Dean Smith spoke to VillaTV after Aston Villa fell to a 1-0 defeat against Wolves at Villa Park on Saturday.
It was a tightly contested affair, but Leander Dendoncker struck for Nuno’s side just after the hour mark and the visitors held on to take the three points.
This is what Smith had to say following the final whistle…
On the performance…
“It was an average game, but we more than matched the opposition.
“We started really well, but we were up against a top-six team that have done really well.
“We’re a better team than we were before the break; we’re hard to beat and we don’t give many chances away at all.
“He’s [Orjan Nyland] not having to make many saves and that’s a credit to the team and how we’re defending.
“The other job is to put the ball in the onion bag and we just lacked that bit of quality, due to fatigue more than anything else.
“I can’t fault the effort but the quality was just lacking.”
On fatigue…
“They are devastated in there.
“I feel for players like Jack Grealish and Douglas Luiz – who has been outstanding in the last four games – but he looked fatigued.
“You’re asking them to play an awful lot of minutes in a short space of time.”
On Matt Targett…
“He just felt his hamstring tighten, he wanted to give it a go but he could still feel it so we made sure that we got him off quickly.
“Hopefully it’s nothing but a fatigue-related injury.
“Neil Taylor did really well when he came on, so that’s pleasing for us.”
On Liverpool…
“It’s hectic and it’s been tough for the players.
“We’ll pick ourselves up, we have a tough game but we have a week to recover before we face Liverpool.”
