On the whole, I agree with you. Watching last night was like going back two years to the woeful performances after the Covid lockdown. The one area where I think Smith has improved the team is the defence, which I thought played pretty well last night (with the exception of Williams, who had a bit of a mare). Hanley, especially, was good and would currently be my vote for POTS. But Smith has done nothing to deal with the problems in midfield and, in terms of creativity, seems to have actually made them worse. There is no creativity in there at all other than Rashica, and we are talking about a different type of creativity from Milot. Yes, we miss Buendia, but if we are going to have a player given the freedom to roam the pitch and make killer passes, it shouldn't be McLean. Personally I found it hard to see any kind of strategy in that performance other than let them have the ball, defend in depth, hoof it upfield and hope to get a lucky break. If we go down, I am not hopeful about next season.
I'm not going to knock Smith, he's a decent sort of cove and a good manager. But... Farke had the credentials for The Championship. I'm just amazed that some aspirational club has not taken him.
I think we are probably about 4 points better off than we would have been with Farke. Some of the last Farke games the football was dire. I honestly don't know what Gilmore brings to the team and McLean is frustrating. Pukki made a couple of excellent runs and found one of our players, but we need Sargent or Milot to make those runs and have Pukki in the box to finish it.
That's hard to judge. I think Smith has improved us defensively and we are much more solid against set pieces. That comes at the cost of restricticting the FBs from moving forward on the wings. IMO the 4-3-3 is better balanced than Farke's 4-2-3-1, though he moved away from that this season. I had hoped that we'd be improved offensively under Smith and it looked that way after the wins against Everton and Watford, but now we seem to have gone back into our shell again and seem to be lacking confidence after the ManCity and Liverpool losses. Last night was depressing in that sense, as our passing and ball control was downright depressing. For me, the jury is still out on which is the better Head Coach overall.
Yeah I guess I am not comparing them as head coaches per se, I think they are quite different so it’s apples and pears. I like Smith and supported his appointment. But it feels like it might have been short-sighted - if we had kept Farke on for a bit, then appointed a manager for the final stretch that might have made a difference.
I don't think that the current season had any bearing on the decision made by the Board. They couldn't see any other outcome than relegation and at the end of the season could they think ' DF has got us up twice so he could do it again ' or ' he probably won't be up to doing it again, will the fans accept him staying and even if it was 3 times lucky would he be better equipped to avoid relegation a third time' ? If they left the decision to the end of the season there would be other Clubs looking for Managers and the new man would only have the close season to get everything sorted out. I think they acted when they did with a view of having a good hard look for a credible long term replacement who could get us promoted again next year and give us a better chance of survival for at least one season. Luck was on their side when exactly what they were looking for became available.
I know at the time, it was reported that Farke's failure to make use of the new signings was cited as one reason for his departure. Only Normann really made an impact under Farke, at least under Smith we've seen meaningful contributions from Rashica, and a bit more from Sargent. But yes there was no point bringing in a manager who would want to leave upon relegation, or who had no experience of the Championship, so that was definitely factored into the appointment. There's certainly signs that Smith can work it out at this level, and he's been doing that with a squad he's had no input to. Whichever division we're in come the summer, hopefully we can craft a side which Smith can get results with.
