Sorry to say, If it was up to me, Deano and Terry would have been shown the door in January. Decent man and yes they got us promoted. This earned them a chance to show what they could do. Lets face it, if we were 15th in the league, we wouldn't be having this conversation.
People were having this conversation when we were in the realms of 15th, Smith just isn't a big enough name for some and we should apparently be top 10 by entitlement.
We have a net spend that exceeds almost any team in Europe over the last two years, (140 million) but we haven't bought in anything but below-average players and not one of them has shown any improvement. Grealish and McGinn will be gone next season, so that will at least balance the books and keep the FFP wolves away from the doors.
Irrelevant as it misses the point we had to replace half a squad that weren't good enough last year and few players settle in 12 months at new club/let alone new language/new country. Spend is irrelevant over the last two years - Smith has only only been in charge for 3 windows.
And these below-average players are the ones some decided should have us top ten.
Books are balanced on FFP, I've already given my thoughts that after January's dealings - given players naturally out of contract next summer - I don't believe we actually have to sell a single player to balance in first year back in the Champ...if that's actually what happens, as survival is still in our hands.
What rips me though is that in the most competitive league in the world, we defend like a drunken pub team. I can't believe that defending has not been made a priority. If so, what is Terry doing with them at Bodymoor?
Fair question, but DS has always been attack first, defend last - and as we know, we've been one of the harder hit on the VAR front. We can improve clearly, but again how many of our current crop of defence (you'd have to say Targett only and he's always been more attack minded as well) have PL experience?
It doesn't come over night and no amount of Terry talk prepares you for that half a second difference.
If I was the owner, I'd find some isolated facility in a virus free part of the world and drill them non stop on defending corners and free kicks. More likely, they are sat around in their mansions playing Fifa 2020.
If I was the owner I'd have been thrilled (all things considered) with survival by goal difference, rectifying the FFP problems and worst case, now having a core of players to take us forward who had experienced how tough the PL was, but got 12 months under their belts for us to take the Champ seriously instead of fluking it like we did last year.
