching type of footing. Embedding a system and all the rest. For me the Bruce and RDM appointments were wrong, and I said why at the time - because they were not along the lines I've said here. They were about short term, throw money at it and hope something works, somehow. A massive gamble. That could have worked had the club been less of a mess, but it was so broken that IMO it was never going to work. Bruce did well to sort out some of the issues, but he didn't progress anything tangible or long term. RDM had 12 games or so and couldn't get anything to work in that time so he was potted because of the short term outlook and gamble.

You're right people are less forgiving or patient, but my sense is that if people see progress, they will put up with a period of poor results, particularly if they connect with a manager and the manager connects with them.

[Cjay]

25 minutes ago, Demitri_C said:

Yep do you know he was forced on him? You don't. They could havw just asked and he said yes that woukd be good as he has such a great relationship in that dressing room 

Could be right.

Or the owners wanted a "high profile" appointment which they apparently did, they didnt get one, so they got Terry in to appease the fans and to get there "high profile" person. 

Dean Smith was never going to turn the job down regardless. 

[Demitri_C]

21 minutes ago, A'Villan said:

Geia sou, re, Tikanis?

Kala esei?

[Cjay]

45 minutes ago, sne said:

Perhaps because Smith has no experience of top football, big clubs or handling big players and egos.

A few seasons managing in the Championship and playing in League 1 at Sheff W is world apart from where we are and especially from where we want to be in the upcoming years.

Think Terry can offer him/us a lot.

Fair point, just seems like a way to appease the fans to me, get there high profile person that they couldnt get as manager. 

Then again Terry seemed popular in the dressing room from what you all say, so makes sense in a way.

Shame you didnt appoint Smith sooner, like before we played Brentford 

[blandy]

1 minute ago, Cjay said:

Or the owners wanted a "high profile" appointment which they apparently did, they didnt get one, so they got Terry in to appease the fans and to get there "high profile" person. 

I suspect that the "presence" of John Terry last season, with all the stuff he did off the pitch, the benefits he clearly brought to the squad, the organisational side of him, the professionalism and all that left an impression with players, staff, and people like Brian Little etc. who the new owners would have talked to. Whether they wanted someone high profile or not, I'm confident they wanted JT involved for what he brings aside from his name.

[Demitri_C]

2 minutes ago, Cjay said:

Could be right.

Or the owners wanted a "high profile" appointment which they apparently did, they didnt get one, so they got Terry in to appease the fans and to get there "high profile" person. 

Dean Smith was never going to turn the job down regardless. 

Forget what the media say do you think we managed to arrange talks with , compensation etc from the few hours of the faria 'isn't interested' stories form the media??

This was done probably days ago and I'm sure terry was offered to smith as a part of his backroom team amd smith thought about it and accepted due to the massive impact terry had here

[Cjay]

7 minutes ago, blandy said:

I suspect that the "presence" of John Terry last season, with all the stuff he did off the pitch, the benefits he clearly brought to the squad, the organisational side of him, the professionalism and all that left an impression with players, staff, and people like Brian Little etc. who the new owners would have talked to. Whether they wanted someone high profile or not, I'm confident they wanted JT involved for what he brings aside from his name.

You may be right, may just be the cynic in me whose used to seeing our managers undermined for years.

[Lerner's Driver]

Have I missed the interview with him, or is that likely to come today?

[hippo]

I can't help thinking his head is a bit too round to be top notch manager - the best managers seem to have slightly longer faces - but then again on some pictures his face does look longer..