FIVE REASONS WHY SMITH IS ON THE BRINK
DEAN SMITH faces perhaps his defining moment as Aston Villa manager when they take on Southampton tonight looking to avoid a fifth straight loss. As pressure on Smith increases, Sportsmail looks at what is behind Villa’s wobble...
1 GREALISH’S EXIT
VILLA used the £100million Manchester City paid them for Jack Grealish to buy Emiliano Buendia, Danny Ings and Leon Bailey but they have yet to fill the void. When Grealish played last season, Villa averaged 1.80 points per game. Without him, it was 1.08. Ings has just three goals in nine games and is now injured and Bailey still does not look fit. As for Buendia, the record signing took Grealish’s No10 shirt but has yet to convince. Why go for Buendia when Matheus Pereira, who had 12 goals and six assists for West Brom last season, was a cheaper option?
2 CHANGING COACHES
JOHN TERRY and Richard o’Kelly left Villa shortly before the season started, with Austin MacPhee arriving as set-piece coach and Aaron Danks joining in September. Smith had worked with a set-piece coach at Brentford and wanted younger voices on his team. Though Terry rarely took training, players liked him and respected his achievements, with Ezri Konsa and Tyrone Mings praising his influence. It will take time for Danks and MacPhee to gain that status.
3 PRE-SEASON WOES
GREALISH did not join City until early August, meaning the saga ran throughout the summer and was a distraction. Then a Covid case forced Smith into isolation in late July so he missed a part of pre-season. The friendly with Sevilla, scheduled for the Saturday before the season started, was cancelled because of a Covid outbreak at the Spanish club. A match was quickly arranged against Italian club Salernitana — far weaker opposition. o’Kelly is thought to have rejected a new role overseeing Villa’s younger players which meant he did not officially depart until two days before Villa’s opener at Watford. They produced a grim display and lost 3-2 — no surprise given their lack of preparations.
4 INJURIES AND TACTICS
ONE of Smith’s plans to compensate for Grealish’s absence was to make his team more adaptable, after they played 4-2-3-1 for virtually the whole of last season. It is a logical aim but has cost Villa at both ends of the pitch. They have let in 19 goals in 10 league matches compared with 46 in the whole of last season — and Smith was alarmed enough to drop his captain Mings for the home defeat by West Ham. Their expected goals figure — a metric Smith places huge value on — is 1.1 per game and has not been above 1.5 in a single match. In mitigation, at different times Smith has been without ollie Watkins, Douglas Luiz, Morgan Sanson, Ings and Bailey. Smith will want to be judged when he can put his strongest XI on the pitch, but it is starting to look increasingly unlikely he will get that chance.
5 WOLVES COLLAPSE
ON october 16, Villa were 2-0 up with 10 minutes to go at home to Wolves and looked secure. Somehow, they lost 3-2. Smith denied at the time that his players had shown mental weakness but it is starting to look like a key moment in Villa’s season, with the next two matches producing poor displays and 3-1 and 4-1 defeats by Arsenal and West Ham. That Wolves collapse seems to have spooked Villa and they desperately need to calm their nerves.