Dean Smith felt Aston Villa were unfortunate to walk away from Friday night’s game against Southampton empty-handed.
The Saints struck early and held onto their lead for the entirety of the game – despite a much-improved attacking display from the Villans in the second half.
Smith was left to rue Adam Armstrong’s early goal as he spoke to VillaTV after the match at St Mary’s.
He said: “It was a tale of two halves; I don’t think we deserved to lose the game. First half they were better and second half we were better.
“They controlled the midfield in the first half, scored a wonder goal and that knocked the stuffing out of us because our players had spoken about how to approach the game and we wanted to start with a really good intensity.
“We were a little bit nervous on the ball in the first half. They cut through our press a bit too easily and we changed that mid-game. When we got them in at half-time, we knew that we could change it and we did.
“Second half our intensity was a lot better, but we didn’t get that goal that we needed. We had a few miskicks and a couple of shouts for a penalty.
“Intensity is what I want from the players and I said that afterwards. We showed intensity when we went down to ten men against West Ham and we showed it in the second half tonight. You have to give 90-minute performances if you want to get a result.”
Injuries to key players has tested Villa’s squad over the past few matches and Smith is hopeful that the international break will provide an opportunity to get some of them back for the visit of Brighton in two weeks’ time.
“We’ve got a great academy system at the football club and we had five on the bench today with two of them coming on," he said.
“It just shows that we’ve got some injuries and that we need to get them back quickly. We missed Douglas Luiz in midfield, Danny Ings obviously. Morgan Sanson couldn’t come today. He trained the last couple of days, but he has a COVID-related illness.
“We’ve got some really good players left at Bodymoor Heath. We’ve got good players within the squad, but we need to turn these results around.”
You can watch Dean's full post-match interview below...
