Dean Smith spoke to members of the media via a virtual press conference on Friday morning.
The Aston Villa Head Coach discussed the international break, the form of Ollie Watkins, his side’s strong start to the season and facing Leicester City.
Here’s what he had to say…
On the international break…
I was really pleased that Jack Grealish got his first start for England and put in a Man of the Match performance. The beneficiary of him not playing in the other games is Aston Villa because he’ll come back fresh.
John McGinn got the armband for Scotland for the first time and he’s played three games, Conor Hourihane has played three games, Bertrand Traore’s gone away and scored in both games for Burkina Faso and Douglas Luiz has started both games for Brazil.
I’m proud of all the players that went away on international duty, and that includes Jack and Tyrone.
On Ollie Watkins…
He handles it [the attention] fine. He’s a level-headed guy. As well as the goalscoring exploits and the quality of the player, he’s a really grounded, good character.
That was another reason why he’s come to Aston Villa and settled in really quickly. There’s no need for me to keep his feet on the ground.
He was disappointed he didn’t score more goals against Liverpool.
On Villa's strong start to the season…
Momentum is key. There’s an awful lot of belief in the team. There’s a lot of quality in the team as well and I think that performance against Liverpool proved that.
But if we want to be talked about in glowing terms, then you have to make sure you maintain that.
We’ve got a really tough game against Leicester where we want to exorcise some demons that occurred pre-lockdown.
On Leicester City…
We have to be very respectful of a team that’s gone to Manchester City and won 5-2. We won 7-2 against Liverpool, so there’s two teams there that are very good.
We’ve been stung there a couple of times last season and we have to make sure we continue our level of performance on Sunday.
We have to be at our best. The last time we played there we got beat 4-0 just before lockdown.
We’ve started the season well, there’s confidence within the group and a belief that we’re better this season. It’s a tough game but one we’re looking forward to.
