Aston Villa's appointment of Dean Smith is one that has been greeted well by supporters with the Villa Park faithful hopeful of the 47-year-old being able to deliver good football as well as results. 

And ex-England boss Sam Allardyce believes the Villans are in good hands with Smith at the helm.

The Breakdown

"He’s a top, top manager and I’m very glad he got the job,” Big Sam told talkSPORT (via This Is Futbol).

"He might have to change his name, like me, to Deanio or something like that to get recognised but he’s a brilliant manager.

"I’m really, really pleased for him and I hope he takes Villa all the way. The pairing, John will learn an awful lot and hopefully go on to be a great manager himself, but not at Villa.”

Given Allardyce's experience in the Championship and his recognition of how difficult of a division it is, Aston Villa supporters can take confidence from the former Crystal Palace manager's words on Smith.

Overall, Smith is exactly the kind of managerial appointment the Midlands club needed after Steve Bruce's lacklustre tenure in the Villa Park dugout.

While the now ex-Aston Villa manager was close to guiding the Villans to promotion, his spell at the seven-time English champions can only be deemed as a failure and not just because of a string of poor results this seasons.

Under his watch, Aston Villa played some very dire stuff at times and with the players he had at disposal, Bruce simply underachieved.

Ultimately, a change was needed, and bringing in Smith was the logical move after snubs from Thierry Henry and Rui Faria (Daily Mail).