I doubt this whole decision was made without consulting smithy. More goes on behind the scenes in the football office than we would ever know, and some are quick to judge without knowing all the facts.
A football club is like a business and they (parra) have a 2 year financial plan.
Basically they look 2 years ahead to plan on what players to buy and what budget they can afford, and look at what juniors to invest in and so on and so forth
I don't think this was a quick decision. Smith was given a 5 year contract (his current one) and his tenure at parra had to come to an end sometime, obviously now sooner than later. This he would surely realise
As much as I like smithy, I would have to agree, if a decision on his future had to be made, then I am glad it is now.
The boys have only been back at training for a week, so its likely that either at their end of season review a few weeks ago, or perhaps this week they would have been informed about the pending announcement. This gives them an opportunity for them to deal with the situation before the season starts and it wont affect their game as it hasn't been suddenly forced upon when they are under pressure of the season. It will allow them to think about their own futures and as we have a lot of contracts up this year and bought no one this year, we will have a lot of money to spend if the need be. I'd say they knew this would happen earlier this year and would explain why we didn't buy any players. Players will either leave because of it, which means we recruit new players, or players will stay on with the annoucement of the new coach and contracts will be renewed.
I think this is a smart move by parra and it will certainly pay dividends one way or the other.
Smithy has a job to do now, so from how well I know him, he'll give it everything he's got and will work well with whoever takes his place, because, as you would all agree, he wants parra to be in safe hands when he leaves (if he does)
