Dean Smith

[AVFC_Hitz]

6 minutes ago, Rodders said:

Why is he under pressure? He's still doing OK isn't he?

Not ok with Norwich. Who should be getting 100pts in the championship and then 13 in the premier League.

[jim]

10 minutes ago, Rodders said:

Why is he under pressure? He's still doing OK isn't he?

Won 2 in 10 and the football is shite according to Norwich fans. 

[Xela]

I love Deano, he did great at Villa, but he'll never hit those heights again. We were his club and nothing will mean the same to him. 

We've seen it happen loads of times when managers leave Villa - like Brian Little and John Gregory. Never the same.

[Mantis]

1 hour ago, Xela said:

I love Deano, he did great at Villa, but he'll never hit those heights again. We were his club and nothing will mean the same to him. 

We've seen it happen loads of times when managers leave Villa - like Brian Little and John Gregory. Never the same.

Also he had Grealish.

Not to take away from his achievement of course, and simply getting the best out of him was an incredible achievement in and of itself, but he was definitely a huge factor in Smith's success here.

Edited November 12, 2022 by Mantis

[VillaChris]

37 minutes ago, Rodders said:

Why is he under pressure? He's still doing OK isn't he?

They were comfortable top 2 and now they're just about staying in top 6.

When Farke has set the standard of comfortably winning the league in each of Norwich's previous two campaigns that's the standards DS is going to be judged.

They're not terrible but they're just bumbling along winning a few games and then stalling, it's similar to what we were doing under Steve Bruce in his one full season here. Should've pushed Cardiff much harder but gambled on winning the play offs and then our whole world very nearly collapsed. 

[VillaChris]

11 minutes ago, Mantis said:

Also he had Grealish.

Not to take away from his achievement of course, and simply getting the best out of him was an incredibly achievement in and of itself, but he was definitely a huge factor in Smith's success here.

Didn't Purslow say that at a fan event recently?

I do get the feeling a few execs might have hesitated given we were so Grealish centric in those days.

Half this forum thought he'd walk into another mid table prem job when we sacked him (Newcastle was vacant when that happened). Southampton would've been a decent fit for him with all their young players but they approached Nathan Jones instead.

It's just a case of he'll have to promote another club to get another chance in premier league. Someone like Everton would probably go for Dyche if/when they sack Lampard.

Despite all that I'll always be grateful for what he did here.

[Mark Albrighton]

44 minutes ago, Mantis said:

Also he had Grealish.

Not to take away from his achievement of course, and simply getting the best out of him was an incredibly achievement in and of itself, but he was definitely a huge factor in Smith's success here.

And Grealish had Smith.

Now, you can make the case Smith relied on Grealish more than Grealish relied on Smith. I’d agree with that.

But there hasn’t been a manager before or since that has got Grealish to consistently perform in the way people actually enjoy watching him. There were moments before, moments after, a game here and a game there.

But not to the same extent as he was playing late 2018 to early 2021. Grealish benefited from Smith too.

It’s funny, Brian Little never has “Well, he had Yorke…” type comments. Perhaps if Yorke was injured for months on end we’d have a different opinion on Little. In fact, in 97/98, Yorke missed 7 matches while Little was in charge. Resulted in 1 win. Perhaps Little was over reliant on Yorke.

That tangent there is just to suggest that perhaps even our better managers rely somewhat on their better players. The Smith/Grealish dynamic maybe isn’t unique in that regard. 

[Mantis]

45 minutes ago, Mark Albrighton said:

And Grealish had Smith.

Now, you can make the case Smith relied on Grealish more than Grealish relied on Smith. I’d agree with that.

But there hasn’t been a manager before or since that has got Grealish to consistently perform in the way people actually enjoy watching him. There were moments before, moments after, a game here and a game there.

But not to the same extent as he was playing late 2018 to early 2021. Grealish benefited from Smith too.

It’s funny, Brian Little never has “Well, he had Yorke…” type comments. Perhaps if Yorke was injured for months on end we’d have a different opinion on Little. In fact, in 97/98, Yorke missed 7 matches while Little was in charge. Resulted in 1 win. Perhaps Little was over reliant on Yorke.

That tangent there is just to suggest that perhaps even our better managers rely somewhat on their better players. The Smith/Grealish dynamic maybe isn’t unique in that regard. 

Of course it's not unique but Smith did benefit from having essentially a world class player to drag us out of the Championship and then keep us in the PL. I'm just not sure he'll ever be able to replicate that elsewhere.

[Mark Albrighton]

8 minutes ago, Mantis said:

Of course it's not unique but Smith did benefit from having essentially a world class player to drag us out of the Championship and then keep us in the PL. I'm just not sure he'll ever be able to replicate that elsewhere.

The argument would be Grealish is not a world class player prior to Smith coming along. 

If he was considered that highly by those watching on, I personally think there would be more than just Levy trying his luck with his Onomah deal. I think we’d have had them all breaking down our door. In reality it was only Spurs who seemingly displayed any solid interest.

