Brentford head into Saturday’s game with Norwich City on the back of three successive defeats and only one win out of the last 8 games. That recent hat-trick of ’nil points’ against Fulham, Blackburn Rovers and Birmingham City has only intensified scrutiny on Dean Smith with supporters starting to ask where the next win is going to come from. This is probably not how Dean envisaged his one year anniversary at Griffin Park (which the club announced on Twitter yesterday) and so it will be very interesting to hear what the press ask him today.
Dean Smith at the start of this season
Here’s hoping they ask some hard hitting questions, for once. Less money for old rope and more action would be nice. With the king of gentle probing Billy Reeves currently out of action until the end of the year, there’s been nobody to really step up and fill his boots in recent weeks.
Ahh, Billy. The deadly assassin. Practiced in the dark art of asking that killer ‘to the point’ question, albeit delivered in the most charming and almost apologetic of styles, I’d love to know what he would put to Dean at the moment in regards to the current run and his approach to the game with Norwich City. Can anybody pick up the gauntlet?
So Uwe. Stevenage…..?
Nobody could pretend we’re not displaying anti-form at the moment, certainly result wise. Is it as simple as just needing that little twist of fate; for something to go our way? Certainly we had the lion’s share of possession and chances against Birmingham – just couldn’t quite put more than one of them away for well documented reasons. Or is it more down to his team selection and substitution strategy – the later of which has seemed dreadfully late, reactive and decided using a roulette wheel in recent weeks?
Being more down to earth, are the team just finding their level in the Championship this season? We’ve been wonderful at times; awful at others. The table doesn’t lie and so he (and we) can have no complaints with 16th based on what we’ve seen. The questions are now – Dean, what are you going to do about it? When are we next going to win a game?
I saw a comment on Twitter last night in regards to the aforementioned one year anniversary. Official highlighted his win ratio and a reply was posted comparing him to previous managers.
Whilst not strictly true – who could forget the Marinus experiment – further investigation via the medium of our most recent result records at Soccerbase.com has revealed this isn’t too far off the mark. Looking at managers who have been in charge over the last 10 calendar years – so starting with Martin Allen who left at the end of the 2005/06 season – the ranking for all those occupying in the Griffin Park hot seat, including caretakers is as follows :
51.28% Mark Warburton (41 wins out of 78 games)
50% Lee Carsley (5 out of 10)
43.79 % Uwe Rösler (60 out of 137)
43.55% Martin Allen (54 out of 124)
42.85% Nicky Forster (9 out of 21)
38.1% Andy Scott (64 out of 168)
36.73% Dean Smith (18 out of 49)
25% Barry Quinn (1 out of 4)
22.22 % Marinus Dijkhuizen (2 out of 9)
21.74% Terry Butcher (5 out of 23)
16.67% Scott Fitzgerald (4 out of 24)
13.04% Leroy Rosenior (3 out of 23)
0% Alan Kernaghan (0 out of 1)
So no surprises up at the top and one which will no doubt have many asking the eternal question – why? That’s been and done. Much like Jota, Stuart Dallas, Moses Odubajo, Andre Gray, James Tarkowski (well perhaps not) et al, crying over it isn’t going to bring him, or any former fan favourite back to Griffin Park . Is it?
Besides, I’m more interested in the ‘here and now’. Discussing the win ratios with one New Road observer last night, he has pointed out something which stacks up far more interestingly than overall career percentages. Recent form. Look at the result records in Marinus’ last 9 games and Dean’s most recent over the same period…..
Marinus form
Dean Smith form
Matthew Benham doesn’t strike me as the trigger happy sort so those calling for a change (there are some, apparently) would probably be better putting their energies elsewhere. From what we’ve been told, the Marinus experiment ended because of more than just results. Yet at the same time those of us on the sidelines only have results to go on. And at present they aren’t great.
If Dean was ever going to give an invigorating press conference, then today would be a good day. If Brentford were ever going to get back to wining ways, then Saturday against a Norwich City team whose current form read: LLLLL, would be the perfect time.
Cometh the hour, cometh the man. Come on Dean – let’s see what you’ve got.
Come on you Beeeeesss!!
Nick Bruzon
BrentfordFC 
Interesting comparison between Smith & Marinus. Yet Marinus had to deal with a beach as a pitch, an injury list so ridiculous there were more injured than fit and the selling of some of our key players.
Recent form (lack of?) is a decent indicator but in looking at the year Smith has been in charge for, it’s very difficult to overlook the frankly, abysmal start to 2016 we had.
He deserves credit for his work over the Summer. Whilst unspectacular, we made clever signings and noticeably developed a system to get our defence playing as a unit and we looked like a proper team at the start of this campaign.
The issues appear to be that we still have no plan B and we’re lacking in terms of squad depth.
Rather than getting rid right now, I feel we need to back him to the hilt in January and supplement our squad with the quality needed to give some of our young squad a rest when needed, without it being to the detriment of our starting 11.
A decent defensive midfield alternative to McCormack and an attacking midfielder to replace McLeod would be on the top of my shopping list.
Can I add a goal scoring midfielder or two to that list as well??
This is a major problem at the moment.
Regards
Gordon