The Aston Villa job vacancy is no more. After a run of three wins, six draws and three losses, Steve Bruce was relieved of his duties as Aston Villa Manager on 3rd October 2018, twelve games into the 18/19 season. Late Wednesday, 10th October 2018, an official announcement was made containing the breaking news that Bruce would surprisingly be replaced by Brentford FC Head Coach, Dean Smith.

I use the word surprisingly with slight tongue in cheek.

Dean Smith’s affinity with Villa Park is widely known to run deep. Stories of him growing up in complete awe of the club are rather easy to find, complete with strong family ties.

So when the official news broke and the confirmation that the managerial transfer had taken place, it felt anything but surprising. It’s his moment and he’d be silly not to take it, whatever the terms.

Villa, after much deliberation have finally got their second, third or fourth choice man. Smith arrives into a pre-constructed set up of John Terry as an Assistant and Jesús García Pitarch as Sporting Director. It has since been confirmed that Richard O’Kelly will also depart the Bees and join Dean Smith as First Team coach and right hand man. But should alarm bells already be ringing?

Bruce at Villa had turned into the fall guy. Having just last season guided Villa to a playoff final, they were narrowly pipped to promotion by an outstanding Fulham side. To an outsider, it felt like he’d taken them as far as he could. The playoff final felt like their moment, it was make or break and their ticket back into the big time before the Premier League money started to dry up and the club has to accept it has wildly overspent and face the resulting consequences. Bruce was tasked with going again, re-galvanizing the troops for another playoff push all in spite of his own off the field personal problems. No easy task.

From playoff disappointment onwards, the media was awash with countless articles and mouthpieces speculating on his position, not only throughout the summer but during the opening exchanges of the season. The news and leaks were relentless and the axe finally fell.

The point is, why did the club choose to not act in the summer? Bruce was clearly no longer their man so why wait until now.

Looking at the table, Aston Villa lie three points behind Brentford.. a solitary win. They’ve scored the same amount of goals as The Bees and could argue that with slightly more luck they may have found themselves higher than their current position of fifteenth and possibly even Brentford. With the league table as tight as it is, you can draw very little from looking at the points column from sixth down to seventeenth. (We’ll ignore QPR) If Villa were in seventh, would Bruce still be in a job? I doubt the board would be able to answer.

Were the Villa board reacting to mixed league form, relenting fan pressure, the table, underlying numbers or even vegetable projectiles, or did they simply fancy a change. Who really knows, but the timing should be a worry for future incumbents as Bruce is exactly the same manager with the exact same skill set as he was in the summer.

What we do know is that the search conducted by the Villa Park management team to replace Bruce felt like a mess.

Taking a quick look at the profile of candidates sounded out to fill the spot, there is no clear sense of what they require. They desperately want promotion, that part is obvious, but how do they want to go about it?

Thierry Henry has been a striking coach for the Belgium national team, Faria has spent his career as Mourinho’s defensive rock and right hand man, John Terry, a recently retired defender, one day wants to manage Chelsea, and in Dean Smith, they’re looking at a coach that thrives on working with young players.

They have nothing in common which indicates a lack of strategy from the top.

It feels rather scattergun and you’d be quite fair in saying that the club gives off an aura of hoping to stumble upon the correct formula rather than knowing it. The saying “throwing shit at a wall and hoping something sticks” feels strong but more apt than any clear approach to finding a way back to the top flight.

Quickly returning to Bruce, either his performance level wasn’t good enough at the end of last season, (as he couldn’t reach the goal of promotion) or their start, just 3 wins from 12, (I’ll remind you that Brentford have just 4 wins at this international break) which does admittedly feel underwhelming, is probably not the greatest indicator for how the entire season will play out. Fans have to be kept on side but emotion should not dictate senior decisions. The Bruce PR machine appears to have lost all of its stock, four-four-two may have had its day, but again, this was still the case in the summer. Strangely enough, Bruce possess the only skill the Villa board seem to be clear in requiring, the experience and proven ability to get a team promoted and lead a side back to the Premier League.

The timing of the sacking, the appointment of John Terry and the lack of any obvious smart thinking at that club should be a worry to Dean Smith and all three are clear barriers and not enablers for him to do his dream job well.

So what do Brentford lose and Villa gain -

As Head Coach, he has heavily contributed to the development of some exciting players. His main strength is clearly nurturing and working with potential. The playing style at Griffin Park is largely down to the club as a whole with many, including Aston Villa, probably mistakenly drawn into thinking that Smith is the key behind this.

Helping to harness the drive of undervalued individuals into key performances on the pitch has also really stood out. Smith deserves immense credit in spurring on a tight group of young players showing the entire league an exciting brand of football. Over the years and during his time at Brentford some significant departures have taken place and he’s been brilliant at embedding new, albeit better players. The team we see on the pitch today is stronger, tougher, sharper and more streetwise in comparison to the first team he took over back at the end of November 2015. He deserves a huge share of credit for the year on year continuity and growth of all players.

