I think Smith’s capable of surpassing what Farke achieved. He’s a very capable manager, plus Farke underachieved his potential with us because we had such rotten luck with him in the Premier League.
If Smith goes on to get us promoted and then keeps us up, it won’t mean he is a better manager than Farke. He will owe a lot to the foundations Farke built up and the results on the pitch enabling us to invest in the club long term under Farke. The same is true in terms of what, eg, Frank owes Smith for the stability and improvement he provided to Brentford.
I think the timing of sacking Farke was a big mistake. He should have been given until early December or even January given that we must have known we had no funds to invest, so the new manager “bounce” would have been much more useful later on in the season. It would also mean that Smith would have been less sullied by the really ugly performances, far worse than under Farke, in the grim December run. Smith had more than his fair share of bad luck then too and Burnley’s behaviour manipulating Covid is the unwritten scandal of the season.
I agree with Dunc though that I would be more positive with Farke as manager in the Championship. I think he’s a special manager with a unique and attractive vision about how to play the game, and so the romantic in me wishes he would be the one to keep us up. Smith obviously can get teams playing nice football, but it’s still more agricultural. And in terms of risk/reward his style probably has a higher chance of success on a pure stylistic level (excluding players).
We do need to avoid the Hughton era thing though - I supported Hughton, but the lack of connection between fans and Hughton’s playing style vision got us relegated when we ought to have been Premier League mid-table safety.
So I don’t think it’s really about proving anyone right or wrong over the passage of time. It’s about supporting our club while stomaching (or hopefully enjoying) the manager’s style.