Dean Smith

[rodders0223]

Dean Smith was right to be moved on. End of story.

[CarryOnVilla]

3 minutes ago, El-Reacho said:

It’s getting harder to compare this situation with Smith’s. The results are the same but Smith wasn’t making basic mistakes that were obvious to everyone watching. Sure smith had a falling out when he dropped Mings but he didn’t alienate him or anyone else in the squad - there were no rumours of him having lost the dressing room.

There was a small chance that Smith could’ve turned things around and he’d done it previously the season we stayed up.

I can’t see anything redeeming SG’s position right now.

Tbf, there were moans about Smith. “Tactically predictable” “doesn’t use subs” “ginger” 

[El-Reacho]

4 minutes ago, CarryOnVilla said:

Tbf, there were moans about Smith. “Tactically predictable” “doesn’t use subs” “ginger” 

It was the ginger thing that finished him in the end IIRC….

[Demitri_C]

2 hours ago, JPJCB said:

I’ve no doubt smith would be doing better with this squad than gerrard. He has the right mentality for a start 

I think he would probably be doing as badly as gerrard is.

Neither is the answer

[Genie]

2 hours ago, JPJCB said:

I’ve no doubt smith would be doing better with this squad than gerrard. He has the right mentality for a start 

No doubt? Really?

[regular_john]

1 hour ago, rodders0223 said:

Dean Smith was right to be moved on. End of story.

I disagree. He had more than enough credit in the bank to warrant more time and support. It seemed like a mistake at the time and it has since proven to be so.

[Mantis]

8 hours ago, KentVillan said:

My point is sacking at the end of the season is usually much wiser - unless the situation is so desperate (bottom of table / lost the dressing room / etc) that you need the manager out urgently, or there is a very good replacement on the market that you want to bring in ASAP.

I don't think the Smith situation was anywhere near as desperate as had been made out, and I don't think there was an obvious replacement waiting to be snapped up. So it was the wrong time to sack Smith.

So I disagree with your original point re it being the right time for Smith to move on. We'd have had a better selection of managers available to us if we hadn't panicked.

Of course Purslow's argument would have been that Gerrard was a highly rated prospect who *was* a significant upgrade on Smith, and needed to be locked down before rivals swooped in on him. That has turned out to be wishful thinking.

What's to say we wouldn't have been able to get an upgrade there and then? Gerrard wasn't the best available at the time, he was just who the board wanted.

I also think in the short term we would have been in a worse position had we stuck with him. Obviously Smith is a much better manager than Gerrard but I do believe that if we'd stuck with Smith we would have been dragged in to a proper relegation battle last season.

[KentVillan]

7 hours ago, LondonLax said:

So you’re saying we should give Gerrard to the end of the season, unless we go bottom?

No, I think Gerrard is losing the dressing room, we are drifting towards the bottom, and I think we can probably find a better manager now. So should probably pull the trigger soon.

But even as much as I don’t rate Gerrard, we shouldn’t sack just for the sake of it - it does depend on having a suitable replacement lined up.

[KentVillan]

1 hour ago, Mantis said:

What's to say we wouldn't have been able to get an upgrade there and then? Gerrard wasn't the best available at the time, he was just who the board wanted.

I also think in the short term we would have been in a worse position had we stuck with him. Obviously Smith is a much better manager than Gerrard but I do believe that if we'd stuck with Smith we would have been dragged in to a proper relegation battle last season.

Fair enough, I disagree on that last point, but it’s all speculation. Fair opinion, though.

[Stevo985]

I think Dean Smith could do better with this squad than Gerrard.

The problem is we wouldn't have this squad if we'd kept Smith

[VillaChris]

2 hours ago, regular_john said:

I disagree. He had more than enough credit in the bank to warrant more time and support. It seemed like a mistake at the time and it has since proven to be so.

We were heading to the bottom 3 with some really difficult fixtures coming up so I think it was just a case of Wes and Nas deciding he'd take us as far as he could.

This was the table after his final match:

Southampton 1-0 Aston Villa: Saints edge Villa with Adam Armstrong goal - BBC Sport

So 3 points above 18th but we played that game on the Friday night so possibly gap was even less when he fired him on the Sunday lunchtime.

It was a shame but sometimes it just happens with managers, dosen't mean they should all get 10 years.

And good point made above....I couldn't really see DS getting in the higher calibre players the owners obviously wanted us to get. We have them now, hopefully the next manager can actually coach them into a winning unit.

Edited August 29, 2022 by VillaChris

[KentVillan]

1 hour ago, Stevo985 said:

I think Dean Smith could do better with this squad than Gerrard.