The payoff to this is that Smith’s time at Brentford has been divisive. He has a win ratio of approximately 40% and while on the pitch he’s overseen continuous improvement, poignant periods were dominated by long stretches of games where little would change tactically, streaks of results would be largely unexplainable and his Brentford sides prone to conceding late goals — something that still happens all too regularly, and as recently as his final fixture in charge, away to Leeds at Elland Road.

Substitutions have been questioned all throughout his tenure but this appears to be something that has improved with the quality of the squad.

At Brentford FC, Dean Smith has clearly been allowed to grow. He’s learned as he’s gone on and has been given the backing by the club to never worry about his position, even when it seemed like a streak of zero wins in nine would never end. The club will always look at the numbers and as long as underlying performance remained consistent he was going to be backed. Fans at times have expressed a longing for change but a quest for his removal was proved knee jerk and form would eventually recover. Thomas Frank was brought in to further bolster the coaching team and the three of Smith, Frank and O’Kelly have been a great blend.

Frank is currently leading the way in the race to officially replace Smith, as since his arrival, the notion that he’d one day lead the team in the event of Smith moving on has been widely anticipated.

Frank is meticulous and has heavily helped Smith. He’s an exceptional coach in his own right and his time at the club has felt like a grooming period for this very moment.

Back to the pitch, Smith has a favourite role and player in the ten position, Romaine Sawyers. Sawyers followed him to Brentford from his time at Walsall and he’s a player that is pivotal to how Smith likes to attack. A number ten that controls the game on the edge of the opposition’s box.

I do see a similarity in how Smith may use the ineffective Grealish but that is probably giving the Villa hierarchy too much credit in the foresight department. Villa do have a player that with the right coaching should be devastating and he can mature into as an effective weapon as Sawyers has been for Brentford.

Smith will rid Villa of the cumbersome four-four-two and the hammering of crosses into the box which will surely suit their enigmatic playmaker. Moving to a more flexible four-three-three, Villa will no doubt now look to control their games centrally and employ their own wingers inverted and play from out to in.

Currently transfixed with holding onto the ball for too long, Grealish shoots from low rate positions, is poor in transitioning the ball and slows the game down. He should be producing much better output and if Smith gets to do his desired work, he could harness the ability Grealish has and refocus his role in the side.

The cynical amongst us could be of the view that Grealish will be sold in the January window after recently signing a new deal to provide legitimacy to a hefty transfer fee, but in the meantime it will be interesting to see how Smith works his hand with the playmaker.

It will also be intriguing to see how Smith handles his new squad on the whole. He’s walking into a very different environment to that of Jersey Road and the spotlight and pressure to succeed will go up ten-fold. Does he immediately get the respect of players who’ve played at the top and operate on a completely different wage level and age group to where he’s used to. You’d hope he’d immediately have the respect but wouldn’t be surprised if he didn’t.

Back to Griffin Park and with countless tools at his disposal the harshest of critics may be of the view that Smith has slightly underachieved and squads haven’t quite fulfilled their potential. Guiding Brentford to three top ten finishes should by no means be belittled, but the notion that Brentford are thought of as the plucky underdogs who are punching above their weight doesn’t ring entirely true. In monetary terms, yes, but the real story is that The Bees have always had squads of very good players and the club has an exceptional fundamental system and philosophy that elevates them to the position of one of the best teams in the division.

It could be viewed as Smith only missing that smidgen of luck that makes the difference and the deciding factor preventing him from making it to the Championship playoffs. Against advanced metrics, (something Smith would have been judged on) Brentford haven’t quite had the luck to fulfil performance levels.

If Smith is given time to instil learnings from the last three years and develop some of the underachievers in the Villa squad, you can begin to see why the appointment has been made and how much Villa could improve and benefit.

The desperation of Aston Villa to return to the top flight coupled with the expectation of Smith to achieve immediate promotion is what feels slightly off.

Villa Park requires an instant buzz, they need an almighty lift to springboard them into Premier League contention again let alone the league itself. It’s quite hard to see where this comes from with Smith. All of his previous work points to long term plans and results gained from good foundations.

Upon joining Brentford, Smith arrived with the club in its own mini crisis. Following the dismissal of Marinus Dijkhuizen, whose own appointment proved very quickly to be a monumental mistake, he quickly had to establish himself and re-energise a disillusioned squad, refocusing the group to instil elite training methods that had unfortunately lapsed.

He’s handled most off the field issues exceedingly well but at Brentford has arguably been working with one of with the best off the field management teams in the country.

Walking into a club like Aston Villa must be a dream come true, it’s an obvious promotion in club size and the kind of step up he most certainly deserves a shot at. But the support, advice and tactical help available at Brentford is not going to be readily on hand at Aston Villa. The joined up thinking from pitch to boardroom at Griffin Park is something Aston Villa must aspire to if they’re ever to see the best of Dean Smith.

So while on the face of it, it is certainly a promotion, whatever he may have personally gained in this enormous move, is in itself probably enormous but the environment is without a doubt a huge drop off in football intellect.

Will Smith get the time to play out his own fantasy, I predict not. Villa have an incredibly tough run of fixtures and the honeymoon on The Holte could be short, sharp and get very lonely, very quickly.

He’s wished the best of luck, he’s going to need it.