Let me be quite clear, right from the first paragraph; Dean Smith is my manager. I don't want him sacked and I don't want any more change for the foreseeable future. Change is what got us relegated and not having people at the Club that knew what football was about was another.
But let me also explain what has happened to Dean Smith the last eight years because it's like me getting the CEO job for a multi-national employing 30,000 people. Tomorrow.
He's gone from relative obscurity and let me be clear, no real success, to managing one of the biggest Clubs in the land. 10 years ago he was Head of Youth at Walsall.
And his first job in first team management wasn't until 2011, again at Walsall. During his time at Walsall, he managed a win rate of 32%. I think it fair to say he got lucky (yes, lucky) when offered the Brentford job. Brentford are a special Club though because they've got this philosophy that isn't based on spending large sums of money on players and managers are given players and a way of playing.
If they don't do it, they're out the door. Brentford saw something in Dean Smith and it wasn't his win rate. So maybe we have to buy into that too?
And lets put things into perspective; the new Brentford manager has a better win rate that Dean Smith, he's getting better too. I think it's fair to say that new manager syndrome is wearing off for Dean Smith and it doesn't look like it's going to get better any time soon.
Dean Smith will find himself
But it was never going to happen this season for Dean Smith and we all sort of know that. We were right to hope, but that is just the way it is. But nothing, absolutely nothing suggested he was going to come in mid-season and romp us to the top. Hell, if anything, we should have known it wasn't going to happen.
And yes there was a small group (getting smaller now) that thought it was going to happen because of Brentford, but we all knew and know Brentford was set up for him, just like it was for Mark Warburton (54% win record at Brentford) and Uwe Rösler (44% win record at Brentford) before him. Dean Smith didn't make Brentford better, they were worse under him and actually getting better now.
I wrote this part the other day also and some will disagree but most of our players would get into most other sides in this league. There are some that would get into Premier League sides too and we have several internationals. And that's easy to write, but they're internationals for a reason. Maybe they're not hungry, but isn't that the real job of the manager, to make players want to give 100%?
It's easy to write he needs time, but there is nothing else to write.
But football is no longer what it used to be
Have you seen a picture of Dean Smith when he joined us? He looks ten years older. Imagine how he's going to look at the end of next season if he doesn't get us up? That is the game these days. Why don't we try to change it?
Dean Smith is quite possibly the last chance we'll ever have of having one of our own managing the Club. Dean Smith is my manager because we're in all likelihood never going to win the Premier League or Champions League in my lifetime and I quite like that we've got someone that will give everything or on the face of things is willing.
And football these days isn't instant. Instant was what got us relegated. Expecting change to be instant is where the trouble starts. It's time to just accept things, have faith, demand of the players and manager with our full support. I think that is the most important part.
Stoke tomorrow
So all that is written. It's not maybe what some of you wanted to read but it's what we've got to do. In my opinion anyway. If we don't, Smith will get the sack in two more games and then we're in a whole world of trouble.
And even though it's the day before, there are no stats form the BBC. I'll use them tomorrow. Until then, the video. Up the Villa!