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Smith: We need to use our brains, then chances will come
DEAN Smith is not concerned by a lack of goals and insists his new-look Villa squad are still adjusting to life in the Premier League.
Villa laboured to a goalless draw with West Ham on Monday, despite playing around a quarter of the match against 10 men following Arthur Masuaku’s 67th-minute red card.
Even though they had a numerical advantage, the hosts were unable to create a match-winning chance, with the performance coming on the back of another disappointing display in front of goal at Crystal Palace prior to the international break.
“Against Crystal Palace we didn’t even create chances in the final third until the last minute, so there was an improvement on that,” said Smith.
“We didn’t take the chances we had. Is it a concern? No. I’d be more concerned had we not created the chances.”
Villa signed 13 players over the summer after winning promotion back to the Premier League.
The head coach added: “I’ve got a lot of new players, some of them have only played three or four games at this level.
“The running stats are through the roof. I can’t question my players’ attitude or effort, they’re certainly giving that.
“They’ve ran further and faster than West Ham but haven’t taken their chances.
“We needed to use our brains a bit better when we had a man advantage, instead of players trying to do it all themselves a little bit rather than pass it quicker and draw people didn’t do that.
“When a team goes down to 10 men, you feel you’d want to use the extra man a little bit better than we did. The plus side, for me, is 11 v 11, we were the better team. They’ve got a front four who will score goals against anyone. I don’t remember Tom Heaton making a save. That was a positive, we created the bigger chances. In all honesty, I thought it was a 0-0, fairly end-to-end.
“I thought we lost a bit of emotional control, lost our structure. Players giving sloppy passes away.”
Villa failed to get past West Ham in what was a wasteful display inside a packed-out Villa Park.
The two sides endured a fast and frenetic start to proceedings with West Ham’s Andriy Yarmolenko having a shot blocked by Bjorn Engels inside
out. We Villa’s penalty area before John McGinn had a goal chalked off after appearing to trip Angelo Ogbonna in the build up. Wesley then came close, firing a bullet header just over the bar after being brilliantly picked out by Frederic Guilbert. The Brazilian should have done better.
In the 34th minute, though, madness ensued after Anwar El Ghazi appeared to drive his forehead at teammate Tyrone Mings after the England defender gave the winger a stern telling off for not tracking back.
The ball was eventually cleared for a corner but, right in front of the Holte End, the pair exchanged a heated verbal with the duo yelling at each other before El Ghazi lost his head.
Referee Mike Dean checked the offthe-ball incident with VAR who deemed it OK and no need for a card, which would have been red.