Dean Smith spoke to the media via a virtual press conference to preview Aston Villa’s clash against Crystal Palace.
The club’s head coach discussed the festive period, the team’s Christmas plans, defensive solidity and taking on Crystal Palace.
Here’s what he had to say…
On team news…
We’re expecting Ross Barkley to start training tomorrow (Wednesday) which is good news for us. Trezeguet will still be missing.
Ezri is back in training from tomorrow, but other than that we’re as we were with the same squad that was available for West Bromwich Albion.
On Christmas plans…
Everybody’s plans have changed a little bit. Last season I gave the players Christmas Day off, but I’m not doing that this season.
I just feel that the games are coming thick and fast and we need to be in and preparing for Palace and then Chelsea.
The festivities that we would normally have at Christmas are subdued due to the pandemic. We wish everyone a Merry Christmas and hope they have as good a day as they can.
On Villa’s progress in 2020…
It’s been a weird year for everybody. Nobody’s been through a pandemic like this before, so there’s been a lot of new things that have happened.
Maintaining our status as a Premier League club was very important to us. The work that we put in after the March period was really important to that.
We’ve added to that squad with five quality players and we feel like we’re in a really good place to compete in every game that we play.
The turnaround in confidence at the football club has been really good to see. Long may that continue.
On defensive solidity…
I said from the outset that Ollie Watkins would bring a different dimension in terms of how we press and how good we are without the ball.
He’s excellent at it. He enables us to defend 10 to 15 metres higher up the pitch and that’s helped us in terms of getting clean sheets.
You can’t just put it on one player and it’s been a team effort to have that desire to keep the ball out the back of the net.
Emi Martinez has come in and given the team in front of him a lot of confidence. Ezri Konsa’s stepped up and become every bit the player we wanted him to be.
In general, we’ve just got a lot of players playing well at the moment. There’s a unity about the team and the teamwork that’s going on is excellent.
On Crystal Palace…
Crystal Palace will be smarting from the result against Liverpool. The Liverpool goalkeeper made some important saves which may have turned the game.
They’ve had some really good results this season, so we’ll be expecting an organised Crystal Palace team coming to put things right.
