Minor tangent, but I vividly recall watching a game on the telebox a year or so ago, where Mourinho & Lukaku were emerging from the tunnel after half time, doing that nonsense.
Even ignoring the fact that surely a Portuguese & a Belgian in England would have to be astronomically unlucky to be caught by a multilingual lip-reader working for their specific opposition that day, they were literally ten seconds removed from a private room where there were no cameras live broadcasting anywhere.
The whole charade is absolute ■■■■■■■■ of the highest order.
This may sound mad but
when Smith was at Brentford, I said to my hubby that I think one day he will be England manager. I keep meaning to put a bet on it.
Well done Dean. I’ll never forgive him for the manner and timing of his exit, including the Rotherham farce. He should have two promotions on his CV now… but anyway, I really don’t see the need for vitriol towards him any more.
It’s become increasingly evident in recent times that Smith carried this club during his time as manager, so I don’t buy the ‘only 4 months of success’ line personally. I think we’d have been in the situation and league we find ourselves in now a lot sooner without him. He’s an excellent coach and that’s bearing fruit in taking the club he’s supported all his life to the Premier League. Fair play.
SOTV. He’ll be out of the job by Easter next season when our massive neighbors are battling relegation. Living in the royal town of Sutton villa makes you realise that Dingles are modest and realistic people in comparison. SOTV
Not sure they will be fighting relegation. Test for a Deano will be can he spend money well. Never had the chance to spend with Boner and at Brentford they had a system set up for transfers.
Yes he got lucky here and could have been sacked but the board stuck by him and he eventually took us to our first ever Wembley appearance and got us on the verge of promotion to the Championship.
He knew when Brentford came calling it was the time to go, had we missed out on promotion (which we did) he’d lose most of the stock (which we did) and he’d probably never get the club back to that position nor would his stock in football ever get so high again.
He’s never been sacked as a manager and that’s testament to him as a man. Well respected by every player that’s played for him.
I don’t get this negativity or hatred towards him. He bettered his career and wage - all of us would do the same.
Good to have young English managers in the top flight, even better when it’s one of your own.
Now Deano prepares for life in the Premier League, whilst we prepare for life in League 2, evident whose philosophy made us so good…and it isn’t those three idiots at the top table.
I 'll tell you this , If Prince William comes in my boozer tonite , gets p****d up , and starts gobbing off with the rest of the Aldridge Villa mafia ,I’m gonna say “Oi , Prince of Cambrige , NO.
Sod off back down the smoke , and take yer violin playing mate with yer”
To think he could have had a promotion season with tranmere and be a league one player now makes me smile . He will be sweating on somebody coming in for him
I certainly wasn’t really fussed if Villa won or lost today… I’ve no axe to grind with Smith now or when he jumped ship to Brentford tbh… Reason being he did the Club a favour by taking a sideways step at best in joining Hereford for 80k in the summer of 94 allowing us to sign for CASH Martin O’Connor and Super Scotty Houghton which in turn led to a promotion season.
Of all the disgusting imbeciles that masqarade as our “royal family”, I must admit I’ve got a bit of time for “Spencer must die’s” kids, seem like nice lads.
No issue with Smith finding success, though I’d rather it was with a different club. Salient point is that he’s taken a philosophy he developed at Walsall and made it work at two other clubs that provided greater financial backing and ambition.
The blueprint was ours and we failed to maintain that infrastructure once he left. Smith was often criticised for not having a Plan B, but nor did the club. Three years of hoofball and a relegation later, we have to question how the Walsall Board dropped such a substantial clanger.
This. Every day. The board haven’t put a foot right since he left. Clarke needs to completely rebuild which is a disastrous outcome given where we were only a few years ago.
I see folk knocking Smith. I don’t get it. For him, it couldn’t have gone better. Any sliding doors scenario of what might have been could only represent downside for him. He is in dream territory now. And he deserves to be. Him and O’Kelly are lovely people first and foremost.
Bang on the main problem has been that what Smith was trying to build has been completely ignored since he left.there was a blueprint there but the club chose to ignore it and allow two poor managers to completely finish it off in a short space of time.Good luck to Dean he deserves it.
Fantastic for Dean, a great person and a great manager.
To be fair, neither of those two managers had a hope and, whilst they failed at their task, maybe they’re both not as poor as they appeared here? Whitney had an impossible job, with that whole team disappearing off to better clubs. He wasn’t up to the task of rebuilding from there and maybe his “success” was in keeping us up that season because plenty of clubs have from near miss to relegation just like that. As for keates, he was brought in just as we lost oztumer, who had been the shining light for two seasons. He was always going to struggle to replace him and perhaps it’s testament to his managerial ability that we had such a storming start to the new season. It went downhill from there but once he’s had time to recover and regroup, I hope he finds his place in management and goes on to have a successful career. The fact is that neither of them was even close to having dean’s ability and we were lucky to have such a special manager as he learned his trade.