To understand something that is wrong or not working as expected, you sometimes have to experience it a few times. If you can easily fix something that, it's not hard work and I've never known success to be easy. Yes, this is a fairly philosophical start to a post very early on a Sunday morning, but I think it would be a big mistake to get rid of Dean Smith and somebody needs to write it and say it.
I can understand why some are saying the manager needs to be replaced and it's the easy story to write, that the Club are looking at alternatives, but nobody that is writing that know this, it's just easy. And lets be clear, of all those that are writing the easy stories, how many of them are people you enjoy reading or are people that usually write something insightful or true.
Again, it's not hard, it's easy. Nothing good comes from easy and I think most at the Club understand this and I think they also know that change brings disruption and it's not often disruption brings positive change. I'm fairly sure sensible heads win this.
Our owners and CEO have done nothing to date to suggest that they like making wrong decisions and everything they've done so far, apart from a few vanity appearances from our CEO, suggest that they understand what it takes. There are too many reasons to keep Dean Smith and for me, that is why I believe change isn't coming.
Now, I've long written that managers need to go. David O'Leary got worse as a manager every single season. Martin O'Neill needed more money to take us higher up the League. It was a dark day at Aston Villa when Alex McLeish was appointed. Just look at what Paul Lambert has done since leaving and Tim Sherwood was a joke. The list goes on.
But not Dean Smith, not yet.
Sure, I've written that it was Brentford that made him somewhat successful, not him, but the value and potential and opportunity in having Dean Smith get it right is too high. Everyone else is a risk and those risks are too unknown. It doesn't make sense getting rid of the manager now.
We have a nice break coming up and two important matches in November. There are many discussions to have and many positions to take and many scenarios to run through. I think the manager is going to get it right and when he does, it's going to get better. But it's not supposed to be easy and it doesn't happen overnight. And on that, I'm going back to bed.