Dean Smith held his pre-match press conference on Thursday morning to preview Aston Villa’s Premier League game against Arsenal.
The Villa head coach spoke to media from Bodymoor Heath via a virtual press conference and discussed a host of topics ahead of a trip to Emirates Stadium.
Here’s what he had to say…
On team news...
“Matty Cash had to come off [against Wolves] with a dead leg, but he’s back training now so he’s fine.
“Leon Bailey’s been back training the last couple of days, so he’s fine as well – as is Bertrand Traore. Keinan Davis is also back training, so we’re starting to get a fully fit squad again.
“The likes of Leon Bailey and Bertrand Traore have come back from four or five weeks out, so we’ll build up their fitness.”
He added: “They’ll (Bailey and Traore) be in the squad, but I’ll have to assess where they are.”
On Wolves analysis…
“I’ve played Wolves five times as a manager and that’s the most comfortable I’ve been in a game against them. We probably didn’t deserve to be two goals up, but a goal up at least.
“It wasn’t a collapse. We had to defend a couple of soft free-kicks and corners and we won the first contact on most.
“Sometimes there’s a randomness in football that can happen. After the second goal, we were the team that looked likely to score the winner.
“There was some fortune in their winner – a free-kick that’s going wide and deflects in. You get what you deserve over a season and we didn’t get what we deserved over that one game.
“On the whole, I was pleased with parts of our game.”
On his three-year anniversary as head coach…
“It’s been a progression for the football club. I’m not going to just pat myself on the back for that because we’ve had unbelievable backing from the owners and the support from above, including the sporting directors and CEO.
“You look at our playing squad now and it’s a playing squad that should finish in the top half of this league.
“I’m really pleased with the progression that we’ve all made together on this journey.”
On playing Arsenal…
“People were saying they were in crisis after the first three games of the season and that was with a Covid-19 outbreak in their camp for the first game and games against the league champions and European champions.
“They’ve come back as we all suspected they would. They’ve drawn the last couple of games, so we can take some heart in that.
“We can also take some heart from what we’ve done in the last month in our last four or five games. They’re the ones that I have to judge us by in terms of our performances.”
