Dean Smith met the media ahead of Aston Villa versus Leeds in the Premier League on Saturday evening.
The head coach gave his views on a number of topics ahead of the game.
Here’s what he had to say…
On team news…
“Matty Cash is back on the training pitches running. We’ll be guided by the medical department on when he joins in with us.
“Kortney Hause is due to be back on the grass next week and Wesley is getting closer to a full return to contact training, which should happen in the next week or two.”
On Jack Grealish…
“He’s getting better. He won’t be ready for tomorrow but he’s getting better.
“As I said last week, there’s been an awful lot of speculation where Jack is involved. People speculated how long he’s going to be out for – I’m not sure how they can do that when I don’t know, the doctor doesn’t know and Jack doesn’t know.
“I was very vague last week because it’s a bit of a strange injury. Jack could be back to play against Sheffield United next Wednesday or Wolves next week. We’ll be led by Jack on that.”
On Marcelo Bielsa…
“They’re a team that I love to watch play. They’ve come into the Premier League and lit it up, in terms of how they’ve played.
“I have an awful lot of respect for the work that Marcelo Bielsa has done. I’m not sure another manager could have gone into a club like Leeds and made the impact that he’s had on them.
“I look at the players’ physical outputs and they’re doing things now that they weren’t doing before. That’s a credit to Marcelo Bielsa and his tactics.”
On Leeds…
“I think there are an awful lot of similarities between the two teams. We got to the Premier League a year earlier than Leeds and we had our struggles last season.
“We lost a few of our key players to injuries for the season – Wesley, John McGinn and Tom Heaton. We had our struggles and we managed to stay up.
“Leeds have hit the ground running and found that it’s a real tough league and you can be inconsistent. They’ve done fantastically well and there are similarities between how both teams play.”
