Dean Smith

[Tayls]

I’ve a feeling that we have haven’t seen the last of Dean in terms of his involvement with the club. Part of me thinks, and hopes, he will one day return… 

[briny_ear]

18 minutes ago, Sam-AVFC said:

Literally within hours of Smith getting the job you posted this:

Yeh, well I think time has proved my point, although he did work well with Grealish and I have praised him for that.

[StefanAVFC]

4 minutes ago, briny_ear said:

Yeh, well I think time has proved my point, although he did work well with Grealish and I have praised him for that.

Only promotion in his first season, staying up in his first season in the PL, and making huge progress in the 2nd season.

He was sacked because of our underperformance this season but don't pat yourself on the back too hard.

He most certainly was up to it for a long time, and we moved forward hugely as a club.

[villa89]

If lampard gets the Canaries job ahead of him Delia should be baked inside a turkey @ 200 fan, basting 4 times during cooking and adding the cranberries and thyme with 30 minutes left. 

[HanoiVillan]

39 minutes ago, briny_ear said:

Yeh, well I think time has proved my point, although he did work well with Grealish and I have praised him for that.

Has it though? When you said 'I don't think he's up to it', did you have higher expectations than getting promoted at the first time of asking and then two seasons of improvement in the PL?

Just take the L on this one dude.

[Tomaszk]

Time proved my point with Wenger. I knew he wasn't cut out to be a PL manager.

[HanoiVillan]

34 minutes ago, Tomaszk said:

Time proved my point with Wenger. I knew he wasn't cut out to be a PL manager.

That was exactly the example I thought of as well

[WallisFrizz]

Lampard pulled out of the Norwich job so Deano likely to get it.

This is going to feel v weird!

[Jas10]

Just now, WallisFrizz said:

Lampard pulled out of the Norwich job so Deano likely to get it.

This is going to feel v weird!

I’d rather he go to Rangers and grab himself a title.

I think they want Van Bronckhorst over anyone though.

[tomav84]

3 minutes ago, WallisFrizz said:

Lampard pulled out of the Norwich job so Deano likely to get it.

This is going to feel v weird!

i'd rather see him at a 'project' somewhere

all that's going to happen at norwich is getting promoted, get relegated, get promoted again, and along the way somewhere he'll get sacked

[PieFacE]

At least he'll finally be able to manage Rashica

[briny_ear]

2 hours ago, HanoiVillan said:

Has it though? When you said 'I don't think he's up to it', did you have higher expectations than getting promoted at the first time of asking and then two seasons of improvement in the PL?

Just take the L on this one dude.

Like I said, he worked well with Grealish. But without Grealish his inability to cope in the PL was laid bare. Why do you think he was sacked?

As a self-confessed old git, I have no idea what the (presumably juvenile) slang phrase, “take the L” means. If you can explain it in proper English, I will know what sort of instruction I have been given. 

[KentVillan]

2 hours ago, briny_ear said:

Yeh, well I think time has proved my point, although he did work well with Grealish and I have praised him for that.

Time hasn't proved your point ffs  You couldn't have been more wrong.

[HanoiVillan]

18 minutes ago, briny_ear said:

Like I said, he worked well with Grealish. But without Grealish his inability to cope in the PL was laid bare. Why do you think he was sacked?

I agree with you that he didn't succeed without Grealish, I think that's something most people would agree on. I'm not sure what relevance it has to whether you were right when you predicted 'I think you're not up to the job'. Was 'the job' you were referring to (when we were midtable in the Championship) something more lofty than getting promoted at the first time of asking, then staying up, then securing a mid-table finish in the PL? Because most other forum members were obviously not thinking that far ahead at that point. 'The job' was getting promoted, and he did it. 

18 minutes ago, briny_ear said:

As a self-confessed old git, I have no idea what the (presumably juvenile) slang phrase, “take the L” means. If you can explain it in proper English, I will know what sort of instruction I have been given. 

I guess it basically means 'stop digging'. You made a post about 'writing [Gerrard] off before he's even started', and another poster immediately found you writing off the previous manager before he'd even got started. It's a bit embarrassing, but it's not important; you're allowed to change your mind or be a bit of a hypocrite, we all do that from time to time, but the embarrassing thing is trying to pretend there's no contradiction between the two posts.

Edited November 12, 2021 by HanoiVillan

[StefanAVFC]

10 minutes ago, briny_ear said:

Like I said, he worked well with Grealish. But without Grealish his inability to cope in the PL was laid bare. Why do you think he was sacked?

