Aston Villa travel to the South Coast to take on Southampton at St Mary’s on Friday night.
And ahead of the game, head coach Dean Smith spoke to the media on Thursday morning from the club’s Bodymoor Heath training ground.
Here's what he had to say...
On team news...
“JJ (Jacob Ramsey) will be available. He trained yesterday and it wasn’t as bad an ankle sprain as we thought. He had a full training session yesterday, so he’s available for selection.
“Morgan Sanson and Jaden Philogene-Bidace are back training with us. Danny Ings, Douglas Luiz and Bertrand Traore are still out. Ezri Konsa has had his appeal upheld, so he’ll be missing as well.
“Morgan Sanson coming back is good for us. Whether he’s fit enough to start is something we’ll have to weigh up.”
On the team’s recent run…
“I’m very philosophical, I always have been. I’m fortunate that I can take things with a lot more context than other people because I see what happens on the training ground every day.
“I get the physical output data, I see the mental side of the players and myself and the coaches are in the best position to go and pick teams and decide who’s in good form and who’s not.
“You say that it feels like it’s the first time I’ve been in this situation [since joining Aston Villa], it’s not. We stayed up in our first season in the Premier League.
“In football you’re going to have wins and losses, that happens. It’s how you deal with them. My way is to always be consistent and make sure there’s no panic and that we’re in control. We’re determined to put things right.”
On Tyrone Mings…
“It’s always a big call whenever you change a team, with any players you leave out. I felt it was the right decision at the time for the team to go and win a football game.
“I always pick a team with the help of my coaches for the sole purpose of trying to win a football game.
“The reason I did it was for that. We felt it was the best decision to make at that time. How did he take it? He was disappointed, of course, as all players should be.
“He took it as the person he is and he’ll be looking to get his form back on track.”
On Southampton…
“I talk about consistency and that’s what you see from Southampton in the way they play, the way they approach the game.
“They had a really good start to last season, like ourselves, and then they had a run of results that went against them and they dropped down the league.
“You look at them this season and you see a team that’s organised and very difficult to beat. They’ve shown that already with performances against the likes of Manchester City and Chelsea.
“We’re expecting a really tough game and it’s one that we’re in a determined mood for.”
