Dean Smith met the media via virtual press conference on Thursday morning.
Sat in the Media Centre at Bodymoor Heath, the Aston Villa head coach spoke about his players’ international exploits, preparing for Brighton, player welfare and more.
Here’s what he had to say…
On the international break…
Jack’s at the top of his game and I’m really pleased for him and proud of him. I’m pleased for him more than anything because he’s worked extremely hard and he continues to do so.
I think anybody at Aston Villa would have more of a biased opinion and say he’s been performing like that for a while.
I actually didn’t watch England vs Ireland because one of our other players had a bigger game in the Euro play-offs, John McGinn against Serbia. I watched that game and saw them go to penalties.
A big shoutout and congratulations to Steve Clarke and Scotland for getting through to the Euros.
On player welfare…
We had a meeting yesterday and we spoke at length about each manager’s individual feelings. I can only go from my football club, and if player welfare becomes an issue then it’s a no-brainer and you have to increase substitutions or look at the fixture scheduling.
At the moment, I’m not seeing any trends from my players that suggest player welfare is an issue.
I speak to my players all the time – I want the best for them and I want to look after them. That’s what we’re doing.
On Brighton…
I’m expecting a really tough game because I’ve watched a lot of their games, looked at a lot of their stats and they’re in the top half for a lot of those stats. They haven’t got the wins they would have expected with those stats.
They’re a modern-day football team in terms of playing through the thirds. They have some very good players and we’ll certainly have to be at our best.
We need to go and get a result at Villa Park because our last two results there haven’t been good. We’re coming up against a really good footballing team.
On team news…
Tom Heaton has played some minutes now. He played against Burnley Under-23s and he played an in-house game that we had last week.
He needs a few more minute but he’s training with the first team every day. Wesley Moraes is a bit behind but he’s starting to do some ball work and build up his strength.
We’re trying to get him up to speed so that he can join in. Bjorn Engels has a thigh injury and he’s not trained with us yet, nor has Fred Guilbert who has a side strain. Kortney Hause should start back training today.
