Dean Smith met the media on Friday morning for his pre-match press conference ahead of Monday’s game against Sheffield United.
The Aston Villa boss addressed a number of topics as the build-up to the club’s Premier League opener at Villa Park continues.
Here’s what he had to say…
On Emiliano Martínez…

"He’s ready to play, whether he’s our automatic number one depends on what he does in training and matches. He played against us a couple of weeks ago for Arsenal, so we know he’s ready to play.
"He’s played In the Community Shield as well, so he’s probably had more games than our goalkeepers so far. In terms of readiness, he’s 100%.
"He has to go and earn the shirt – all the players know that. You don’t get many opportunities to get a goalkeeper of his calibre at this stage of his career."
On Sheffield United…

"They had a fantastic season; it was their first back in the Premier League for a long time. They took a lot of teams by surprise.
"They’ve got to try and reproduce that. I don’t think there are going to be too many surprises for either me or Chris Wilder in terms of how we play and set-up.
"I’m accustomed to a lot of the players he’s got because I’ve had a few of them and sold them to Sheffield United, the likes of John Egan and Jack O’Connell."
On ambitions for the season…

"We’re looking at improving and we weren’t satisfied with finishing 17th in the league.
"We believe, with the players that we’ve got, that we’ll be better for our experiences last season.
"We stayed up on the last day last season and we learnt a lot of lessons. We had a lot of change from the previous season and a lot of injuries as well.
"Hopefully we don’t have those injuries this year and we can be a better team than we were. Our aim now is to finish higher than we did last season."