On the face of it, it’s a daft question, but bear with me.
I’ve seen it said that Dean Smith has no proven history and indeed his highest previous finish was ninth in any league.
The insinuation was that our current fifth position was a basic requirement with the squad that we have.
So why was it looking incredibly likely that we would finish nowhere near fifth under Steve Bruce, who is the most successful manager ever in getting promoted to the premier league?
The comment frankly irked me, big time, hence the question.
The way I see it, we should indeed be finishing at least fifth with our squad.
But if you factor in how Bruce ruined the team, with his playing players out of position, destroying our defence and his incredibly negative tactics, I actually think Smith has done really well.
Looking back, it’s now fairly obvious that we underwent a new manager bounce when Smith came in.
And what followed was a really poor run, where we conceded so many points that I was thinking relegation looked a better bet than promotion just a couple of months back.
Some fans were even calling for Smith to be sacked, although in fairness, most were calling for him to be given time.
And now we’ve just won 10 on the trot, for the first time ever.
Which makes me wonder what some people want and why they would even hint at questioning what Smith has done for us this season.
All I know is, if you’d have asked me if we could get promoted on the day Bruce was sacked, I’d have said we didn’t have a prayer, because we were so disjointed.
Yet here we are, with a guaranteed play-off position and a team on a massive roll, playing good footy, who every team in the league is really scared of playing against.
Perhaps the comment was made to simply raise some debate and it was all tongue in cheek.
Except these views were expressed on Smith’s appointment, as well as very recently.
I can partly understand Villa fans not liking Alex McCleish’s appointment, but what was there to dislike about appointing a Villa fan as manager?
