Dean Smith spoke to the media after Aston Villa returned to Premier League action against Sheffield United.
The boss gave his thoughts on the result, playing behind closed doors, the return of John McGinn and Keinan Davis leading the line.
Here’s what he had to say…
On drawing 0-0…
I thought we were the better team. We started ever so well in the first 10-15 minutes, we looked good on the ball and I was happy with the condition of the players.
I thought we made a good start to this ten-match tournament and we should have won the game with the chances we had, especially from set-pieces.
On Keinan Davis…
It probably raised a few eyebrows because people expected Ally Samatta to start the game, but Keinan’s done really well in the practice matches and in training.
We all believe he’s a hot prospect for us and a little bit of an unknown in the Premier League. I thought he did really well. He’s powerful, he’s quick and he had a couple of chances.
He was unfortunate on his first start that he was a Gascoigne – like in Euro 96 semi-final – away from getting on the end of El Ghazi’s cross.
On John McGinn…
John had to grow into the game and we knew that he was going to come off around 60-65 minutes.
He had to get into the feel of the game and he made one of those lung-busting runs that he did for the goal at Tottenham. I didn’t feel it was a penalty, he just ran out of legs a bit.
It was great to have him in action and get 65 minutes out of him.
On playing in an empty Villa Park…
It’s different. It’s not the buzz that you get from having the supporters here, but you’re emotionally attached all the same.
We know we need more performances like that to stay in this league. I said I wanted to make the supporters proud and hopefully they were watching today and seen the work we’ve been doing over the last 14 weeks.
I want to be a different Aston Villa team for this final ten-game tournament.