The problem is we wouldn't have this squad if we'd kept Smith

Is there anyone other than Coutinho we wouldn’t have been able to buy?

[Stevo985]

8 minutes ago, KentVillan said:

Is there anyone other than Coutinho we wouldn’t have been able to buy?

Digne quite possibly was a Gerrard pull factor as well given Rafa was manager at Everton when we signed him.
Who knows for the other signings since then.

But the other factor is we very well may not have even been in this league if Smith had carried on.

[Mantis]

8 minutes ago, Stevo985 said:

Digne quite possibly was a Gerrard pull factor as well given Rafa was manager at Everton when we signed him.
Who knows for the other signings since then.

But the other factor is we very well may not have even been in this league if Smith had carried on.

I still think people understate the precarious position we were in when Smith was sacked. There was absolutely no way we would've got 12 points from 18 in those next 6 games if he'd had stayed. We'd have been in a full relegation battle and God knows what would've happened.

Even though there are differences I think it's comparable to Lambert and Sherwood in 2014/15 in some respects (even though Smith obviously did a lot more than Lambert).

Edited August 29, 2022 by Mantis

[StanBalaban]

Moving Dean on was the right decision. It's how we've replaced him that's not gone well.

[KentVillan]

36 minutes ago, Stevo985 said:

Digne quite possibly was a Gerrard pull factor as well given Rafa was manager at Everton when we signed him.
Who knows for the other signings since then.

But the other factor is we very well may not have even been in this league if Smith had carried on.

I think the whole Gerrard pull factor is massively overstated, and the fact it’s only Coutinho and *possibly* Digne where we’ve benefited from it kind of proves that point.

Players largely move for money, first team football, and a solid setup. Or the chance to work under a world class manager, which Gerrard is not.

I think Smith’s previous history shows that he always tended to turn things around when any of his clubs have had rough spells - that’s not just at Villa. So I was fairly confident he’d have had us in a similar position to Gerrard, probably with a couple of his own signings in the January window.

My point isn’t that Smith shouldn’t have been sacked, but that we should have waited to pull the trigger until a credible replacement was there. People say there were better options than Gerrard, but I’m intrigued to know who they were? Poch? Who was actually available?

[Mantis]

17 minutes ago, KentVillan said:

I think the whole Gerrard pull factor is massively overstated, and the fact it’s only Coutinho and *possibly* Digne where we’ve benefited from it kind of proves that point.

Players largely move for money, first team football, and a solid setup. Or the chance to work under a world class manager, which Gerrard is not.

I think Smith’s previous history shows that he always tended to turn things around when any of his clubs have had rough spells - that’s not just at Villa. So I was fairly confident he’d have had us in a similar position to Gerrard, probably with a couple of his own signings in the January window.

My point isn’t that Smith shouldn’t have been sacked, but that we should have waited to pull the trigger until a credible replacement was there. People say there were better options than Gerrard, but I’m intrigued to know who they were? Poch? Who was actually available?

We'll never know, but I don't think it's a stretch to say that we could've gotten somebody in who would genuinely improve us at the time instead of Gerrard (although even he did improve us initially).

[KentVillan]

3 minutes ago, Mantis said:

We'll never know, but I don't think it's a stretch to say that we could've gotten somebody in who would genuinely improve us at the time instead of Gerrard (although even he did improve us initially).

I don’t think it’s a stretch, either, but I think we could have comfortably hung on to Smith for at least a few more games while we did a proper search. I think Purslow really believed he had struck gold with Gerrard and needed to move quickly before rivals stepped in. A shame. Hopefully he’s learnt his lesson.

The main thing that differentiates Smith from Lambert, Sherwood and now Gerrard, is that he didn’t ostracise half the squad. Very few players were genuinely bombed out, and he still had a lot of affection from the players and the fans.

The issue we have now is that Gerrard could leave a fair bit of damage in his wake. That’s why we may need to move quickly, so that we don’t lose decent players in the process.

Edited August 29, 2022 by KentVillan

[Zatman]

1 hour ago, Mantis said:

I still think people understate the precarious position we were in when Smith was sacked. There was absolutely no way we would've got 12 points from 18 in those next 6 games if he'd had stayed. We'd have been in a full relegation battle and God knows what would've happened.

Even though there are differences I think it's comparable to Lambert and Sherwood in 2014/15 in some respects (even though Smith obviously did a lot more than Lambert).

Are you saying is no way we would have got 30 points in 27 games to keep us up

[Mantis]

Just now, Zatman said:

Are you saying is no way we would have got 30 points in 27 games to keep us up

Probably? But if we'd have kept Smith the chances of us going down last season would've been much greater.