SMITH BRACED FOR BACKLASH

ASTON VILLA manager Dean Smith expects to face a Manchester City side ‘stinging’ tonight – and not just because of events off the pitch over the last few days.

Guardiola’s City side tackle Villa desperately trying to get back to winning ways after their FA Cup semi-final defeat to Chelsea.

That ended their hopes of a historic quadruple – and just for good measure they lost their last league match at home to Leeds.

City last night pulled out of the European Super League and tonight they head to Villa Park.

Smith (inset) said: “Yes, I think they will be stinging. They’ve just lost two games on the spin and that happens once in a blue moon.

“Pep’s a perennial winner and he will certainly want to go into the Carabao Cup Final and the Champions League semi-final with a winning experience.”

City face Spurs at Wembley on Sunday in the first of this season’s showpiece finals.

Unlike three of the super powers who had been part of the original plans for the ESL – Arsenal, Tottenham and

City – Villa have lifted the Champions League, or European Cup as it was then, back in 1982.

Smith said: “I’m very disappointed and saddened by the whole concept. I’ve heard a statement that it’s for the good for football but it’s not. Six managers have had to face questions on it and it looks like they haven’t been briefed.

“It’s a format that stinks of elitism, plus the question must be asked, have people forgotten we’re in the middle of a pandemic?

“Loads of businesses have gone to the wall, people haven’t been able to work; the hospitality industry has been closed.

“And we’re talking about an elite band of clubs trying to get more money. It’s just wrong.

“When I was a kid in 1971 Aston Villa were a Third Division side and yet 11 years later they lifted the European Cup.

“I don’t know what gives them the right to try and be this so-called elite few.”