Matt Maher: Dean Smith will be fired up and ready for battle
In a season of surprise managerial comebacks, Roy Hodgson’s return to Crystal Palace has begun far better than Frank Lampard’s at Chelsea.
It will be fascinating to see how Dean Smith, who this week became the latest to join the ranks of the Premier League’s short-term appointees, now fares with Leicester.
The response from Foxes supporters to his arrival might be described as lukewarm, at best.
“Announce relegation,” was the first response on Twitter to the official statement, confirming Smith’s appointment, along with that of assistants Craig Shakespeare and John Terry, to the end of the season.
Are memories really that short?
Granted, Smith was in charge of Norwich when they were relegated a year ago and then sacked in December when the Canaries sat fifth in the Championship (they are now eighth).
Yet on a managerial CV which now spans more than a decade, that was the first job in which he failed to deliver on his remit, having previously got Villa promoted and then masterminded the second remarkable escape from relegation of his career, having dug Walsall out of a nine-point hole in League One in 2011.
For a club who left themselves little room to manoeuvre after waiting so long to sack Brendan Rodgers, Smith is a far better bet for Leicester than Jesse Marsh or Rafa Benitez, the two other candidates linked with the job who should both be credited with an assist should Leeds or Everton fall through this season’s trapdoor.
Even when he was flourishing with Villa, there was a sense Smith never really got the credit he deserved outside the Midlands.
Perhaps it is because, in a league packed full of big characters and bigger egos, his unfussy approach can get lost in the noise? A colleague in the national press once described Smith as the only remaining “normal person” managing in the top flight. It was meant entirely as a compliment.
The nonsense notion Smith owed his success at Villa entirely to Jack Grealish, meanwhile, ignores what Grealish owes to Smith in terms of his development as a player and person. In James Maddison, Smith has now inherited another major talent.
Two points from safety and a trip to Manchester City up first, the challenge could be easier. But having had time to recharge and learn from his Norwich disappointment, it is one Smith will be relishing.
Experience warns he is a dangerous man to write off.
