Keeping the Faith - The Square Ball 17/11/21
Written by Steven York
It’s dangerous to gloat at misplaced confidence, especially
when you’re trying to navigate similar circumstances without disaster. But now
Aston Villa have sacked Dean Smith, I think it makes sense to reflect on how
different people react to adversity.
For context, my father is an Aston Villa fan and my
step-father is Leeds. This means I have incredible insight into social media
misery for two clubs. A rare gift.
In 2020, when Bielsa was nominated for FIFA’s men’s coach of
the year, Twitter was awash with outrage. Dean Smith was doing a superior job
at Villa and was magnitudes better, or so the Villa fans claimed. Though they
only stayed afloat in the 2019/20 season due to an error with goal-line
technology, they did improve the following year to finish 11th. Leeds, in their
first year in the Premier League, finished 9th. Maths-boffins will correctly
argue that 9 is a lower number than 11, ergo, Marcelo Bielsa performed better
in his first season than Dean Smith did in his second.
But this isn’t about the comparative performance of either
manager, but the backing they each have from the
fans.
On paper, Smith was enshrined in so many layers of
protection that he looked untouchable. He’s an Aston Villa fan and went to the
games as a child. His entire family are Aston Villa fans. That alone holds
enormous sway with crowds, when you’re perceived to be one of their own and are
given more time and understanding than a non-fan. He took over a side in
mid-table, broke their consecutive wins record and got them magically promoted
in the play-offs, beating Derby in the final after our spectacular semi-final
implosion.
The club recruited well and spent a net £230m across the
following two summers. They managed to stay alive in their first season (the
major goal, so thanks whoever unplugged Hawkeye) and avoided succumbing to
second season syndrome the following year (the next big milestone). Smith
accomplished brilliant things for the club and carried them on a clear upward
trajectory. Surely he’d have the universal backing of the fans?
Alas not. Many of them expect much, much more. They believe
a club with such heritage should be contesting for the top four. They believe
fixtures away at Spurs are games they should be winning and any run of poor
results, irrespective of the opponent, mean questions are asked of the manager.
Each defeat gradually raised the volume of voices insisting
Smith lose his job. Every club has those fans. Even Leeds. You know the type.
The ones who instinctively believe any defeat is an invitation for Big Sam to
take over and tighten things up. The kind of fan who calls in to TalkSport.
The problem for Smith at Villa was that those voices weren’t
the insane minority every club tries to ignore, but a growing majority.
Overlooking the trajectory the club has taken under his tenure. Overlooking the
performances (rather than the results). Overlooking the difficulty of the
opponents. They went from beating Everton (11th) and Manchester United away
(6th) to losing five straight games including Spurs away (9th), Wolves (8th,
where they played well, led 2-0 but conceded three after the 80th minute),
Arsenal away (5th), West Ham (3rd) and Southampton (13th). What mid-table squad
fundamentally expects to perform differently?
You could look at a narrow loss away to Watford as a bad
result and maybe a draw against Brentford as a fixture you’d expect more from,
but these are hardly games driving the wider football community to ask why the
Villa board might persist with Dean Smith.
Let’s also not overlook the fact he lost his single best
player. The talisman around which the entire midfield was based. The captain
who was integral to the way they played and pivotal in their big results. Their
win-rate with Jack Grealish was 56% but only 23.5% without him. Despite
reinvesting the money on three players, it’s a pretty big loss. And replacing
one terrific player with three good players forces you to rethink your
selection because while it seemed logical to try and recover the attributes
you’d lost, shoehorning three players in to equalise the loss of one is always
going to be problematic.
Imagine if Leeds sold Kalvin Phillips and Raphinha. We’d be
cutting Bielsa some serious slack if performances dipped afterwards.
Anyway, I’m not really trying to defend Dean Smith because I
have no protective feelings towards the man. The point here — though it has
taken me a long time to set up — is that while we’ve watched Villa fans turning
on their heroes this season as they sink into the bottom half of the table,
Leeds fans have been largely supportive of Bielsa doing the same.
Leeds and Villa are 15th and 16th respectively. We have 11
points, they have 10. Our goal difference is worse and we’ve won fewer games.
You could suggest that given we both finished in comfortable mid-table
positions last season, we should be reacting to this poor start the same way.
But we aren’t.
That’s not to say we haven’t heard more voices being
critical of Bielsa recently. We absolutely have. His substitutions have caused
more harm than good. We’ve struggled to manage games at times and the
hilariously inept defending, especially at set pieces, has been a long-running
frustration. We lament the small squad when we’re ravaged by injuries because
we don’t have the depth of quality to absorb the change. Social media is always
fuming in the heat of the moment after games where these problems have been
evident.
But the voices of dissent haven’t noticeably risen in
volume. Beyond the intense emotion of the football game itself, there’s been
precious little dissent.
Why? Because we aren’t overlooking the injury crisis. We
aren’t overlooking the horrific run of games that had us facing Manchester
United, Everton, West Ham and Liverpool. We acknowledge that bad luck is a real
thing and we’ve been its victim a fair few times already. But more than that,
we recognise and adore Marcelo Bielsa for what he has achieved with Leeds
United. It will take a lot, lot more suffering before you find the same number
of fans calling for him to depart as Villa heard requesting Dean Smith move on.
You can argue about who is the better manager until you’re
blue in the face, but Leeds’ continued faith in Bielsa is why he’s still here
and every other coach he’s been compared to on social media has lost their job.
Someone should write a song about keeping faith. I reckon it’d be good.