[Kingman]

Got us £100m for Grealish 

He should be Knighted for this alone 

[Demitri_C]

I do wonder with smith prior to taking villa job how much of his success was doen to farke. Farkes gone from strength to strength. Smiths stock has plummeted 

Probably only has a couple games to save his job i think after WC

[jim]

2 hours ago, Demitri_C said:

I do wonder with smith prior to taking villa job how much of his success was doen to farke. Farkes gone from strength to strength. Smiths stock has plummeted 

Probably only has a couple games to save his job i think after WC

Presume you mean Frank?

[The_Steve]

The absence of ROK in his coaching staff is also a big factor I feel. 

[Demitri_C]

30 minutes ago, jim said:

Presume you mean Frank?

Yes  

[gwi1890]

46 minutes ago, jim said:

Presume you mean Frank?

Tbf Farke has done well since leaving Norwich to

[VillaChris]

17 hours ago, Mark Albrighton said:

The argument would be Grealish is not a world class player prior to Smith coming along. 

If he was considered that highly by those watching on, I personally think there would be more than just Levy trying his luck with his Onomah deal. I think we’d have had them all breaking down our door. In reality it was only Spurs who seemingly displayed any solid interest.

He was huge for us though. As I said above I reckon a few prem execs were admiring DS work here up to end of 2020 then Grealish had his shin splints and from a very promising position our results fell off a cliff.

These are some of the results we had after Grealish got injured:

Sheffield United 1 Villa 0

Villa 0 Wolves 0

Newcastle 1 Villa 1

Villa 0 Spurs 2 (we beat them away with Grealish starting right at end of the season)

Villa 2 West Brom 2

Villa 0 Everton 0

Palace 3 Villa 2

I was very disappointed how we tailed off that season as we'd really established ourselves in the top 6/7 and had games in hand on a few above us.

Jack then came back and played the last 3-4 games and we beat Spurs and Chelsea back-to-back.

Start of the next season DS got in a terrible muddle in how to get Ings/Watkins combing effectively and switching to 3-5-2 ultimately cost him his job so these are things that would make other prem clubs reluctant to hire him imo.

[Zatman]

16 minutes ago, VillaChris said:

He was huge for us though. As I said above I reckon a few prem execs were admiring DS work here up to end of 2020 then Grealish had his shin splints and from a very promising position our results fell off a cliff.

These are some of the results we had after Grealish got injured:

Sheffield United 1 Villa 0

Villa 0 Wolves 0

Newcastle 1 Villa 1

Villa 0 Spurs 2 (we beat them away with Grealish starting right at end of the season)

Villa 2 West Brom 2

Villa 0 Everton 0

Palace 3 Villa 2

I was very disappointed how we tailed off that season as we'd really established ourselves in the top 6/7 and had games in hand on a few above us.

Jack then came back and played the last 3-4 games and we beat Spurs and Chelsea back-to-back.

Start of the next season DS got in a terrible muddle in how to get Ings/Watkins combing effectively and switching to 3-5-2 ultimately cost him his job so these are things that would make other prem clubs reluctant to hire him imo.

After game 5 we were in the top 6 two more weekends that season

Is a bit of a myth Grealish going down cost us Europe including some idiotic comments from Purslow

[VillaChris]

This was the table after Villa 1 Arsenal 0 in Feb 2021:

Aston Villa 1-0 Arsenal: Keeper Mat Ryan concedes 74 seconds into Gunners debut - BBC Sport

8th but we were 5 points off 4th with a game in hand. 4 points off West Ham with two games in hand and they finished that season 6th.

It was there for us but Grealish only played one more game up to middle of May and we started dropping frequent points against bottom half and relegated teams.

Were also 4 points above Arsenal with two games in hand so that was our best chance to finish above them in 20 + years.

Leeds were six points below us and they finished above us in the end aswell.

Just shows also how quickly things have gone right for Arsenal given Bellrin, Holding, Cedric Soares, Pepe and Lacazette were all starting 18 months ago.

[Mark Albrighton]

25 minutes ago, VillaChris said:

He was huge for us though. As I said above I reckon a few prem execs were admiring DS work here up to end of 2020 then Grealish had his shin splints and from a very promising position our results fell off a cliff.

These are some of the results we had after Grealish got injured:

Sheffield United 1 Villa 0

Villa 0 Wolves 0

Newcastle 1 Villa 1

Villa 0 Spurs 2 (we beat them away with Grealish starting right at end of the season)

Villa 2 West Brom 2

Villa 0 Everton 0

Palace 3 Villa 2

I was very disappointed how we tailed off that season as we'd really established ourselves in the top 6/7 and had games in hand on a few above us.

Jack then came back and played the last 3-4 games and we beat Spurs and Chelsea back-to-back.

Start of the next season DS got in a terrible muddle in how to get Ings/Watkins combing effectively and switching to 3-5-2 ultimately cost him his job so these are things that would make other prem clubs reluctant to hire him imo.

I am not and as far as I can tell no one is suggesting Grealish wasn’t a huge player for us, particularly while playing for Smith. You don’t have to remind me of the poor results under Smith, sans Grealish, believe me, I know.

In the section of my post that you’re quoting, I am countering the idea that he was “world class” (or as good as) prior to Smith turning up. If he was world class, it was world class potential that had to that point rarely been realised. Smith knew how to realise it better than any other manager (so far).

[Pinebro]

Smith will always be the foundation if Emery is successful with us.

No one can take that away from him.

Edited November 13, 2022 by Pinebro