I don't disagree. I've even said as much in another post on the topic. But you can't just discount everything else that happened. Under him we went from languishing in mid table to a stable PL team. In 3 (2 and a half really) seasons. Take all context away and ask a neutral fan if Briny ear was correct when he said he isn't good enough when he was appointed to now and they'd laugh you out of the room, as everyone else here is doing now. Insanely one-eyed. Everything good was Jack, everything bad was Smith. I'm right, you're wrong *fingers in ears*. Laughable you're accusing someone of acting juvenile later on.

 

17 minutes ago, briny_ear said:

Like I said, he worked well with Grealish. But without Grealish his inability to cope in the PL was laid bare. Why do you think he was sacked?

As a self-confessed old git, I have no idea what the (presumably juvenile) slang phrase, “take the L” means. If you can explain it in proper English, I will know what sort of instruction I have been given. 

Yet modern enough to know how to access a forum, but can't easily google something that would take 2 seconds. Methinks you're not posting in good faith here. And the baseless accusation that something you've never heard of is juvenile by default.

Just Take the LOSS man. You weren't right about Smith at the start, despite his sacking.

[Mark Albrighton]

If someone told me in October 2018 that “the job” was promotion, then stay up, then secure the highest league place and points total in ten years, then I wouldn’t have guessed he was up to it.

He ultimately didn’t do it without Grealish (one or two notably good results aside). I would argue the final run where that was evident he was by and large without one component, arguably the one who was the most direct replacement for Grealish in Bailey. 

Would he have turned it round? We’ll obviously never know. My gut feeling is it would have improved, but not to the extent that would be viewed as a success. Lower midtable maybe.

He was unlucky that Grealish got injured for the length of time he did (where would we have finished if that injury was just half as long?). And he was unlucky that 55 points wasn’t high enough to secure even a top half finish. The first time in years that’s been the case.

He took us from losing to Millwall being shrugged off as “what else is new?” to a point where we were going away to Spurs and people on here were anticipating a 3-0 win. He wasn’t good enough to continually get that sort of result, but he was good enough to get us to the point where such a result seemed genuinely possible.

[a m ole]

I think “look what he achieved with a top player at his disposal” is inherently a bad argument against him.

[Davkaus]

The main struggle I have with really judging his tenure is not really knowing what the scope was of his role. How big a role did he play in recruitment, because that's a major source of this season's poor form.Whoever was the key driver of this central midfield being good enough has a lot to answer for. 

[a m ole]

4 minutes ago, Davkaus said:

The main struggle I have with really judging his tenure is not really knowing what the scope was of his role. How big a role did he play in recruitment, because that's a major source of this season's poor form.Whoever was the key driver of this central midfield being good enough has a lot to answer for. 

Or who wrote the shortlist for the new coaches, who picked them, what and who lead to Terry and O’Kelly leaving and so on.

[briny_ear]

29 minutes ago, HanoiVillan said:

I agree with you that he didn't succeed without Grealish, I think that's something most people would agree on. I'm not sure what relevance it has to whether you were right when you predicted 'I think you're not up to the job'. Was 'the job' you were referring to (when we were midtable in the Championship) something more lofty than getting promoted at the first time of asking, then staying up, then securing a mid-table finish in the PL? Because most other forum members were obviously not thinking that far ahead at that point. 'The job' was getting promoted, and he did it. 

I guess it basically means 'stop digging'. You made a post about 'writing [Gerrard] off before he's even started', and another poster immediately found you writing off the previous manager before he'd even got started. It's a bit embarrassing, but it's not important; you're allowed to change your mind or be a bit of a hypocrite, we all do that from time to time, but the embarrassing thing is trying to pretend there's no contradiction between the two posts.

 

24 minutes ago, StefanAVFC said:

I don't disagree. I've even said as much in another post on the topic. But you can't just discount everything else that happened. Under him we went from languishing in mid table to a stable PL team. In 3 (2 and a half really) seasons. Take all context away and ask a neutral fan if Briny ear was correct when he said he isn't good enough when he was appointed to now and they'd laugh you out of the room, as everyone else here is doing now. Insanely one-eyed. Everything good was Jack, everything bad was Smith. I'm right, you're wrong *fingers in ears*. Laughable you're accusing someone of acting juvenile later on.

 

Yet modern enough to know how to access a forum, but can't easily google something that would take 2 seconds. Methinks you're not posting in good faith here. And the baseless accusation that something you've never heard of is juvenile by default.

Just Take the LOSS man. You weren't right about Smith at the start, despite his sacking.

My apologies. I recognise this is a thread where people come to mourn the loss of Dean Smith. I won’t intrude again because I always had a more sceptical view of his achievements but (a) my thoughts are not appropriate in this memorial thread and (b) it’s irrelevant now because he has left us.